All language subtitles for Top Gear - 12x07 - Episode 7.PDTV RiVER.English.orig.Addic7ed.com

Tonight,
I look at the future of sports cars.

James investigates the future of,
quite literally, everything.

And Richard Hammond
smashes up another the caravan.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Hello.

Hello, everybody. Hello and welcome.
Welcome. Thank you so much.

Now, we begin tonight
with a tribute,

a birthday tribute, in fact,
to Top Gear's favourite motor sport.

It's not Formula One.
It's not rallying.

It's something more humble,
and yet more exciting than both.

Yes, we're here to light some
candles, 50 of them, in fact,
for British touring cars.

And in that 50 years,
show me another sport where
there has been more close racing,

more overtaking,

and more amazing driving.

Nothing comes close for excitement.
Oh, my goodness!

Touring car racing was created
to help the motor industry shift
metal in the post-war years.

Every car on the track looked
like the one your dad drove.

And this, the mark I Jaguar,
was one of the first real stars.

Tyres - they were skinny, very,

and also crossply, which means
you went everywhere sideways.

Roy James, the getaway driver
for the Great Train Robbers,
was a particular fan.

When he was stealing
a Jaguar for a getaway car,

he always made a point of taking one
that had been prepared
for touring car racing.

But then, in the mid-60s, the Jags
had their noses put out of joint
because there was an invasion.

The Mustang, the Falcon
and Chevy Chimera.

Their massive V8s were
a most unwelcome intrusion
into this British sport.

But the Yank invasion did bring about

one of the best and most unique
aspect of British touring car racing.

We call it
a David and Goliath effect.

Basically, you had small engines,
nimble Escorts and Mini's
up against five-litre V8 monsters.

With the big boys
fast on the straights,

but the minnows quicker through the
corners, the racing was incredible.

He's challenging for the lead and
Marsh is challenging for second.

What a race this is!

Naturally, the Mini's, being plucky
Brits, were involved in quite a lot
of this David and Goliath stuff.

And in their over-eagerness,
demonstrated that other great
trait of touring cars - crashing.

But BTCC isn't just about crashing.
It has many other fine qualities.

It is the only sport where, over
the years, we've seen loads of F1
superstars up close in showroom cars.

Graham Hill.

Jim Clark.

Nigel Mansell.

All F1 world champions who were
fond of a good touring car race.

Mind you, even though they were
racing at lower speeds than in F1,

that didn't stop them crashing.

Here, for example,
is Mansell crashing.

And here is
Gabriele Tarquini crashing.

Oh, it's Tarquini!

But let's not get
hung up on crashing.

As I say, touring cars is
about so much more than that.

Everyone agrees Ford brought motor
sport to the working man, some say
they did it through rallying.

But I disagree.

I say they started this social
revolution through touring cars.

Escorts, Cortinas and Capris.

Over the decades, they had the lot.

But their crowning glory
was this - the Sierra Cosworth.

Two litres turbocharged up to
550 brake horse power.

In the late '80s, it was invincible.

It won 43 races.

The Fords were hungry for wins and
inevitably, in their over-eagerness,
there were some crashes.

But let's not lower the tone of
this film with gratuitous crashes.

Touring cars is, as I say again,
about so much more than that.

Especially during the 1990s,
a decade when all the engines were
capped at two litres

and nearly every manufacturer
was taking part.

Basically, every rep car in the high
street was out there swapping paint.

In the last race of 1992,
for instance, in the final two laps,

any one of three drivers
could have won the championship.

And just look at the
kind of racing that produced.

One of the contenders, Steve Soper,
having been punted off

and now fighting his way from
the back, drove out of his skin.

Soper goes through to fourth
position inside the Vauxhall.

Tim Harvey in the second BMW
is on the inside.

He's gone through. But John Cleland
is attacking Soper. He's up on
two wheels. Soper holds his line.

He attacks again as they...
He goes into a spin!

That one race alone sums up
everything that's so brilliant
about touring cars.

And even though the '90s was
the high budget corporate era,

naturally, there were
a few spills along the way.

Here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

So, happy birthday, touring cars.

And I still can't quite put my
finger on why we like it so much.

I love it. I love it.

The only problem is...

for the last, what, two or three
years, it hasn't really been
as good as it used to be.

It'll be worse next year
because Seat has pulled out so
it's just going to be Vauxhalls.

I've just thought of a way
it could be rescued. Oh, God.

No! No, honestly, you'll like this.

I'm sure I will, but I bet it's not
realistic. Let me run that past you.

You line all the cars up on
the grid, and then just before the
flag drops, set them all on fire.

Yeah, like I said...

Think, think, think!
You can either drive slowly,

hoping that the car isn't completely
engulfed before the race is over,

or very fast to try and put
the flames out. Imagine,
who here would like to see that?

CHEERING

That's 100% of British people

want the BTCC to become the
Burning Touring Car Championship.
Yep. Shall we do the news now?

Right, the news.

A lot of people are angry that
Jeremy and I may have set fire to
a Morris Marina we bought last week.

Yeah, we've got a shot of it here,
look, actually on fire.

This has enraged the Morris Marina
Owners' Club. The what?

The Morris Marina Owners' Club.
Have you heard of an organisation
you want to be a member of less?

What I've got here are some of the
things they've been saying on the
Morris Marina Owners' Club website.

"Top Gear can eat BLEEP and die."

Bit strong. "Clarkson and his cronies
should be hung, drawn and quartered,
or is that too good for them?"

It should be T-O-O. Small point.

LAUGHTER

This just goes on and on.
This is one of my favourites -

"I will send the BBC an e-mail and
I don't care if they don't read it."

Well, they did! Ha!

These really are very, very angry,
aren't they?

Joking aside, we don't like to
upset any member of our audience,
no matter how mad they might be.

So we undertake never to
destroy another Morris Marina
as long as we're on the air.

In fact, we've gone one better
because we've been out
and bought another Marina, OK,

and it's a beauty. It really is.
Absolutely. Low mileage,
leather seats...

No, there's no, "Ooh!" about it!

We've brought it down.
This is live feed out to our track.

That's going to be preserved
as an example of what? Oh, God!

God!

Somebody's dropped
an old piano on it.

How unlucky was that?!

This is happening all the time.

It's always happening at our track.
It rains pianos here.

It's that new helicopter piano
removal company that moved in
next door. Careless Airways.

They're rubbish.
Yeah, slapdash services.

They've just dropped another...
God, now what?

We'll have to get another one.

Let's be honest, actually.
I'm sorry to bang on about this,

but the Gaydon Motor Museum,
I'm sure they'll have
a Morris Marina preserved.

You don't need to preserve two.

It's not like you need to
preserve a breeding pair.

You need one
as a warning from history.

Right... Now, in a tradition
stretching back two years,

it's time for the annual Top Gear
look at Christmas presents
with a motoring theme bit.

Yes, I've got a bag here
full of gift ideas.

Literally, more gift ideas in here
than you can shake a stick at.

Go on, what have you got?
Starting with this, it's an
eco calculator from Renault.

Now, you charge it up by doing this.

I don't know what was wrong
with solar power, personally.

I just think some people find this
comes more naturally to them.

Renault think it comes
naturally to their customers.
So there you are. That's that.

Now, smokers, are you worried
about the excess space around your
existing pink metallic ashtray?

Are you a motoring enthusiast?

If so, worry no more because
you can now fill that space

with this plastic disc brake
and caliper-themed
ashtray surround novelty.

What is that?! Look at that.

What's that? Who thought pink and red
would be a good idea going together?

You think that's his biggest
problem?! You're worried
about the colour scheme?!

Look at these little
remote-controlled cars we've
been sent. You turn them on.

They make a bit of a din because,
for reasons we can't work out,

they stick to vertical surfaces,
and then you can drive them about.

Now, this is great, OK,
this is fantastic.

Except, of course, we decided
to see how big the range was.

Earlier in the week,
we decided to try them out

by seeing how high up the side
of the BBC we could get them to go.

So, if you were watching
The One Show last night,

Supermarkets, along with every
store, try hard to stop us counting
the pennies in favour of...

LAUGHTER DROWNS SPEECH

Sorry.

We'd like to say sorry
to The One Show for ruining
your show like that.

Now, is it me? Yes!
We're so rubbish at Christmas.

Would anybody here like to
hazard a guess at what this is?

AUDIENCE RESPOND OUT OF EARSHOT
It's what?

How can you know that?!

Have you got one? Our friends
bought us one as a present.

This lady knows the answer.
This is a she wee.

They're with you!

The idea is if you're
on a long motorway journey,
desperate for a wee,

you undo your trousers...
Ladies, this is. This is ladies.

It comes with a little bag...
I'm disturbed by what I'm seeing!
..and you fill it up.

The only thing is, OK,
the literature here,
it says it can also be used

on airplanes...

on ski lifts and, look at
this one, "while queuing".

Queuing? What, in the post office?
Yes.

Do any girls want to see if they
can have a wee in this bag without
the person next to them noticing?

What I like is, if you read through
the marketing on the box, there's
a lot of, "Yeah, go, girls!

"Men have had this for ages,"
then it goes on about using this
thing to wee in post office queues

as if they imagine that those of us
who've had one for years, a natural
he wee that we're born with,

I've had that for 38 years
and I've never got it out in
a post office queue to have a wee.

Right, I'd like to demonstrate this.
It's what I like to think of
as the perfect social leper kit,

partly because it's a belt-mounted
leatherette smoker's pouch so you can
put your cigarette and lighter in.

It's a double whammy because it comes
in with a really big right hook.

Look at the badge... Oh, my God!

An MG smoker's pouch, which means
you'll walk into your favourite pub
and they'll say, "You, outside."

"I wasn't going to light up."
"No, but you might talk about MGs.
Get out!" It's shameful.

I have to say, as well,
MG branding is out of hand -

MG socks, MG underpants,
MG overnight bag,

which is full of all the MG things
we could lay our hands on yesterday.
We're going to play a game now.

We're going to see how much of it
we can get on to Richard Hammond
in 30 seconds.

Who would like to see that? Anybody?
YEAH!

Start the clock. May, you're
going to have to give us a hand.

Ready, steady, go! Let's dress
Richard Hammond. Where's the belt?

Where's the bloody belt gone?
Shoes... Hammond. Slippers.

Hat, hat, hat. Belt, belt, belt.

Come on! Get the apron!

Shoe off. Give me
the apron, apron, apron...

GASPS

It's all broken!

It's OK, it's OK.

Keep going!

Look what you're done to our tree?
Look, it's our tree!

That might have happened.
Look! He's done it.

I've hit you in the face.

Here, James, you can keep the fairy.

LAUGHTER

Christmas is saved.
It is. We've saved that.

Right, back to it.

Actually, can I just make a point?

JEREMY LAUGHS

It's a serious one, actually.

Grandparents, if you have
grandkids who like cars,
what they like is cars, OK?

They don't like towels
with car names written on them.

Apart from anything else, named
stuff is often a waste of money.

You can buy a bottle of red wine
for £2.99, £3.99 in the shops.

If you get a bottle of red wine
with the Alpha Romeo logo on it,
it's 15 quid. I can beat that, mate.

This is an ice scraper, OK?
It's covered in Santa's pubes.

LAUGHTER

It's got Saab written on it.
£38.50. What, for that?!
It's given us an idea, this.

See this, this is a plate of sick.

GROANS

It is utterly worthless,
but if I pop a BMW badge on it,

£13.80.

It does work, this sort of branding.
This wizard's sleeve, for instance.

Absolutely worthless,
but if it bears a Ferrari badge, £45.

GROANS
This pork sword...

James, don't do the pork sword!
This cock...
Has it got four rings on it?

Yes, it has. Put this cock
in your wizard's sleeve...

It's all gone horribly wrong.

OK, that is the end of the news,

so let's move it on now
have to brown rice eco cars.

The trouble is that they're
a bit like cod liver oil.

Very good for you, but you'd rather
have a plate of steak and chips.

Take the Toyota Prius here
and the G-Wiz - very earnest.

But there's nothing here to make
an ordinary human being go,
"Pwah, yeah, I want one of those."

Now, however, there is an
eco electric car which does.

It's called the Tesla.

It's made in California,
it's based on the Lotus Elise...

..and, as a result, it looks good.

However, you are going to look like
a bit of a berk driving around in
the low-slung convertible sports car

if you get burned off
at the lights by a fat jogger.

The thing is, though,
Tesla say it's pretty nippy

so what I've done is lined it up
alongside a normal
petrol-powered Elise

and now we shall see
which is the fastest in a drag race.

BLEEPING
Right, it's on...I think.

There's no noise at all,
but put it into drive.
There's a one speed gearbox.

They tried it with a two-speed -
that kept breaking, so one it is.

We're in drive and I'm ready.

God almighty!

Wave goodbye to dial up

and say hello to the world
of broadband motoring.

12,500rpm, I cannot believe this!

That's biblically quick!

This car is electric!

Literally.

The top speed may only be 125...

..but there's so much torque
it does 0-60 in 3.9 seconds.

Not bad from a motor
that's the size of a watermelon
and only has one moving part.

And even more not bad when you
start looking into the costs.

Filling a normal Elise
with petrol costs £40.

Filling this with cheap-rate
electricity costs just £3.50.

It's not what you'd call quiet -

a fair bit of wind noise
from around the roof
and there's a lot of tyre roar.

But that's a small price to pay
when you consider the upsides.

And I haven't even got
to the really big upside yet.

An electric G-Wiz, with
its old-fashioned batteries,

has a top speed of a horse and is
out of juice after 40 miles or so.

This runs on the same sort of
batteries that you get in a laptop,

but it has 6,831 of them.

So Tesla say,
even if you drive quickly,

it'll go 200 miles
between trips to the plug.

SCREECHING

Of course, putting 6,000
laptop batteries in a car
does add a fair bit of weight.

Half a tonne, to be exact, and that
does affect the handling slightly.

The chassis is aluminium and the
body is carbon fibre, which,
of course, is very light,

but with that big lump
of batteries in the middle,
it's kind of like me -

thin at one end, thinning
at the other, and a big fat bit
in the middle.

Couple that to wheels
which are set up for rolling
resistance rather than handling,

and the result is this.

The Elise will squeak
past in a hammerhead.

Yes, come on!

Come on!

Hello! Bye!

The volthead
has overtaken the petrolhead.

And yes, yes, I've just heard,
it IS snowing in hell.

This car really was shaping up
to be something wonderful,

but then...

ENGINE CUTS OUT
Oh.

Although Tesla say it will do 200
miles, we worked out that, on our
track, it'd run out after 55 miles

and if it does run out, it's not
a quick job to charge it up again.

To fill the tank on a normal car
takes what? A couple of minutes?

To fully recharge
the batteries in this

from a normal 13 amp socket
like that takes 16 hours.

So, to get from here
to the top of Scotland
would take more than three days.

And before green people say
it's a price worth paying,

let's not forget where
the electricity in this socket
is coming from.

Of course, you could get yourself
a little windmill, like that,

which generates electricity at no
cost to you or a jolly polar bear.

But to charge a Tesla from something
like that would take 600 hours.

That's 25 days. And that's
assuming it's windy,

which it isn't.

Perhaps, then, the best idea is
to have two Teslas, so you can use
one while the other is charging.

Unfortunately, that's
quite an expensive solution

because Teslas cost £92,000 each.

92,000!

They're three times more
expensive than Elises.

It's madness!

And it doesn't appear you get much
in the way of reliability either.

Oh, I don't believe this.
The motor's overheating
and I've got reduced power.

While it cooled down, we went
to get the silver car out again -

only to find that while it was being
charged, its brakes had broken.

So then, with the light fading,
we had no cars at all.

I did think that the
Teslas would bring

a bit of peace and quiet to our
track with their electric motors.

I didn't think it would be
this much peace and quiet, though.

That is the sound of silence.

What we have here then is an
astonishing technical achievement.

The first electric car that
you might actually want to buy.

It's just a shame that in the real
world, it doesn't seem to work.

I tried, to be fair.
I did try, but it didn't work.

It's not good, though, is it?

I think the price will go down.
Once... What's he called?

Brad Cruise and Leonardo Di
Clooney - once they've bought
600 each, then the price will drop.

Once they've made a few, they'll
get better at the reliability.

That's as maybe, but, as I aim
to demonstrate later in the show,

battery-powered electric
cars will soon die altogether.

We're looking forward to that.
I am anyway.

Now, we have to find how fast
the Tesla goes round our track.

That of course means handing
it over to our racing driver.

Some say that he doesn't
like to get his helmet wet.

A point that was proved last week,
when he was caught in the back
of shot by an eagle-eyed viewer.

All we know is,
he's called The Stig.

There he goes, to the sound
of...some sporty silence.

Its quite eerie. He's powering
hard down to the first corner.

Eco-tyres squealing,

steady on umbrella boy!

MORSE CODE PLAYS

More Morse nonsense there
to excite the internet.

He's looking very good
through Chicago
and it's the hammerhead next.

Hard on the brakes. The Tesla has
a system that uses energy from the
brakes to top up the batteries.

Feels a bit weird because it gives
you more braking than would expect,
but that hasn't fazed The Stig.

MORSE CODE PLAYS

Time to turn up the dimmer switch,
through the follow-through, does
he lift? Hard to tell, actually.

But that's fast. Shame it doesn't
come with a CD of V8 noises, really.

Two corners left,
he really slings it in there.

Here we are... Oh, look,
maybe a few released G's.

And across the line!

OK...

It did it...

It did it in 1.27.2,
on a mildly moist circuit
so look at that.

Exactly the same conditions, exactly
the same time as a Porsche 911 GT3.

That's incredible.
But also, as James will explain
later, completely irrelevant.

We all know the problems
faced every day by the elderly.

At home watching TV,
something comes on, they want
to change channel, "Can't reach!"

momentum in the rocking chair until
they can reach forwards and get it.

Ah! And that's hard
if you've got arthritis.

However, you can now wave goodbye
to the misery of being forced
to watch Adrian Chiles

because I've connected this chair
to a 6.2 litre V8 engine.

It's the same Corvette
engine we used a couple of weeks
ago to power the food blender.

Did you say you were going
to use it to power a stair lift?

Yes, I did.
Sadly the test went wrong.

I used an old lady and her spine
came out of the top of her head.
It was...

Let's not dwell on who killed who,
because it's time now
to test this one.

Yes, I think we'll use a dummy
this time. Good idea with the dummy.

I should explain,
normally the accelerator
would be on the chair itself,

so the elderly person
could simply push it there.

But, because we're using a dummy,
I have the accelerator here.

The idea, we start up the engine,
the chair begins to rock

and the old lady can effortlessly
make Adrian Chiles go away.

Are we ready to try out?
YEAH! Here we go.

ENGINE STARTS

ENGINE REVS VIOLENTLY

LAUGHTER

I think that didn't work
very well because... No, listen!

It hasn't worked.
There are a few issues.

The noise is so great you'd
never hear the TV, would you?

There's that and the fact that
the old lady has disintegrated!

Her head has come off.

I tell you what we'll do now,

we'll put a star
in a reasonably-priced car.

My guest tonight has said
that he doesn't like it

when women throw knickers at him
when he's on the stage,

booming out in his big Welsh way
to the audience.

He's never said anything about men.

So gentlemen, if you want
to remove your Y-fronts,
get ready to lob them.

Sir Tom Jones!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I can hardly believe it!

A legend! A legend has come
among us. Have a seat.

I never thought the day would come
when I'd be interviewing
Sir Tom Jones. Ah, well! But we are.

Can I begin with your voice?

Yes. Is it true you used to be able
to break microphones with it?

I still do. You still do?

Sometimes. It depends
if I record with somebody

that I haven't recorded with before

and they don't know
how much volume I use.

I remember that Perfect Day song,
you remember, a while back?

The BBC got everybody to sing.
You came right at the end.

It came on the radio, if you
really liked it, you'd turn it up.

Then you always forgot Tom
was about to come on, then he'd blow
the bloody doors off the car!

Blood pouring out of my ears,
so on. Does age diminish it?

Not at all, not with me, anyway.
Thank God. Do you maintain it?

Do you eat lozenges?

Yeah, Vocalzones.
What are they called?

It's a Vocalzone.
Is that one of those black things?

Tastes disgusting!
No, they're great.

Made in England. Made in England?
Didn't think you'd like that!

Well, I think they were
originally made in Wales
and then the English stole it.

Why do you think the Welsh
are such good singers?

Maybe it's something to do
with the Welsh air?

The Welsh water? But you're in Los
Angeles now! Unless you import it.

Big pipe over the Atlantic!
Piping it in from the valleys.
From the valleys.

I was looking into Welsh things
the other day.
There's a type, isn't there?

Aled Jones, Harry Secombe,
Max Boyce. Then you've got Duffy.

Duffy, quite right.
Who isn't your daughter.

Not as far as I know.

LAUGHTER

You've got a new album out,
which is why you're here,
to tell us all about it.

So what is it, what have you got
in store for us?

I co-wrote most of the songs.
You wrote them?

I co-wrote, with other writers,
but there's a lot of me in there.

Like, when I asked Bono
to write me a song

and he said he'd write one for me,
but he'd like it to be about me.

So, he asked me some questions,
I gave him some information
and he wrote Sugar Daddy.

That's the name of the song.

What questions did he ask you
of Sugar Daddy?

He asked me what I did before
I got into showbusiness.

He remembered when he was a kid
and saw me on television and
he liked the shirts and the shoes.

Those things are in there.
The lines are in the song.

That's what led to this album.

We've got a clip which we'd like
to show for you. We'll pop this on.

♪ It would be a crime
to ever let you go

♪ It should be a crime
to keep you very close

♪ No-one else can pass,
you're a cut above the rest

♪ He'd be such a fool
if he should ever leave you... ♪

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

You are looking good.

How do you look that good?
Have you had...? No. Nothing?

I had my nose fixed.
What was the matter with it?

It was broken. Oh, was it? Yes.

Yeah, a lot of that.
It was a Welsh kiss!

When you were a kid?
Yeah, when I was a teenager.

What about the barnet, the hair?
Yes.

If you were going to grow it long,
would it be as dreadful as mine is?

I'd think so. Have you got
the same... Curly hair. Pubes.

Pubic hair.

Might have gone off-topic here.

LAUGHTER

Chest hair, your chest hair.

Is it true that you once insured it
for $7 million?

No, it's not true. I don't know
why the rumour started,

but people were asking me about it,
they thought it was true.

One thing that isn't a rumour -
the knickers thing.

The girls throwing knickers at you.

You've been married
to the same girl for 50 years,

did she get fed up with you
coming home draped in underwear?

No, I never took any home.

I think the band used
to eat it, or something.

I did ask, if any men want
to throw any pants...

Uh-oh!

You're well to look frightened!
I bet! Anything could happen.

Cars, OK? How long have you
been driving for?

In Wales, there wouldn't have been
any cars when you were growing up!

I don't mean to be rude,
obviously, I just mean it to be
a social commentary.

Horse and carts. It would have been,
actually. There were some around.

What was the first car?
A Jaguar, a 3.8 Jag.

And what became of that?

I crashed it on Park Lane.

But I was banned. I was banned,
in Wales, from driving,

because I was driving without
a licence and insurance and stuff.

I think you'll find the law in Wales
is pretty similar to the law...

I had to wait until I got a driver's
licence, and funnily enough,

that's the last time I drove a manual
shift car. What do you drive now?

I have a Mercedes 55 SL.

I used to have one of those!
It actually sounds like you!

It's funny, I heard you'd said that.

It does! Grr!

Grr! You start it
every morning - "Is Tom Jones here?"

You actually live in the exhaust
pipes! The lap, how did it go?

Great. But I hadn't been clutching
and changing since the '60s.

That bloody car that I was driving,
it grinds when you slam it.

Anyway, I was having
a few words with it.

Yes. Stig says you were
an incredibly diligent pupil.

You apparently were an hour
and a half getting lessons.

I wanted to be sure how to do it,
especially at that kind of speed.

There are a few places there where
you're in fourth gear and flat out.

Follow-through. You know why
it's called a follow-through?

Cos you follow through!

LAUGHTER

And then the tyres,
because that's also flat out. Yeah.

I can't believe I'm sitting here
talking cornering with Tom Jones,
how could this have happened?

Anyway, who'd like
to see Sir Tom's lap?

CHEERING

Let's play the tape
and see how you got on.

It's a bright, crisp day.
A very good start.

HE GRUNTS
OK!

There we go!

That's first, first! Yeah.

There was one in there somewhere.

Tidy, nothing wrong with that.

Nothing wrong with the first corner.

BLEEP!

LAUGHTER

There we go. Swearing at his tools.

Brake!

Good plan, very good plan.

You can be proud of that corner.

Here's the fast one coming up.

Are they driving gloves? Yeah.

Look at this!
Flat through the tyres.

Here we go. Looking nervous!

Whoa! That's very good!

Yeah. Hang on,
you've slowed down a bit.

It's a good line through there.

A bit wide through there,
but other than the last two corners,

that's a great lap.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

So, these are the people
who have been here before.

Where do you think you've come?

I don't know, I've no idea.

I was concentrating so much, I wasn't
thinking much about time.

You weren't thinking about time.
Let's have a look, shall we?

The last two corners weren't fast,
so I'm not anticipating...

You did it, Tom Jones,

in 1.52.2, which puts you...there.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Let's look for some good news
in that. OK.

Has anybody who has ever performed
in Vegas been faster than that?

Will Young, has he ever performed
in Vegas? I don't think so.

He's a nice chap.

LAUGHTER

I don't think there's anybody there
who has ever performed in Vegas.

You're the fastest man who's ever
performed in Vegas to go round
our track. Sir Tom Jones!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Now, you may remember
that last year,

Fifth Gear broke into our warehouse,

where we keep all our stuff,
and they burnt it.

Our chairs, the telly,
the cool wall, the lot.

Well, the Chinese say
revenge is a dish best served cold.

So we've bided our time and now,
we're about to get our own back.

Hopefully.

Our payback will be carried out here,
at Bentwaters in Suffolk.

This is the Top Gear test track
we don't mind getting all messed up.

And the man making that mess will be
our old and indestructible friend,
Top Gear's stuntman.

Today, he'll be doing
something which appears to be
straightforward - a jump.

And it should be one heck of a jump.

This stunt is, in all seriousness,
the biggest, the fastest and
most dangerous he's ever done for us.

You see, a few years ago,

Fifth Gear set the record
for the longest jump by a car
whilst pulling a caravan.

Now, with a fair wind
and hopefully enough bottle

from out stuntman, we'll snatch
that record off them.

The distance he has to beat
is a whopper -

187 feet and eight inches - which is
why this jump is so dangerous.

He's got to be going fast enough
to get a good launch

and offset the weight of the caravan
hanging off the back.

By someone else's calculations -
not his, or mine -

he's got to be doing 90mph when he
leaves the ramp.

At that sort of speed, there's a real
danger that both car and driver
could be wiped out.

Which is why we haven't spent much
on the car -

400 quid, in fact,
on this 16-year-old Jaguar XJ6.

Then there's the issue of crosswinds.

If one of those hits
the caravan at these speeds,
it could drift off course

and smash into the concrete,
rather than land on the cars.

That could ruin the result.

And the result we're looking for
is that he lands somewhere beyond
the yellow and black pole.

This is the distance Fifth Gear
achieved with their jump.

All we've got to do is beat that.

Easy...probably.

With the crosswind measuring a
manageable 12mph, Top Gear stuntman

did some final technical checks
and was then strapped into the Jag.

He needs a long run-up.

Well, if you look
where the pole is, he failed.

But to make sure he failed, let's
see it again from several angles.

Yep. Fifth Gear
are still better than us.

Sorry, we let you down. Well, he did.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Well done, professor.
Another triumph, it really is.

But it wasn't, actually. So let's
move it on to the glittering,

star-studded Top Gear Awards
For Motoring Achievement 2008.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

This is the award for
the Best Noise We've Heard All Year.

These are the nominations. The V8
bellow of the new Mercedes CLK Black.

ENGINE ROARS

The V8 bellow
of the Ferrari Scuderia.

ENGINE ROARS

And the V8 bellow
of the Alfa Romeo 8C.

ENGINE ROARS

The winner of this category...

You're going to love this, Jeremy.
Is it the Black?

No, actually. The winner is...

Will Young's new single! YES!

Yes!

He wells up when he hears this.
Those are real tears in his eyes.

These are tears of rage.

You love him, just admit it.

No. You do. It is a good single,
actually. Have you heard it?

See? He goes on about it
all the time!

Because his boyfriend
sung a little song...

Just let's...
Does he sing it to you? Does he?

Can we get on with our awards?

And now, the John Sergeant Award.

This is awarded to the celebrity
who performs the best dance

on learning their time in the Star
In A Reasonably-Priced Car Lap.

There is only one nomination,
and it's Jay Kay, for this -

And the winner is...Jay Kay! Yes!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Tell you what, mate,
since you're actually here...

Merry Christmas.
Nice to see you. Merry Christmas.

Since you're actually here, Jay,
we can give you your other award.

James has it and it's for...

It's the award for the Fastest Lap
and it goes to Mr Kay. Thank you.

The fastest man round our track,
ladies and gentlemen...Jay Kay!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

That's lovely. You actually spent
some money on that.

No, we didn't. No, we haven't.
A couple of weeks ago,

were you watching when Kevin McLeod
came here and I sat and went,
"You did it in 145 point..."?

What that the shape of your bottom
when you thought you were
going to be beaten?

I have to say, I started off on
the sofa like this, and ended up...

Could you tell it was a quick lap?

Yeah, you could see it was.
Where did he come from?

He came from Grand Designs
and damn nearly... Unbelievable!

He says he's not done any driving
before, so it's just raw talent.

That's a load of bollocks!

Ladies and gentlemen, the fastest
man round our track, Jay Kay.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Moving on. This is the award
for the Most Painful Injury
To A Motoring-Related Body Part.

Jeremy's neck in the Nissan GTR.

Whoa! Yes!

Aagh!

Quite a powerful contender.
The next nomination - Jeremy's neck

in the "driving a truck
through a brick wall" bit.

LAUGHTER

Sorry, Different response.
Very different reactions there. Yes.

Obviously different,
the reactions to that.

Because we need a third nomination,
Jeremy's flick on the ear just then.

I'm sure that was very nasty. That
hurt! That was the third nomination.

Actually, it isn't the winner,
because the winner of the award

for the Most Painful Injury To
A Motoring-Related Body Part is...

Max Mosley's bottom.

LAUGHTER

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

We might be in the law courts!

Moving on to our next award.

It is now the Most Embarrassing
Flirting On Television award.

LAUGHTER

In third place, James May,
for this fantastic, sonorous approach

when presented with two girls
during our Alfa Romeo trip
through Warwickshire.

I have been rescued
and I haven't even broken down.

Well, then you don't get... Hello.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

James, what was that?
That's the worst, it really is.
I'd forgotten how bad it was.

You have to start with "Hello".

What's next? In second place,
Jeremy Clarkson,

for this inept charm offensive
on an American girl

in our studio, only the other week.

American. You're American?

You can't be.
You're nowhere near fat enough!

It was direct. It was a compliment.
Is that flattering?

It was a compliment.
But that's not the winning entry,
because the winner is...

Jeremy Clarkson interviewing
Will Young. Here he is.

Let's have a look.

Let's remind ourselves of when
the magic first bloomed for us all.
Here it is.

I've got arms like pipe cleaners.
You're trim. No, not trim.

Fit. Not fit!
I'm saying all the wrong things!

Strong.
THEY LAUGH

You giggled!
You're giggling. That was a giggle.

Who here would like to see Richard
Hammond strangled on television?

You giggled! You did giggle.

Time for
our Coveted Car Of The Year.

We're not just looking for a car
we all like, because then
it would be a Range Rover...again.

So this year,
we decided to award the award

to a car that does things better
than cars which cost a lot more.

So the nominations are -

the Nissan GTR, which goes round
the Nurburgring

faster than a 911 Turbo,
but costs half as much.

The Ford Fiesta.
Makes a perfect landing craft

and for a lot less
than the £1.2 million jet boats
the Royal Marines use at the moment.

And the Fiat 500 Abarth,

for being everything you want
in a £100,000 car for just 13,500.

But we've awarded the ultimate
Top Gear prize to a £35,000 car

that came here and smashed the
Bugatti Veyron's £1 million face in.

It's dweeby, geeky, ugly, old
and none of us would have one
in a million years.

But it is our Car Of The Year.
Ladies and gentlemen,
the Caterham R500.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The marvellous thing about awarding
this car our top prize

is that we can now look,
once again, at that incredible lap

it did last week at the hands
of the Stig. Here we go.

Look at the way it corners!

This is proper, old-fashioned
racing car handling. It's not grip.

Look at that.
You actually have to drive that car.

If the Stig feels happiness,
I don't think he's ever been happier.

That is the perfect Stig car.
Look at it.

You're steering on the throttle,
you're steering on the wheel.

My favourite is when
he comes out of Hammerhead.

Coming out of Hammerhead, just
watch - a four-wheel drift. Ready?

Look at that. That's like an
old-fashioned racer. Brilliant.

So there we are, everybody.
Top Gear's Car Of The Year.

A wonderful thing.

I'm delighted.
I think it's all right.

A horrible car. To look at, it is.
But it's brilliant.

This has been a little bit of
a mad show, ladies and gentlemen.

So I thought I would introduce
a note of sensibleness.

In the last series, we talked about
a car which we said would be the
most important one for 100 years.

Back then, we could only
show you a picture of it.

But now, it's ready for driving,
so I've been doing just that.

First, I had to fly to Los Angeles,
which, as we know from the song,
is a great big freeway.

That makes it the perfect place
to test the most important car
since the car was invented.

Here it is.
It's called the FCX Clarity,

and, I'm afraid,
it's a four-door Honda.

But if Raymond Baxter, God rest him,
were here with us today,

he'd be wearing a perfectly cut suit
and he'd be saying that this is
the future of motoring.

That's certainly not because of
the way it looks, because it looks
just like a car.

There's more normality, too.

It doesn't drive itself.
It doesn't levitate.

This is remarkably like
driving around in a Honda.

What the Clarity is is an electric
car, but it's nothing like the Tesla
that Jeremy drove earlier.

In fact, it's nothing like any
electric car we've ever seen before.

The front wheels are driven by
a perfectly normal electric motor.

But there are no batteries.

Instead, this car
has its own on-board
electricity generating station.

That takes the form
of a hydrogen fuel cell.

Now, viewers, you'd better
brace yourselves -

either that or turn over to the soft
porn and Nazi sharks on Channel 5 -

because I'm about
to explain all this.

At the back of the car is a
fuel tank exactly where you'd
expect it to be, but instead of

filling it with petrol or diesel, it
is filled with compressed hydrogen.

This hydrogen is combined
with oxygen from the air
in the fuel cell.

In a rather complicated and
boring way, that makes electricity.

That electricity is then used
to drive the electric motor,

which turns the front wheels,
like it might do in a perfectly
normal front-wheel-drive car.

The whole process is controlled...
Ahem!

The whole process is controlled by a
box of electronics under the bonnet
where the engine would normally be.

That really is all there is to it.

It's the fuel cell and
the hydrogen tank that goes with it

league to every other electric car.

So far, most electric cars have been
appalling little plastic snot boxes

that take all night to recharge
and take half a minute to reach
their maximum speed of 40,

and then run out of juice
miles from anywhere.

Prius? Sucker!

But when the Clarity runs out
of juice, you just pull into
a hydrogen filling station.

The hydrogen is compressed into a
liquid, so it's a bit like petrol.

You fill it just like a petrol car.

The only difference is,
because this is under pressure,
you have to lock it with this lever.

Terribly important, that.
If you don't do that, you get
hydrogen all over your shoes.

In America, hydrogen costs
roughly the same as petrol.

But unlike petrol, it'll never
run out, because it's the most
abundant element in the universe.

That whole process
has taken somewhere between
two and three minutes

and has given me
another 270 miles of driving.

And there's another bonus
with hydrogen.

The only emission from this car is
water, because that's what you get
when you mix H and O. H2O - water.

Of course, I'm not going to pretend
that a four-door saloon is
as much fun to drive as that Tesla.

But that said,
the Clarity isn't bad.

I mean, it develops 136 horsepower.

So this is an electric car
that will do 100 miles an hour

and 0-60 in just over nine seconds,
which is right on the money
for a family car.

We're belting through
the mountains, accompanied by
a little "whoo" sound!

This is making my blue ball go
all orange. I should probably
explain that.

On the dash, there is this little
blue circular symbol, which grows,
the more vigorously I drive.

The bigger it is,
the more hydrogen I'm using.
If I put the hammer down...

..it turns orange.

At the moment, the Clarity
is only available in California.

So I decided to ask
an ordinary Californian motorist
what he thought of it.

Mind you, this chap
does seem to like his cars.

He's American talk-show host
Jay Leno.

This is my favourite ad.

D'you notice, the car is skidding
off the road in their own ad? That's
how bad handling a car it was!

I'm trying to come up with a bit of
a set-up like this next to my house,
albeit quite a bit smaller.

'It turns out that Jay, like me,
is a fan of the Clarity, not just

'because it's clever, but because
it might just be the saviour of all
the amazing gas guzzlers in here.'

Car enthusiasts would think,
"This'll be awful."
No, it'll save the petrol.

It'll save your MG or your Sprite
or your Midget or whatever you have.

You go out on the weekend
and have fun and put this
in the car park during the week.

Much like the automobile
was the saviour of the horse.

In the cities, at least in America,
horses were being whipped
and they'd drop dead.

When the car came along,
it freed up a horse to be used
for recreational purposes,

just the beauty of the animal,
whatever you want to call it.

I think these type of cars will be
the saviour of our sports cars -
our MGs, Porsches, things like that.

You know how the Toyota Prius is
the sort of darling of Hollywood?
It's a fashion statement.

Do you know why? Because it has
the moral superiority.

With the Prius, you can go, "Look,
I am driving an unattractive car
because I'm saving the planet."

In America, we like everyone
to know about the good work
we're doing anonymously.

I'm absolutely convinced
that the Clarity is the most
important car for 100 years.

There's a very good reason for that.
One day, we will, sadly,
run out of oil,

and then we'll need something else.

Electric cars have always seemed
very promising,

but as long as they're powered
by batteries, they don't cut it.

Think of all people down there,
driving around.

We've built our lives
around the car as we know it.

You get in, you drive as far
as you want to go, you fill up,
you drive some more.

That is the freedom
that a petrol-powered car gives you.

If it's replaced with something
that goes for ten yards

and then takes four hours
to bring back to life,
we'll have gone backwards.

The Clarity, though, is different.

It fits the life we already have.

The reason it's the car of
the future is because it's just like
the car of today.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

So we can think of that car
as a normal car.

But instead of filling it up
with petrol or diesel,
you fill it with hydrogen. Exactly.

And all that comes out
of the exhaust pipe is water.

Just water. In fact,
the only problem with it, really,
is producing the hydrogen.

It is the most abundant thing
in the universe, but it's always
stuck onto something else,

and it's difficult to scrape off
and get to the filling station.

Actually, it isn't really any more
difficult than drilling oil from
under the sea, and we did that OK.

I presume when they make these
things, they won't cost any more

than what we think of
as a normal car.

No, possibly less. I actually think
they'll be much more reliable

and won't need to be serviced,
because there are no moving parts.

Just one moving part, in the engine?
It's very simple, mechanically.

So while everyone worried about
Honda pulling out of Formula One,
They've saved the world!

It would appear so.
That is all we have time for.

We're back on 28th December at
8pm - it's a Sunday night - with
a Top Gear special from Vietnam.

In the meantime, though, we hope
you have a very happy Yule.

Take care. See you soon. Good night.