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Hi, I'm Andy Wilman, executive producer of Top Gear.
Tonight, we have the top 5 Top Gear challenges as voted for by you, the viewers.
(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)
This one, it seems, is the most popular of our big races,
which is good because it's my favourite, too.
It's the one where Jeremy in a Nissan GT-R takes on the
world's most formidable public transport,
the bullet train,
in a race all the way across Japan.
-Hello. -Hello.
Here's what we've got in store.
A race starting here, where we are now, on the western seaboard, right across Japan,
that's 400 miles, to a mountain here.
(TRIES TO PRONOUNCE NOKOGIRI YAMA)
(STAMMERS)
There!
-Yeah, where there is a statue to the Buddha of road safety. -Yes.
Anyway, we're going to be using the most efficient public transport network
-in the world. -And most of the time, we're going to be on the
200-mile-an-hour bullet train.
-(YAWNING) Very nice. Bullet train. Hmm. -Yes!
Great! And I'm going to be taking them on in the GT-R!
Which is a Datsun.
On roads that have a 60 mile an hour speed limit.
HAMMOND: Where there's a policeman every 200 yards.
-CLARKSON: Yes. -MAY: And you're going to have to drive it through Tokyo,
which is the most congested city on Earth.
-Honestly, a piece of cake. Look at this! -You've had it.
CLARKSON: And so, at precisely 11 minutes past eight in the morning, the race began.
MAY: Thank you!
Look at them! They look like ramblers.
May: We now had 25 minutes to get into town,
find the station, and catch our first train.
A boy from Birmingham and a man with no sense of direction in Japan
won't win. The end.
-Konnichiwa. -Konnichiwa.
Um, the station? (IMITATING TRAIN SOUNDS)
The thing is, you see, all Japanese cars... (BEEPING)
(MACHINE SPEAKING JAPANESE)
(SCREAMS) Help!
HAMMOND: To deal with the language problems,
we'd all been given speaking translator machines.
And at the station, we fired ours up.
Awesome. Just say "ticket".
(SARCASTIC) This isn't going to take long.
He knows you want a ticket. It's a ticket office!
That's a good point, actually.
He's not going to assume you're asking for shoes.
-(MACHINE SPEAKING JAPANESE) -Sorry, that's wrong. That was, "Is this seat taken?"
How do I go back? I've forgotten.
Look, it can't be difficult. Sorry.
CLARKSON: Okay, here we go. The motorway network!
Now, we can be a bullet car!
HAMMOND: The Datsun would cross Japan by motorway,
go through the centre of Tokyo, under Tokyo Bay,
and up a mountain road to the finish line.
We will take four trains and a bus to the bay, cross it on a ferry,
and then get to the finish on a cable car.
HAMMOND: Is that it? MAY: Yeah.
HAMMOND: Is it supposed to look like that?
MAY: Look, they call it the duck-billed platypus. Because it looks like one.
Well, they're not joking, are they?
And it is 11:32 on the dot.
(MACHINE SPEAKING JAPANESE)
Hello, Jezza, we just boarded the bullet train in Kyoto.
I don't care how clever his Datsun is. We're going faster.
God! The average delay on the Tokaido Shinkansen two years ago, that's the one we're on,
is six seconds.
Six seconds?
Come on, car. I need about five per cent
of your potential to beat these idiots.
CLARKSON: And boy, did the car respond.
-(PHONE RINGING) -Hello.
-Mate, can you hear me? I'm in Tokyo. -No, you're not.
CLARKSON: Oh, yes, I am.
HAMMOND: Don't believe you.
Well, unfortunately, mate, I am in Tokyo.
How the hell have you done that?
I'm driving a product of the 21st century, not something
-from the middle ages. -(PHONE CLICKS)
He got cut off.
CLARKSON: They will be so depressed by that.
Oh, it's the bullet train. Because, honest to god, they have been so cocky and
confident that this time they were going to win. And they're not!
MAY: We were down, but not out, because we knew he was heading straight
into the jaws of Tokyo's legendary traffic jams.
-Well, I thought he'd still be about here. -We're still in it!
HAMMOND: We were now arriving at Shin Yokohama station, on the edge of Tokyo.
And the next part of the journey for us was critical.
Jeremy could plough straight through the middle of the city to get to the bay.
But we had to catch two more trains and a bus to reach the ferry terminal.
We couldn't afford a single slip.
-Transfer to the other... BOTH: Subway?
James said, "It will be all traffic, it's the worst traffic in the world!
"You won't be moving."
Look at it!
HAMMOND: We had less than ten minutes to catch our next connection.
-Uh, that's the subway there. -Subway.
Tokyo's not a city. It's a racetrack.
(MACHINE ALERT SOUNDS) MAY: Oh, that's no good.
-HAMMOND: Do we have to have another ticket? -MAY: I don't know!
(HESITATING) Uh, can we ask?
-How do we... -What's the name of the bloke where we get off?
Honestly, I didn't think I was going to do this one.
I didn't think I was going to win it.
Yeah, but that's obviously the fare. Look, it gets bigger as you go further away.
Well, how much do we need?
Bullet train. Pah!
Right, I think it was this way.
(PANTING) Go, go, go, go, go!
HAMMOND: We were now at yet another station, looking for the train to Kurihama.
-Hammond. Hello? -Jeremy!
-Hammond! How are you? -I'm very well. How are you doing?
I am in Tokyo, and I'm going brilliantly well.
-I shall look on my sat map... -(TURNING OFF JAPANESE VOICE)
HAMMOND: (THROUGH PHONE) How fast are you going?
Oh my god.
HAMMOND: What?
(STAMMERING) I just turned the sat nav off.
What? Why did you do that?
I just wanted to look where I was!
Cause it comes up on the phone thing when you're on.
Well, I can tell you exactly where you are now that you've turned your sat nav off.
Lost. Bye!
CLARKSON: With all the sat nav's controls in Japanese
I had no clue how to get it back on again.
Oh, this isn't just.
I'm going to have to...
HAMMOND: This was a good moment. We had successfully
caught the last of our four trains and would be at the finish line in two hours.
Meanwhile, Jeremy, for the first time, was in trouble.
As our train waited in a station, I went to try my luck
with one of the on-board drinks machines.
-Then James rang. -(PHONE RINGING)
Hello? Yeah, will do. I'm just at a vending machine.
Yeah, but as soon as I find one I will.
Yeah, but we're not moving!
Not now, we're not!
What do you mean, we are? No, we're not...
(STAMMERING) Mate! I'm not on the... How can I not...
Gear position. Breaking. Acceleration.
-(PHONE RINGING) -Hello?
-James! -No, it's not James, it's me.
Wait a minute, why would James be ringing you up?
(SIGHS) Because something peculiar has happened. We're not on the same train.
(EXCLAIMS) What?
Hello? We're not on the same train.
(EXASPERATED) The train stopped in a station.
I was walking along it to try and find
some drinks from a machine and then James had moved off.
He was in the front of the train. It split!
So he's going somewhere. I don't know where, yet.
I stopped in the station then I got off my train to see what had happened and
then my train left.
-So if that was the right train, I'm not on it. -(CLARKSON INAUDIBLE)
If it wasn't the right train, well, I...
One of us is on the right train, and one of us isn't.
Oh, well, if it's any consolation, mate, I've just arrived at a dead end.
I've got to ring James, I'm sorry.
I might just go for a cup of coffee on this basis. (LAUGHING)
MAY: I was now all alone. Just a Blair Witch handicap.
(BLAIR WITCH STYLE FILM RECORDING)
Hello, viewers. Jezza has obviously spoken to Hammond, because
Jezza just rang me up to gloat.
(AUTOMATED JAPANESE VOICE)
CLARKSON: Being lost had cost me 45 minutes.
The lead I'd built up had been wiped out.
Show me some of your muscles, car! Show me your muscles!
(ENGINE ROARING)
(TRANSLATING MACHINE SPEAKING JAPANESE)
MAY: That says "do you know my friend?" I mean, can you wait, please?
HAMMOND: I was now off the train and hoping to god James had held the bus.
CLARKSON: I was now heading for the tunnel under the bay in a big hurry.
-(PHONE RINGING) -CLARKSON: Hello?
Mate! I'm with my old mate, Richard Hammond.
(SARCASTICALLY) Oh, great!
All of us were now minutes from the bay.
Is that bell bad?
HAMMOND: Still in the *** of Japanese public transport, we knew for sure
we'd arrive at the finish line in 55 minutes.
All we could do was hope Jeremy's life would be less predictable.
Frankly, what I'm going to need to win this, now, is a divine wind.
And I've got just the thing.
I'm ready! Here we go!
Ahead of me lay the mountain road. GT-R country.
-(PHONE RINGS) -CLARKSON: Hello?
-Jeremy! -Yeah, where are you?
We are disembarking now.
(CAR ROARING)
This is so damn close.
I can't work out where he is. He is very close.
Oh no, no, no, no!
(TYRES SCREECHING)
I wish you could feel my heart right now.
I really wish you could feel what's going on here.
Go! That's the berth.
(PANTING) Thank you!
Come on, come on, come on, come on, baby!
-CLARKSON: I was now giving it everything. -(TYRES SWERVING)
Watch this. I'm here! Oh dear! ***!
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
(PANTING)
This way?
CLARKSON: Finally, I made it to the Buddha's car park.
(EXCLAIMING) Victory is mine!
CLARKSON: But that wasn't the finishing line.
Go where? Where?
(OUT OF BREATH): Run!
MAN: Come on! Go, go, go, go! Just leave it, leave it!
(OUT OF BREATH) That's not a temple.
(PANTING)
(PANTING) Please, god. Don't let them be here.
They aren't here!
That's Buddha!
-This is the Buddha of road safety! -And then,
within the ninth and tenth century, this wall was twelfth century.
So you remember from the lecture I was giving... Oh, hi, guys!
Just interesting how this is a different century to that one.
-We've just been learning with a little lecture. -Yeah.
You run up there as well?
Oh yeah!
-CLARKSON: Congratulations. -How long have you been here?
Really not long. Genuinely, honestly? Three minutes, twelve seconds.
Wait for it.
(MACHINE SPEAKING JAPANESE)
-Which is? -Japanese for...
-(BLEEPED) -CLARKSON: Yeah!
Now, I wouldn't say we were stupid at Top Gear. But it only took us, like,
10 seasons and probably a hundred shows before the penny dropped and we thought,
oh, hey, let's get some great cars and go and look for the
world's greatest driving road.
Now, we reckoned, and this decision, I must stress, was nothing at all to do with
the accounts department, that the fabled greatest driving road must be somewhere
not too far away. Maybe in the Alps.
So, with Jeremy in a Lamborghini Gallardo, Richard in a 911 GT3 RS
and a naked James May in a race- prepped Aston Martin Vantage,
the hunt began.
James! That is just a racing car.
It hasn't got anything in it at all. It doesn't even have a passenger seat.
This isn't just some road car porter with a bit of scaffolding in the back.
It's 250 kilograms lighter than the standard car.
That's the weight of a big motorcycle.
-So you've got no radio. -MAY: No.
-You've got no carpets. -No.
-No air conditioning. -No.
James, you have got a car with no air conditioning in the
-south of France in the middle of summer. -It's better than that!
-His windows don't open. -MAY: Yes, they do, actually.
-(LAUGHING) That's a cat flap! -You've both done exactly the same thing.
You have got standard road cars dressed with the tinsel of fake high performance.
-Has it got air conditioning? -Yes, it has got air conditioning.
-(SCOFFS) -Have you got air conditioning?
Oh yeah!
I've done three minutes and I already adore this car.
This is so much fun! (LAUGHING)
CLARKSON: We found something called the Col de Turini,
a ribbon of tarmac that doesn't really go anywhere.
CLARKSON: This looked like the ideal place to unleash our cars a little bit.
(CARS ROARING)
I was loving the Lamborghini.
But, if anything, Richard was loving his Beetle even more.
(ENGINE ROARING)
There is something fantastically purposeful about this car.
They haven't been flash and messed about with trying to make it look pretty.
They've just taken off what they can take off,
made lighter what they can make lighter,
and away you go.
They're so smug about their pansy boy versions of lightweight cars.
When you drive a really, really stripped down car like this,
you're put back in touch with what driving is about.
You can hear all the machinery working, you can feel what it does.
It's busy, it's twisty,
it's got low walls that you can go over,
huge drops that can kill you with ease.
MAY: Meanwhile, in the Aston.
-Here he comes. -Finally.
(INHALING) Oh, my testicles!
-That is unbelievably good. -Oh yeah.
Right, what do we think about that road?
CLARKSON: You don't want to talk about your car, then, James?
Well, no, I thought we were here to find a good road.
Don't like your car, do you?
The car's excellent.
You know you've made a mistake, don't you? -No, it's fantastic!
Well, I think that road's a benchmark. It's a good starting point.
-Now we should go and find another better one. -Yeah, okay, we got
-stuff to compare it to. -Italy.
-What? No, Switzerland. -Italy.
What about Austria?
He just wants to talk about the war.
-Oh, then you'll get all morbid and unbearable. -No!
-No, no, no, I think Austria is... -They got smooth roads.
No, we've never been there together.
-It's the smooth roads! -It is the smooth roads!
It's because his suspension's so hard...
Italy's got really bumpy roads.
Italy would be quite entertaining, sure. Probably look at Italy.
(TRAFFIC NOISES)
MAY: I sat for a day on a motorway in an oven, essentially, for this.
HAMMOND: This road is rubbish!
We come all this way here in these cars and you (BLEEP) it up because you're a (BLEEP)
feeble-minded (BLEEP)
-Trust me, Italy is the place. It's the home of... -MAY: Shut up!
...the fast cars.
MAY: Why did we bother? We should have just come here on a (BLEEP) bus.
HAMMOND: Still, there was one good thing. We were heading north to where I wanted to go
in the first place. Switzerland.
Please, let's find something good.
HAMMOND: We did.
This is the San Bernadino Pass.
The hills are alive to the sound of horsepower.
(ENGINE ROARING)
CLARKSON: Meanwhile, in the Aston.
(SPRAYING SOUNDS)
(SPRAYING)
CLARKSON: The San Bernadino Pass was something else.
The views. The smoothness of the road surface.
The elegance of the road itself.
But Richard wasn't finished, and insisted we kept heading north.
I wonder where he's taking us.
Wow! Lichtenstein.
CLARKSON: The only thing I know about Lichtenstein is they make more
false teeth here than anywhere else in the world.
Which is probably why Hammond has brought us here.
What I know is it contains a brilliant road
and I have a good feeling about this place.
Right. So this, theoretically, is the start
of the greatest driving road in the world...
I fear I may have made a slight mistake here.
CLARKSON: He had.
There was a cycle race on and his brilliant road was closed.
-What? -Are we allowed to drive on it?
-No. -No!
(SCREAMING) It's shut!
It is a bit.
(FURIOUSLY) You dragged me all the way to Lichtenstein to go on a road that's shut!
A bit. Completely.
Where do you want to go now?
-MAY: Austria. -HAMMOND: Anywhere. Oh god.
CLARKSON: You go to Austria. We can't smell your pits from there.
I'm going back to Italy.
MAY: Reluctantly, the others agreed to come with me.
So, we headed back through Switzerland,
stopping off for the night at the ski resort of Davos.
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
You're all right, you're all right.
HAMMOND: The next morning we headed south, out of Davos,
and couldn't quite believe what we'd stumbled on.
Mile after mile of deserted perfection.
Even Jeremy had to concede. I was right about Switzerland.
This is absolute heaven!
(LAUGHING)
Oh, this is much more like it!
What was god thinking of when he gave the Swiss this place?
Plainly, it should be ours.
MAY: Meanwhile, in the Aston.
I wonder how much more of this I have to endure
before I can admit that this is a terrible car,
and that I hate it, and I want to go home.
(ENGINE ROARING)
CLARKSON: We'd all pretty much decided that we'd found driving heaven.
Well, two of us had.
But then, after we popped over the border and back into Italy,
we found a cherry for the top of our cake.
CLARKSON: The Stelvio Pass.
15 miles of asphalt spaghetti, draped on an Alp.
It was stunning.
Should we do it?
(ENGINE ROARING)
Here we go.
The drops!
HAMMOND: It's impossible!
Over the edge here, you'd have time to phone the insurers.
(SQUEALING TYRES)
MAY: There's no other way of saying it,
this is a magnificent piece of road-building.
(SQUEALING TYRES)
MAY: I hate to admit this, but this Aston is starting
to make a certain amount of good sense.
Even the brakes have stopped squeaking.
CLARKSON: Climbing up now past 8000 feet.
I think at this altitude, the Lambo has got the advantage.
I shall solve that, though, with some bravery!
(ENGINE ROARING)
This is hard work. If I had no air conditioning, I'd look ridiculous now.
What an extraordinary road.
CLARKSON: Thank you, Italy.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
CLARKSON: We finished our run,
and as the cars ticked themselves cool,
we knew their work was done.
Our quest was at an end.
Davos to Stelvio: the greatest driving road in the world.
Not long to go now before the number one all-time favourite is revealed.
But first, you'll have to bask in the magnificence of this film at number three.
This is the one where, driven by sheer jealousy of American RVs,
the hosts decided to create cool, European motorhomes.
Now, they had to be nimble enough for our twisty roads,
and yet provide all the essentials of RV life.
A bed, a cooker, and a warm lavatory.
And not fall over, or hit gas stations.
CLARKSON: Richard was the first to arrive.
And there it is!
I am genuinely, genuinely proud of this.
HAMMOND: But before I had a chance to talk you through my Land Rover,
Jeremy arrived.
What?
HAMMOND: In what appeared to be a block of flats on top of an old Citroen.
(BOTH LAUGHING)
HAMMOND: Look at it!
Come on.
HAMMOND: It's enormous!
CLARKSON: It's absolutely superb.
HAMMOND: Wow! It's three-storey!
Japanese contemplation area here.
HAMMOND: Very useful.
Upstairs, two hammocks, and full cooking facilities with a grill.
CLARKSON: This is hideous.
HAMMOND: It's stone-effect, which is right for the whole Land Rover thing.
It's hideous, bugging, yes...
(LAUGHS)
HAMMOND: It's perfect, you see?
Please tell me this is not real.
Yes it is.
HAMMOND: Yes it is, entirely.
-HAMMOND: If you need it, it's there for you. -(CLARKSON GUFFAWS)
CLARKSON: You're joking.
HAMMOND: No no, if you need it, it's there.
HAMMOND: Whoa! It's an old Lotus with a roof-box!
CLARKSON: I didn't expect that!
-HAMMOND: Oh, wow! -CLARKSON: That's, that's...
CLARKSON: You haven't got the idea of it at all.
No, no no no no, this...
I don't like to be immodest, but this is actually a very good idea.
This is inspired by the work of the pioneer aviators.
MAY: It's extremely light. It's brilliant.
CLARKSON: Hammond, it's a roof-box with a sleeping bag in it.
-HAMMOND: Yeah. -CLARKSON: Where's your bog?
-MAY: There. -HAMMOND: Oh, where your head is.
CLARKSON: And how do you go on that?
The roof goes up.
-CLARKSON: How does it go up? -It's on telescopic things.
CLARKSON: It's not a motorhome!
-MAY: It is! -CLARKSON: It isn't!
It is a motorcar with accommodation on it, it's...
-What's this? Why's it got that? -MAY: Stability.
Ahem! "You are going on a camping holiday in Cornwall.
"This is 215 miles from where you are now."
-CLARKSON: Listen, what... -HAMMOND: It's going to be great fun!
It's a win, win, win. I'm going camping, my favourite activity,
in my favourite weather...
It's my best day ever.
CLARKSON: In the leaning tower of Citroen, I was starting to relax a bit.
She's very pretty.
She just liked it. She wouldn't like to go in Hammond's
'cause that's stupid.
(GASPS)
(SCREAMS)
(LAUGHS)
(GASPS)
MAY: Jeremy, can I just say this is the
biggest entertainment I've had on a road journey in my whole life.
It's absolutely hilarious!
Polzeath. That's where we're going.
CLARKSON: But then...
Oh, no! I've got a warning light.
Guys, I've got a warning light on the dashboard, says "stop".
CLARKSON: As you'd expect, the happy campers chose to ignore my distress signal.
Oh yeah, that looks to be a suitable holiday destination.
HAMMOND: I think so.
CLARKSON: Holy moly!
What manner of terrible thing has happened under my bonnet?
It's actually had diarrhoea, is what's happened here.
MAY: At the campsite, I settled down to watch Hammond's creation take shape.
HAMMOND: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
(HAMMOND GRUNTS)
-MAY: Do you want some help? -HAMMOND: No!
HAMMOND: Don't need it, mate, one-man job, this.
(GRUNTS)
MAY: Having got the block of flats going again, Jeremy eventually joined us.
-CLARKSON: This is gripping. -Ha!
-CLARKSON: What are you doing? -Finishing touches.
MAY: And, an hour later, Jeremy and I were bored.
Is there a pub?
MAY: There was! So we went to it, leaving Hammond to carry on building.
CLARKSON: When we got back from the pub, Hammond was still going.
CLARKSON: Is this his motorhome?
-MAY: I don't believe that that stays. -CLARKSON: That is outrageous!
HAMMOND: Come in! Do come in!
HAMMOND: This is the bed, it forms a...
-CLARKSON: Sorry! Sorry. -HAMMOND: Yeah, that can happen.
HAMMOND: I'll give you a quick squeeze around, if you'd like.
CLARKSON: Yeah, sure.
HAMMOND: This is the library here, thank you, thank you.
-CLARKSON: So you've got a library. -HAMMOND: Library, um...
HAMMOND: This is the dining room, awaiting dining room furniture.
MAY: It goes on, look at that! Bloody enormous!
-MAY: Oh, (BLEEP)! -HAMMOND: Mind that, yeah.
MAY: Yeah, sorry.
CLARKSON: Look at this! Look, he's got an ancestral portrait!
HAMMOND: Yes, I have. Great Uncle, um... Great Uncle Tall, there.
CLARKSON: Just a minute, this is Great Uncle Yourself!
HAMMOND: Yeah. Yeah.
(LAUGHING)
CLARKSON: With a very lengthy tour over, it was time to get some sleep.
These are my night-clothes I like to wear.
(GRUNTS)
There we go.
Ah.
(MUFFLED CRY)
CLARKSON: Still, could be worse.
(VERY LOUD WIND)
(METAL RATTLING)
HAMMOND: Stop!
CLARKSON: The next morning, mercifully,
the wind had died down, but it had taken its toll.
CLARKSON: Oh, dear. Oh, look.
CLARKSON: So it's still the same in the games room?
HAMMOND: Yeah, brought the roof down onto the pool table.
And the living room, and the cinema...
CLARKSON: I promise you, Hammond, it was worse for me.
HAMMOND: How can it be worse for you? The roof fell in on my library!
I promise you, it was worse for me.
What's worse than that?
Oh yeah. That's worse.
MAY: Morning.
Oh, god. Is that just the wind did that?
Oh, yeah. No, a big giant came.
HAMMOND: Our next challenge was to cook a three-course meal in our motorhomes,
using whatever ingredients we could find
at a nearby petrol station.
Oh, my god!
HAMMOND: No no no no no!
(LOUD CRASH)
So do you have any steak?
-No. -Pork?
No.
-Lamb? -Nope.
Bacon?
Ah, no, I'm afraid. Sorry.
-Lard? -Struggling at the moment, no.
-Margarine? -No.
CLARKSON: Despite the lack of choice, we soon had enough for our dinner.
CLARKSON: So, back at the campsite, we parked up...
(METAL AND WOOD GROANING)
CLARKSON: ...and got cooking.
Right, what I'm going to cook tonight is spam slices
coated with a crushed, cheesy, popular snack item.
So first, using the fork we crush up the cheesy comestibles.
Here is what I propose for dessert:
I'm going to make Eton mess, crossed with trifle.
I couldn't find any of those sponge fingers,
but then I had an absolutely brilliant idea: I'm going to use bread.
Lining the bowl with the sponge fingers.
Now we put our ice cream yogurt in.
Like that.
Right, the water is boiling, so it's time to start preparing the vegetables.
Here they are.
MAY: So, thin slices, about an eighth of an inch,
or about 2.5 millimetres in Roman Catholic.
Now, I'm monitoring everything at this point very carefully,
'cause the last time I tried to cook on a campsite
the caravan caught fire, you may remember.
And the one next to it.
So I can't be...
Holy cow, what's that?
(STAMMERING)
-Get an extinguisher, man! -I haven't got one!
-Who's got an extinguisher? -I've got one there!
(WHOOSHING)
CLARKSON: That's not working!
Now left a bit, right. No, the other way. The other way, the other way!
This is all working terribly well.
I think mine's going to be ready quite soon
but we're not going to have anywhere to eat it,
because I believe the plan was to eat in Hammond's dining room.
Which has just burned down.
-(LOUD ***) -CLARKSON: Oh, not good.
He's actually set fire to metal, how's he done that?
CLARKSON: We decided to abandon the cooking,
and cracked open a liquid supper instead.
CLARKSON: That's the first time we've seen the sun, gentlemen, since we...
-HAMMOND: Well that makes it worthwhile, doesn't it? -MAY: It's not bad.
(SHEEP BLEATING)
HAMMOND: Out! Just get out! And you, out!
Out! (CLAPS HANDS)
Oh, god, look at it!
CLARKSON: And on that note...
HAMMOND: Hi.
CLARKSON: After James had failed to wipe his bottom with any dignity,
we decided to go to a nearby beauty spot.
-CLARKSON: James May. -MAY: Jeremy Clarkson.
CLARKSON: What's it like driving around
under a bucket of your own faeces?
Are you going to fall over today for our entertainment?
(LAUGHS)
(CLARKSON EXCLAIMING)
HAMMOND: Eventually, we made it to the beauty spot.
HAMMOND: (SNIFFING) Oh, yeah.
CLARKSON: Now that is a view.
HAMMOND: That's more like it, yeah.
-MAY: I think it's fabulous. -HAMMOND: Yeah, this is all right.
Right now, I'm quite enjoying motor-caravanning.
Yeah, I'm enjoying...
It's the first time since we've set off that motor homing is making sense.
-CLARKSON: Guys? -HAMMOND: What?
There's a pub down there.
HAMMOND: Yeah, it's very nice.
CLARKSON: I'm going to the pub, I'm going for an ice cream.
Will you bring one back?
I would really like... I've been thinking about ice cream for three days.
I will bring you back an ice cream.
And then everyone will go, "They really do get on, those three."
-Yeah, okay. -(LAUGHS)
HAMMOND: While Jeremy was gone, I'm afraid we hatched a plan.
Among scenery like that, holidaying in England,
even in a motorhome, does make sense.
(DISTANT CRASHING)
Is that all right?
What?
What's that?
We are nearly there, and I have to say, at this moment,
I am feeling like Casey Kasem.
But without the sweater.
Your second favourite Top Gear film of all time
is the amphibious cars film.
Not the first one, but the sequel: Amphibious 2.
Now, if you haven't seen the first one, this will be a bit confusing.
But, basically, we built some amphibious cars,
they mostly sank,
and so we went back to the drawing board and came up with some new ones.
And this time, the presenters were so confident
that they decided to sail them from England,
all the way across the sea,
to French France.
There we are. Now.
Obviously, my original plan of simply bolting a very large outboard engine
to the back of a pick-up truck worked very well.
Until it rolled over.
So, to prevent that happening again, what I've done is
I've welded up the doors much more thoroughly this time.
That should stop water getting into the cockpit
and sloshing from side to side.
In the back, I've fitted these big drums
which, when I go in the water, I simply lower them like this.
So they're like, sort of, stabilisers on a child's bicycle.
And, uh...
That should give me more, um...
Um...
Um...
-MAN: Stability. -Yes, that!
MAY: Next, Hammond arrived.
-CLARKSON: No... -HAMMOND: Yeah!
-CLARKSON: No, you see, Hammond? -HAMMOND: Yes?
What you've done there, mate, is you've parked a van on top of a boat.
No no no, it's brilliant! Let me tell you!
It's a refinement of the theory.
Cheque it out, flying bridge, completely equipped.
-It's not a flying bridge. -More or less.
And this is where the girls go.
-Up here, in bikinis. -No, Richard...
I'm already seeing the problem.
-Would you like to step down? -Yes.
-Stand at the wheel. -Yes.
Look ahead.
-Yeah, that is an issue, I didn't discover that until... -(LAUGHING)
CLARKSON: Some time much later,
James arrived in a flurry of deja vu.
-It's the same vehicle. -The same car.
MAY: Well, not exactly, but...
CLARKSON: No, exactly the same car.
It is the same car, and the reason for that is my car, if you remember, worked.
It didn't. Every time you got to a low bridge, your mast was...
Ah! Now, I have a collapsible mast!
And, I have a spinnaker,
and I also have a keel-come-centreboard.
Thank you so much, here's our challenge.
HAMMOND: Come on, then.
-Is it bad? -Yes.
-No, really bad. -Go on.
You will now drive to
Dover.
No. Not...
And then you will cross the channel to France.
-That's the sea. -No, that's...
-What's it, 22 miles? -He's not making it up.
Mine won't do that.
If I'd known it was the sea, I'd have fitted a bigger anchor.
-(LAUGHING) -It's not really a sea-going anchor, is it?
And a longer chain.
This is fantastic, I absolutely cannot wait
to try out my Triumph Herald in its newly re-rigged form and sail across the channel.
Why shouldn't it work?
HAMMOND: I had just one crumb of comfort.
This time, mine was working on the road.
But then the crumb went away.
(COUGHING)
Oh, god, look at them! They are worse than they were last time on the road.
And, we've got a much bigger challenge on the water.
CLARKSON: Mind you, after five miles, Hammond was beyond caring.
CLARKSON: It is like the West Indian dope-smoking team practising in the car.
CLARKSON: Soon, we arrived in Dover.
We would be launching from the slipway once used by
the giant, cross-channel hovercrafts.
Spread before it was Dover harbour.
And beyond the safety of its walls, 22 miles of English Channel,
the busiest shipping lane in the world.
-CLARKSON: Here we go! -HAMMOND: Let's go!
(TRIUMPHANT MUSIC PLAYING)
This is absolutely brilliant!
I'm actually using my weight to canter the roll of the craft.
-(THUD) -Ow!
CLARKSON: Is that your top speed?
-I'm flat out! -(LAUGHS)
HAMMOND: Even so, I was a lot faster than James.
So Jeremy and I left him behind.
And pretty soon, we were at the mouth of the harbour,
facing the open sea.
(WAVES CRASHING)
CLARKSON: That's choppy out there.
HAMMOND: I can't do that.
Not in a van!
HAMMOND: Mate, it's horrible!
Maybe if we snuck up on it...
Yeah, sneak up on the sea, that's brilliant.
HAMMOND: Meanwhile, back with Captain Pugwash...
MAY: Sod it.
Right, now sail!
-(THUD) -Ow!
(HAMMOND HOLLERING)
HAMMOND: We were leaving the harbour.
CLARKSON: You can't see what's coming, I can!
Bloody hell!
(HAMMOND SCREAMING)
CLARKSON: These are quite big.
HAMMOND: Don't like that!
CLARKSON: Don't turn on a wave!
HAMMOND: In seas like this, and with my puny power,
I bravely decided to head back to the harbour.
HAMMOND: Then Jeremy bravely followed suit.
MAY: Mayday!
MAY: Ow!
Is it not working well, James?
Have you ever heard of the milk of human kindness?
Well, prepare to suckle on it.
-Thank you. -(CROWD CHEERS)
CLARKSON: Sorry, mate.
HAMMOND: As Jeremy rescued James,
I realised that the big seas had damaged my precious craft.
My steering's broken. I just go in faster circles.
I was stuck in the entrance to the harbour.
(HORN BLARES)
Oh, my god, there is the SeaCat.
CLARKSON: He can move.
(HORN BLARES)
CLARKSON: But he continued on course and now James was a sitting duck as well.
MAY: No time to lose. CLARKSON: What do you want me to do?
MAY: Just nudge the front gently back to port.
HAMMOND: I don't want to go that way now!
Go left!
CLARKSON: And then...
CLARKSON: Oh, not another one.
(SHIP'S HORN BLARING)
CLARKSON: Never in maritime history has a ship had to dodge
so much flotsam and jetsam while coming into Dover.
CLARKSON: Sorry, it was him. Sorry. HAMMOND: Sorry.
CLARKSON: And this made us be in trouble.
-(SIREN WAILS) -Morning, Officer.
CLARKSON: We were ordered back to land,
but getting there wasn't easy.
HAMMOND: Mate, my engine is letting go.
It's dying. There's no doubt about it.
CLARKSON: I pulled Richard in.
HAMMOND: That's humiliating.
HAMMOND: James's boat was now beyond repair.
But, luckily, Jeremy was on hand to comfort him.
CLARKSON: You failed!
MAY: Thank you.
HAMMOND: Today the wind had dropped and the sea was much calmer.
MAY: We're going to France this time, we are going.
HAMMOND: I was now powered by an outboard
I'd bought from Jeremy for a million pounds,
and James was my cabin boy.
-If you'd go below, please, cabin boy, and a cup of tea. -Right-o, sir.
CLARKSON: Oi, Prescott!
I'll have a bacon sandwich.
CLARKSON: Richard's million-pound outboard wasn't exactly gutsy,
so, in the spirit of the sea and in keeping with the maritime code,
I gunned it and left them behind.
Oh, she's riding the waves like a twig.
Meanwhile, back on the cabin cruiser...
HAMMOND: Bloody hell!
-Mate? -MAY: What?
-HAMMOND: There's quite a lot of water, it's up to... -Not again.
CLARKSON: As you can see this morning, the sea is a mill pond.
We're hoping to capitalise on that and make good progress
before the waves build up, which they inevitably will.
I'm disappointed, I thought we were gonna make it.
Sorry, mate, the cup sank.
MAY: With typical good grace,
Jeremy came back to pick us up and then announced
we'd have to go back to Dover.
A couple of years ago Richard Branson set a record
for crossing The Channel in an amphibious car.
One hour, forty minutes, six seconds.
And?
No way!
CLARKSON: It's an average speed of 10.8 knots.
HAMMOND: So we go for it, we give it a shot? -In Calais for lunch.
Beardy, you're going down.
HAMMOND: Guys, can I ask one question? CLARKSON: What?
HAMMOND: Where's France?
MAY: We follow the ferry, but not the one going to Holland.
CLARKSON: Soon the three men in a boat were an incredible two miles from England.
And since we were going for a record, we had to work out our speed.
This is our speedometer. We've tied knots in a rope, you throw it in
and you see how many pass through your fingers in a given time.
It's a very accurate system.
MAY: Land ahoy!
CLARKSON: France!
We can see France from our pick-up truck.
HAMMOND: Mind you, Jeremy, do you want to be depressed?
CLARKSON: What? HAMMOND: Look at England.
Ready, ready, one hour 40 minutes coming up now!
-We've failed! -HAMMOND: We lost.
CLARKSON: Now it was just a question of seeing if we could make it,
but with eight miles to go it started to get choppy.
-CLARKSON: We're going down, boys. -No!
It's pouring in!
CLARKSON: Oh my God, look in there now.
HAMMOND: I don't like that!
CLARKSON: We're in big trouble!
HAMMOND: I don't like this!
CLARKSON: Things were even worse at the back.
MAY: We're taking on a hell of a lot of water.
CLARKSON: Mercifully, as we got into the lee or something or other,
the waters calmed and we could taste success.
CLARKSON: Come on! Come on!
We're 20 yards from France.
CLARKSON: To succeed, we had to get up the boat ramp,
but that meant going through the breakers.
HAMMOND: No! No!
CLARKSON: Where's that come from?
I really thought we were gonna tip over.
MAY: We're on the rocks.
We're going up the beach now.
Skilfully, James got a rope round the front bumper
and in a gap in the waves, I went for it.
No!
MAY: That's good.
CLARKSON: The pick-up had landed.
Merci.
We are finally here, the favourite all-time Top Gear film.
As voted for by every citizen in the United States.
And it is, well, I'll tell you what it is,
it's a bit of a problem actually
because it's Amphibious Cars Part One.
Which I've just told you about when we were looking at Amphibious Cars Part Two.
So now, you're watching them the wrong way around.
So please, next time try and get your voting sorted out.
cause really, it's not that hard.
Anyway, in a film full of triumph and mostly tragedy,
I give to you, the Top Gear Amphibious Cars.
MAY: I've bought this. A Triumph Herald.
And here's my idea.
Instead of using the engine to power it on the water,
I'm going to fit it with a mast and some sails.
How brilliant is that?
CLARKSON: Me? Well, I've come to The Solent to see an old friend.
His name's Steve Curtis, and he's won
the Class One Offshore Power-Boat World Championship seven times!
Here's the thing, okay.?
Amphibious cars to me, the problem has always been, is they're too complicated.
You've got to get the power to the wheels, and when you go in the water,
you've got to stop the power going to the wheels,
pull a lever and make it go to the propeller.
So why not just get a car, and then put an outboard motor on the back?
Yeah, it's simple.
-Yeah, and it would work. -For sure.
This is a great little outboard because everything's in it.
See, what you do, you pop it in there, put this down...
It might need to be a little bit longer.
Look, I was thinking more, Steve, in terms of this, to be honest.
In fact, I'm thinking more in terms of
two of these rather than one of these.
HAMMOND: Now, Jeremy chose Steve because he's an expert
on hydrodynamics, and then set about arguing with him.
I chose my expert on the strength of his accent.
-We'll extend the stern onto here. -Yeah.
So, it'll give you somewhere, obviously, for the summer days
you can get out, steer the boat on the back.
HAMMOND: Unlike Jeremy, I was going to run
a single small propeller from the van's engine,
even though it was only a 1.6 diesel.
I mean, it doesn't have to be fast.
This isn't a speedboat. I just want it to be able... Well, like a canal boat.
Wood, aluminium, bits of rope,
clink, clink, clink in the wind,
all that, you know, little tell-tale on the top.
So you model that car after your Russell Crowe
-Master and Commander style. -Yes!
Put there, and then another one there!
CLARKSON: We had one day left to get ready,
and our vehicles were far from being seaworthy.
(GRUNTS) Morning.
Now, as you can see,
I lost the battle to have two engines on the back for three very good reasons.
One, weight. This is 600 pounds.
And that's the same as having a whole American sitting on the tailgate.
Two, space. There really isn't room to get two side by side.
And three, cost.
13,000 quid this costs.
What, in the name of all that's holy, is that?
(LAUGHING)
-You said it was sleek! -Ah!
Where's he gone?
Oh, his door's...
(LAUGHING)
-I love that! -What do you think?
This is my prow, so it cuts through...
I'll be honest with you, I've added a bit of weight.
-But it, um... -How much weight?
Couple of tons. Um, but it looks...
-Couple of... -Tons.
If you look at my car from the front...
-It's a car. -Unaltered.
-Is it gonna be fast? -40 knots.
-That's really fast. -Really fast.
Yeah. No, no. You will look quite good.
CLARKSON: We were then interrupted by the arrival of Dame Ellen May.
CLARKSON: It's James May!
What has he done?
-Avast, landlubbers! -What's that?
-It's a sailing boat. -It's not, James!
It's not a sailing boat.
It's a Triumph Herald with a twig sticking out of it!
-HAMMOND: Yeah. It's um... -Is this teak? No.
MAY: Yeah. CLARKSON: No, it's not.
It's plywood with biro marks on it.
You can mock it all you like. It's gonna work.
This is the challenge, gentlemen.
"You must drive your amphibious cars..." Yours isn't.
"To Rudyard Reservoir."
-Reservoir. -A reservoir near Leek.
(ALL LAUGHING)
So we've gone from Keele to Leek.
"And drive them all the way across the two-mile stretch of water."
-(LAUGHS) -Two-mile stretch of...
-Two miles. -If it's two miles, it could be choppy.
MAY: Yeah. -Doesn't bother me, I'm doing 40 knots.
Doesn't bother me. I've got infinite wind power and a very stable craft.
Mount up, gentlemen.
MAY: It was only 20 miles to the reservoir.
What could possibly go wrong?
Now's the time I could be quite honest, really,
about some of the aspects of this car.
The ride is appalling.
I told Curtis,
"Don't weld the suspension up!"
So, he hasn't. He's just fitted solid shock-absorbers.
HAMMOND: I had other issues.
When it was new, it had 70 horsepower, there or thereabouts.
Let's assume it's now got about 40.
With the additions I've made, this now weighs two and a half tons!
This is the slowest thing in the world!
I just went under a very low telephone cable there.
So, I suspect that James could easily plunge
the whole of Stoke-On-Trent into the Middle Ages!
CLARKSON: To miss overhead obstacles, James had lowered his mast.
But this was cheating, and soon, he was punished with engine failure.
MAY: The other problem is...
I can't actually open the bonnet because I've had to seal it
in an attempt to keep it floating without the nose going down.
I didn't tell the others this 'cause I didn't want them to mock me.
CLARKSON: Meanwhile, back at the convoy.
-(ENGINE STOPS) -No!
-Not now. -(ENGINE SPUTTERING)
HAMMOND: Wait! I've died. I've died.
-Goodbye. -No! Come on!
(LAUGHS)
CLARKSON: They've failed. Frankly.
Maybe their cars will work on water.
But we'll never know 'cause they'll never get there.
(ENGINE STARTING)
HAMMOND: I managed to get it going again, but not for long.
Engine's stalled. No brakes. Limited steering.
I'm gonna have to ditch it.
Oh. I think we've overheated. We've lost oil.
Water.
Diesel.
Blood, pus, the lot really.
(MAY HUMMING)
HAMMOND: James, rather thoughtfully, chose to have
his second breakdown right next to me.
MAY: What is it, me hearty? -Engine issues.
-Yes. -That's the front.
The radiator is sort of there, but then it goes down a bit further.
Then, there's the grills.
-I'm beginning to understand. -Then what we've done is...
-There's no cooling at all. -Blocked it up.
So I've made these buoyancy aids
that are around here made out of this foam,
but I've also done it under the front
and I think it's blocked the radiator.
Right, we've both done the same thing because we're stupid.
CLARKSON: Eventually, we were back on the road and in the Peak District.
That's "Peak" as in hills.
And hills were a big problem for Hammond.
The really embarrassing thing is,
it's slightly faster like this.
The gloating will be endless.
Wonder how James is doing?
Well, this is more like it. Performance has improved dramatically.
I'm really bowling along.
CLARKSON: Finally, Hammond and I arrived at the reservoir.
Now, while we're waiting for James, I should explain it's March.
It's the coldest March for 20 years because of global warming.
And that means the water into which we shall be driving is...
-Well, how would you... -Let me tell you.
-Ah! -(LAUGHING)
CLARKSON: The big question was which would arrive first?
Summer or James May?
CLARKSON: Where is he? HAMMOND: I dunno.
I mean, he's gotta show up at some time.
HAMMOND: I can just see the mast!
-(BOTH LAUGHING) -Just the mast!
CLARKSON: Look at it.
Have you had a few problems?
No. I just had to make a bit of a detour. Low bridge. You know?
Mast.
Where's he going?
Watch this.
Brace! Brace!
It works!
That is really annoying.
I've got a rudder.
MAY: It did indeed work, for a few moments.
But before I could hoist my sails,
I drifted into some weeds and got stuck.
CLARKSON: Then it was my turn.
Life jacket.
I was grateful when I saw the water line
I'd insisted on only having one engine.
Can you give me a tow before you sink?
No, I can't give you a tow. I'm leaking!
HAMMOND: I, however, was about to launch into a world of issues.
Right-o!
I've bolted my propeller to the flywheel.
MAY: There he goes.
HAMMOND: And as I drove in, it hit the ramp.
And broke.
So I was in the water with no drive,
but that was the least of my problems.
-(ENGINE SPUTTERING) -Oh, no! It's sinking!
(GRUNTS)
Um...
Yeah, mine hasn't worked.
MAY: Can you come and give us a tow?
HAMMOND: No, mate! My engine doesn't work!
Those incompetent co-presenters I have.
CLARKSON: With James still in the weeds, and Hammond going down fast,
I opened the taps on my outboard and went for a test drive.
Oh, yeah. This is nice.
Manoeuvrable, comfortable.
It just works.
Did you want tea or coffee?
MAY: Tea, please, mate.
It works, but really, this is top speed. That's annoying.
CLARKSON: Richard wasn't going anywhere
unless he found some power.
-I've got a spare outboard. -HAMMOND: You are joking!
I have. How much would you give me?
A million pounds.
-A million? -And a leg.
Take your pick, either leg.
Oh, yes! Now, what do I do? Oh, God.
CLARKSON: So could he get the engine on and working before his damper van sank?
How do I start it?
Could he make it to the other side of the lake?
MAN: Pull!
Please!
Could James? By this stage, he'd got his sails up.
He was out of the weeds and underway!
Just...
MAY: Ow!
Mind you, he was going faster than Hammond.
-(ENGINE STARTING) -Yes!
It's moving! I'm moving! It's a boat!
MAN: Rolling.
CLARKSON: Finally, we were off!
Two miles. Frankly, I've won this.
Come on, baby!
MAY: Come on, wind!
CLARKSON: Sadly, my exuberance with the throttle
was causing some problems for the Toy-boata.
No, no, no!
I've got a massive bow wave at the front!
But Hammond had bigger ones.
No! No!
No!
Ah!
Yes!
Come on, baby!
This is the moment. Look, it's the Titanic moment! Look.
It's going!
It's going!
(YELLING)
Oh, no! Oh, no!
CLARKSON: Hammond, how much?
-For what? -A lift.
I'll give you a million quid, or this bucket.
What do we think, viewers?
Oh, come on! I'm going down!
-Where's May? -I don't know!
What do you think I'm worried about right now?
I'm aboard.
Now, get in there and get bailing!
Oh, bullocks.
-I've come up with a problem. -What?
You. You owe me a million pounds!
CLARKSON: While I was on my perilous rescue mission, James had powered ahead.
MAY: I need more wind.
Here we go!
My toy submarine is off!
That's full power.
-It's working. It's not working. -HAMMOND: No.
It's slow but certain, and I'm not sinking.
HAMMOND: Even though we were racing someone travelling
at the slowest speed ever recorded by man...
Oh, come on!
Jeremy still insisted on going at full tilt.
Up! Up!
Rise!
Rise, Toy-boata!
-Ah! -It's coming over the side!
And boats don't do emergency stops.
HAMMOND: Ah! Jeremy! We're going in!
Relax!
CLARKSON: Our bailing session meant the tortoise was catching up.
I can see the finish line. It's about, I dunno,
a couple of hundred yards away.
Or about four and a half hours.
CLARKSON: So this was it, the final assault.
CLARKSON: Coming in hot.
We're nearly there.
Come on, you ***.
I'm gonna make it!
I just had to turn 'round the pontoon and park,
but I turned too hard and too fast.
(HAMMOND LAUGHING)
CLARKSON: That was a mistake.
HAMMOND: You may have just overcooked it.
-Richard. -(GIGGLING)
-Richard. -(GIGGLING)
(RICHARD LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY)
It's going over!
(BLEEP)
That's pretty cold!
(LAUGHING)
CLARKSON: That's pretty bloody cold.
I can't believe it!
Two miles, and it goes now!
No!
No! No!
HMS Clarkson has capsized by the sounds of things.
That is fantastic.
(GRUNTS) Ah, yeah.
Well, it was a good idea.
It had only one major flaw.
What?
I think I may have won my second Top Gear event.
I simply...
Step off.
-If he drives out of the water, I'm gonna kill myself. -Are you?
-Yeah. -Fair enough.
MAY: Is that your car? CLARKSON: Yes.
It's the wrong way up.
Don't give me technicalities!
Would you agree I made it to the pontoon?
No. Watch this for a perfect about.
We'll give you a hand.
(ENGINE REVVING)
-That's annoying! -HAMMOND: That is irritating!
That's annoying. Can you do it?
MAY: The clutch has gone.
-HAMMOND: The clutch has gone? -Oh, he's failed!
No, I haven't failed.
-You have! -No, I'm out!
-You're not out! -I'm on the slipway!
Can I just say, chaps?
One observation I would have. Sailing...
Really boring!
So there you have it, the Amphibious Cars
take both Silver and Gold.
Thanks again for voting for your favourite Top Gear Challenges
and obviously, as ever, thanks for watching.