Top Gear 10x4

1. Hello! Hello and welcome! Thank you very much.

2. Now, as you know,

3. the producers on this show like to give us challenges.

4. Specifically when they give us a very small amount of money,

5. and tell us to buy a used car,

6. then they set unbelievably hard tasks to do,

7. to see which one of us got the best deal.

8. Yeah, this week, for a Top Gear special,

9. they came up with a real humdinger.

10. They gave each of us 1,500 quid,

11. and told us to go to Africa...

12. - ... and buy a car.

13. Yeah, and there were just two conditions,

14. it mustn't be four-wheel drive,

15. and it mustn't be built in any way to go off road.

16. The meeting point was the border post between Zimbabwe and Botswana,

17. and, for once, I was the first to arrive.

18. Now, as you'd expect, I've done this properly.

19. What I've got is a 1985 Mercedes Benz 230E,

20. a car that Africa absolutely adores,

21. because it's comfortable, it's rugged, it's dependable,

22. and, frankly, if the other two have brought anything other

23. than one of these along, they're idiots.

24. The first idiot arrived.

25. Can you open the door? The handle's broken.

26. It's a Lancia Beta.

27. Coupe, 1981!

28. The only Lancia of any sort in the whole of Botswana.

29. It's done 29,000 miles.

30. Hmm, one owner, is it?

31. A little old lady!

32. And boy, had she ragged it.

33. Yeah, that's normal, isn't it?

34. That fizzing.

35. That's, uh...

36. Yeah...

37. What's the piece of cardboard for? Mopping up moisture?

38. No, that's because of the battery...

39. - Are you sure it's on the bonnet? - Sure, it's on the bonnet.

40. Right, you've done well.

41. So now what? Do you want a lift?

42. We left the Lancia to cool down, because Hammond was arriving.

43. - What the hell is that? - I don't know.

44. Could it be Moskovich?

45. - Opel? - It's an Opel.

46. And on the front it says "Kadett."

47. Ah!

48. Yeah!

49. What the hell have you done, man?

50. It's an Opel Kadett from 1963.

51. - So that's the same age as you! - Same age as me.

52. Yes, but it's much better nick than you are.

53. It was £1200, I had much changed with which to buy many beads.

54. How much more simple can you get?

55. It's got two moving parts

56. and it's been here for 44 years.

57. I love the speedo.

58. I do like a horizontal speedo.

59. - I really do!

60. Where's the engine? - It's there.

61. Hang on, where's it?

62. It's tiny!

63. Do you want to know about the power?

64. Yes, I do.

65. - Forty. - Forty?

66. Forty horsepower.

67. Yeah, but they did do a sport version of 48,

68. but I didn't want anything too lairy.

69. You've both been idiots.

70. No!

71. Brilliantly interesting, brilliantly stylish, but stupid!

72. - Why's mine stupid? - Because, well...

73. Where is yours?

74. A Lancia?

75. You have been a bit thick.

76. With the cars at the start line, it was time for our challenge.

77. "The people of Surrey think they need four-wheel-drive cars,

78. "because they live up a lane which sometimes has leaves on it."

79. "You will now tend to prove them wrong by driving your two-wheel-drive cars,

80. "from here on Botswana's eastern border with Zimbabwe..."

81. Just there.

82. "One thousand miles

83. "to its western border with Namibia."

84. That's right across the spine of Africa.

85. I'm confident.

86. I wasn't.

87. We hadn't even started, and the Lancia was playing up.

88. James chose not to wait.

89. He may be mechanically confident, but he has just turned right.

90. - Which is Zimbabwe. - Zimbabwe.

91. Which is where, I should point out the BBC is not allowed.

92. Sorry, sorry, I'm going now.

93. The Lancia wheezed into life and Hammond and I, set off in pursuit.

94. If you think of the cars that this inspired,

95. it was latterly built in Russia,

96. where it became the Moskovich, which was rubbish.

97. And, of course, indirectly, the Vauxhall Astra.

98. Quite a lot of reasonably average cars

99. owe themselves to this.

100. I don't know if you know, but Africa is quite large,

101. and when you're out in a remote part,

102. you need a car like this,

103. that can be mended with a brick and a piece of string.

104. What you have to remember is three of the most rugged

105. and successful rally cars ever made were Lancias,

106. the Stratos, the 037 and the Delta Integrale.

107. Lancia know how to make a rally car.

108. Unfortunately, on the day my Beta Coupe was made,

109. they obviously forgot everything.

110. The gear box is broken, the steering is broken,

111. the window's broken.

112. In fact, we all had problems.

113. Everything works except this knob, which controls the blower.

114. I've cut all the windows out because there's quite a strong smell of petrol.

115. And that mirror which is actually slightly stuck.

116. Hazard warning lights, the clock, the fan, the handbrake,

117. all of the dials.

118. The brakes are terrible cos they only work on that wheel.

119. They work very well on that wheel, but only on that wheel.

120. And that instrument is a bit wobbly,

121. but apart from that everything that's actually important to the car works perfectly,

122. apart from the handbrake which I can pull like this as we go along.

123. This is just the happiest car in the world.

124. I should call it Oliver, not that we'd ever name a car on Top Gear.

125. I wish I hadn't said that.

126. It's now 10:05 in the morning

127. and it's starting to get quite hot.

128. I've got an idea.

129. Oh, yeah, that's better.

130. Don't know what that is.

131. A horn!

132. Oh, Oliver! You've got a cold, listen.

133. We were having fun,

134. but then we discovered we were travelling with Bill Oddie.

135. - Why have you got a pen? You tick them off when you've seen them.

136. Hornbill, Southern Yellow-billed.

137. I'm gonna look at your car. It's massive!

138. Don't knock, Oliver. Don't knock my car.

139. That's a fine, he's a fine...

140. What did you call it then?

141. Oliver's a friend of mine

142. and I thought you were talking about him.

143. - He's given it a name. - He's given his car a name.

144. So far the journey had been a doddle.

145. But then the tarmac just sort of stopped.

146. Oh, this is bad.

147. I can see from here just how hard the suspension

148. on Jeremy's Lancia is having to work.

149. It's just a blur.

150. Come on, Oliver. Please!

151. The later you book a lift in the Mercedes the more expensive it gets.

152. It's a bit like an airline.

153. Oh, God! Oh!

154. I've broken it.

155. Engine isn't working. It's cut out.

156. Oh, dear.

157. He's done literally one kilometre of this.

158. - I know what's wrong with it. - The bonnet won't open.

159. It's the bonnet catch, it's...

160. Shut up!

161. Hammond was tetchy because he knew the price of failure.

162. Anyone who's car broke down would have to complete the journey in a Beetle.

163. It is collectively our least favourite car in the world.

164. - Ooh, yes. - It is the punishment.

165. Please!

166. Oh! Hang on! Hang on!

167. Ooh!

168. Well done, Oliver!

169. What did you say?

170. I said, "Let's... La, la, I love ya!"

171. - Oh, my God. What now?

172. My car's on fire but in a very specific place.

173. Wow! Look at that. - It was a magnifying glass?

174. There's a laser beam coming through it.

175. Like you dropped acid on it.

176. Oh, his piece of cardboard's gone.

177. So it sets itself on fire.

178. If you don't have a piece of cardboard.

179. We drove deeper and deeper into the bush.

180. - (CHILDREN SHOUTING INDISTINCTLY) - Lancia! Yeah!

181. What is that?

182. Looks like the sea.

183. Eventually the road disappeared altogether.

184. People of Surrey, I hope you're watching this.

185. We are...

186. Driving a Lancia Beta Coupe

187. while just in the middle of...

188. Whatever you call this.

189. The good news was we'd successfully reached our campsite for the night.

190. The bad news came in the shape of another challenge.

191. "Stretching before you is the Makgadikgadi.

192. "These are the biggest salt flats in the world,

193. "almost completely lifeless and as wide as Portugal.

194. "No car has ever driven across them.

195. "If you run out of water you will die,

196. "if your car breaks down and you can't be rescued you will die,

197. "if you run out of food you will die.

198. "It's like driving on a creme brulee.

199. "There's a primeval ooze covered with a thin layer of salty crust.

200. "If you have thin tyres you will break through that crust,

201. "get stuck and you will die.

202. "So it advises to fit fat tyres,

203. "and remove as much weight as possible before setting off."

204. Well, how hard can it be?

205. Don't say that!

206. In camp, the weight-shedding began.

207. Ready?

208. That doesn't work.

209. Thanks awfully.

210. Wow, feel how much this seat weighs.

211. Like your work.

212. Argh!

213. Fuel filler, I'll need that, maybe.

214. I don't want to take the hub caps off really cause they protect the hubs.

215. - Can I point something out? - What?

216. Hammond's walking round his car, muttering about how he needs all of it.

217. I know exactly what he's doing.

218. He's formed an emotional attachment, hasn't he?

219. It'd be like saying to him, "Could you cut bits off your wife?"

220. The next morning, on the edge of the salt pans,

221. we thought we'd come under attack from a Bond villain.

222. But it turned out to be the vice president of Botswana.

223. That is a cool ride. Yeah, it is.

224. Better than an official Rover 75 and a couple of policemen on motorbikes.

225. He was amazed to hear what was being planned.

226. I've just never known anybody to go across in a car.

227. This'll be the first time, I think.

228. There they are.

229. Oh, really?

230. - Oh, really? - Yes.

231. That should be interesting.

232. You were smiling. You've just stopped.

233. Buoyed by the vice president's optimism, we set off.

234. Nothing really prepares you for the sheer size of these.

235. I think, in a way, that it's more frightening than the Pole.

236. There's absolutely nothing. You can see the curvature of the Earth.

237. As we ploughed on, the little Opel was going well.

238. Oliver is just skipping. Boo!

239. This car was born to do this!

240. Sadly though, despite the weight-shedding,

241. my Lancia was not doing so well.

242. Judging by the way the tyres are kind of digging in as I'm driving along,

243. I think a little bit more has to come out.

244. Still, as you can see from the tyres' grooves,

245. I was doing better than the Merc.

246. I'm looking at James' rear wheel

247. and he is digging in a long way.

248. I tried to help him along.

249. Really helpful.

250. Well, there's always the Beetle, James.

251. It's waiting for you.

252. What are you gonna do? It's sinking.

253. We've done... How far is that? A mile?

254. My Lancia waded in again.

255. Just a nudge. That's a crash.

256. There's a thing.

257. Unfortunately, because it was an automatic, it was useless.

258. So, we told Richard to try.

259. But he didn't want to hurt Oliver.

260. Argh!

261. This was hopeless, so we had to rope in the camera crew.

262. Three, two, one!

263. Because the ooze was so bad,

264. we had to get even more drastic with the weight-shedding.

265. We toiled away for hours.

266. Da-da! Oh God!

267. Well, two of us did.

268. And then, finally, we were ready.

269. Now, this is light.

270. Lancia Beta Coupe Superleggera!

271. Another modification!

272. This is excellent.

273. Why don't all cars have no doors?

274. When I come to power, I'm gonna make it a rule, cos this is just better.

275. However, the Makgadikgadi was not going to let us off that lightly

276. and soon even our super-lightweight cars started to struggle again.

277. Come on, just.

278. Oh!

279. Oh, yes.

280. No, this isn't good.

281. Oh, no.

282. Only the Opel remained trouble-free,

283. which was bad news for me.

284. Yes! Come on, man!

285. I'll go forward, Hammond, then we'll do it again. Hang on.

286. How far is it?

287. Oh, yeah, another five or six yards and we might be Bobby.

288. Oh, this is just horrible!

289. Keep going, keep going, keep going!

290. Yes! Yes!

291. No!

292. James, don't go there. You'll get stuck.

293. That's close.

294. Come on!

295. Oh, permission to say cock.

296. Can we have everybody? We'll push it off.

297. We need 100 men or more.

298. No.

299. This is hopeless.

300. People of Surrey, you need four-wheel drive for this bit.

301. The gunk was so sticky it had completely jammed the Lancia's rear wheels.

302. I can't describe...

303. You just think it's just mud...

304. Do you know what it is?

305. Fish!

306. It's just rotted, prehistoric fish.

307. One, two, three.

308. Mercifully the ground eventually hardened and we made good progress.

309. But then suddenly the horizon was no longer flat.

310. This is interesting.

311. We're now coming between what look like islands.

312. And I suppose they are.

313. This was a lake, so they would have been islands.

314. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

315. Where are we?

316. It's called Kubu Island.

317. We're about...

318. A third of the way across.

319. And you've been stuck about a thousand times.

320. That is smug.

321. A Baobab tree.

322. I've always wanted to see one of those.

323. - Hammond, look at this. - Whoa!

324. It is just about the most astonishing place, I've ever been.

325. I'm with you there.

326. As the sun set, we headed for the campsite.

327. Day two on the salt pans

328. and we'd been told that today our problem would not be mud but dust.

329. That meant James and I had to rethink our wardrobe solutions.

330. I've teamed up with a bin liner,

331. V-necked!

332. The last time I wore one of these, I went to The Clash.

333. Frankly, I thought it was all a bit much.

334. I mean, how bad could this dust be?

335. Ahhh! My eyes!

336. Crikey, I can't even see Jezzer, already.

337. Oh, no, no, no, no!

338. Meanwhile, in my unmodified Kadett...

339. I'm gonna adjust my quarter light a bit.

340. Just an inch. That's better.

341. Oh!

342. I can feel the hate now.

343. It's nice.

344. Me khaki's come off.

345. Hello?

346. James and I made it through the dust

347. with our lives considerably shortened.

348. I've got consumption and TB.

349. I've got every single 1920s disease.

350. And then Lord Smug piped up.

351. I had to close this, at one point, back that much,

352. and then it pulls the air out and you get fresh air through, it's nice.

353. You know what it's like when someone punches you really hard in the face?

354. I do, actually.

355. Then the surface got even worse.

356. Argh!

357. It was like we were descending through the seven circles of hell.

358. Oh, no!

359. I'd assumed it'd be the salts

360. that would kill the notoriously rust-prone Lancia,

361. but it was the rough going.

362. Even though it had now smoothed out again, the Beta was in a bad way.

363. I've gone. I've gone. - Are you conking out?

364. I've got no power, no drive.

365. Do you remember what the man said, Jeremy?

366. "Break down and you will..." What is it? Have a nice time?

367. No, die.

368. Well, that's loose, that's hot.

369. It is a good job they canted this engine over by 20 degrees because that means

370. it's more inaccessible than it would otherwise have...

371. Oh, my God, look at this.

372. For God's sake.

373. I gotta say, it has been nice, the peace,

374. you know, not having him around.

375. I've checked the alternator, the spark plugs,

376. the HT leads and the distributor cap.

377. Poked around with the starter solenoid.

378. There's been faults with all of them, but it still isn't going.

379. I'm not sure which I favour most here,

380. certain death or that Beetle.

381. Argh, come off!

382. Oh, for God's sake.

383. I honestly believe it's had it.

384. Is my car on the crab?

385. No, it's tracking true, mate.

386. He's worried about tracking and look at it.

387. We knew that Jeremy would eventually catch us up,

388. but what would he be driving?

389. I can see something in the mirrors.

390. Please let it be a Beetle.

391. I do hope it's a Beetle.

392. Please let it be a Beetle!

393. Please let it be a Beetle.

394. I'm back!

395. Oh, Jeremy, well done. I'm disa... Sorry, delighted.

396. You're not in a Beetle!

397. Not a Beetle!

398. A fully-functioning Lancia Beta Coupe!

399. I just wanted the Beetle to pounce on you when you were straying behind.

400. I'm gutted.

401. Shall we just sandwich him, James?

402. No!

403. With our convoy back up to strength, we pressed on.

404. Apart from Jeremy being Bill Oddie occasionally.

405. This is where flamingos breed out here.

406. So that's breeding, is it?

407. It's a fossil.

408. It's not, it only died about two years ago.

409. I was talking about you. It's an ex-flamingo.

410. - Hey, look! What now?

411. I know what created this.

412. - Ostrich. - Yes!

413. Its legs are miles apart.

414. That's exactly how it was walking.

415. You know David Attenborough's about to retire?

416. - Can I just say... - What?

417. You look like a gay cowboy,

418. and you look like a gay terrorist.

419. No, you look like a terrorist with a broken windscreen wiper

420. and your face is ridiculous.

421. Then Hammond started to pick on my car.

422. - Why haven't you turned it off? - It's gathering electricity.

423. So, if you turn it off the battery's not going to start it again.

424. Turn it off and start it then.

425. - Yeah, go on. - Turn it off and start it.

426. Let's have some beautiful silence.

427. - Are you ready? - Yes.

428. - Are you ready? - Yes.

429. Behold.

430. - Why did you turn it off? - Because he said it would...

431. Good luck. Somebody will give you a jump start.

432. - It'll be fi... Don't go away. - Goodbye!

433. Annoyingly, Clarkson got the Lancia going again,

434. and then we came across some big birds.

435. Wow!

436. And then we saw even more wildlife.

437. There's a cow.

438. Two cows, three cows.

439. Yes!

440. We've done it!

441. We had crossed the Makgadikgadi.

442. Trees!

443. Life!

444. Mate, did you ever think that you'd do that?

445. I'm genuinely proud of him. I am!

446. Really, I'm startled that this,

447. it isn't a car any more.

448. Whatever it is, has done it,

449. with its low-profile tyres and its low suspension that's broken.

450. Personally, I'm absolutely delighted because I think

451. the Makgadikgadi is one of the most unpleasant places I've ever been.

452. It's just a big bowl of dust. Hello, mate.

453. Widow Twankey may have been glad to see the back of the salt pans,

454. but despite this they gave us a startling parting gift.

455. That is amazing.

456. That's the moon?

457. Yeah, that's the moon.

458. Because of the dust from the pans, you get...

459. A moonrise. And in orange.

460. I've got goose bumps.

461. I know a Philip Larkin poem about the moon.

462. - Would you like to hear it? No.

463. As a new day dawned, our cars looked like wrecks.

464. But their ordeal was far from over.

465. Yes, we had crossed the salt pans

466. but we were still only a third of the way across Botswana

467. and now we were about to enter the Kalahari.

468. The Kalahari.

469. Everyone who comes to the Kalahari

470. takes away a different memory of it.

471. The savagery, the simplicity,

472. the vast heat.

473. Me? I think, bumpiness.

474. It was as rough as hell

475. so we were glad when news came through that we were to stop

476. at the next village.

477. Obviously they recognise a truly classy car.

478. What could they possibly have in mind for us here?

479. It was another challenge.

480. - Eh, hello? - Here it is.

481. "Your cars have travelled far and suffered much..."

482. Yes, they have.

483. "So we will now discover how much performance they've lost

484. "in a competition against the clock on a rally-special stage."

485. My car never lost any performance.

486. - It never had any. - That's true.

487. Well, I'm not going to ruin my Mercedes just for a few points.

488. You're right. You're not, because you're not driving it.

489. Well, who is?

490. Some say he's seen The Lion King 1,780 times

491. and that his second-best friend is a Cape buffalo.

492. All we know is he's not The Stig

493. but he is The Stig's African cousin!

494. Wow!

495. He's protected the important bits.

496. Keen to get going, the three of us fired up our engines.

497. And we drove to African Stig's rally stage

498. which was in a dried up river bed a few miles away

499. with packed spectator's stands.

500. Oliver went first.

501. - Three, two, one!

502. - Go! - Start!

503. Three miles an hour.

504. Do you know, when it was new it had 40 hp?

505. Yeah. If it's lost one a year, it's at minus four by now.

506. Minus four by now. Yeah.

507. He's going round the first corner. Hold on.

508. That was a power slide.

509. Look at that! It does look...

510. Ridiculous is the word you're looking for.

511. As the Kadett struggled to get up the hill, the spectators left.

512. Come on, joggle it, The Stig's cousin.

513. He's enjoying that.

514. And one minute, 12 seconds.

515. That's a good benchmark for you to try and beat.

516. Next up was the Panzer tank.

517. - Most powerful, longest, best tyres. Heaviest. Slowest.

518. What? Longest?

519. Longest is good for rallying, is it?

520. It is on this, yeah.

521. So why on loose-surface rallies,

522. don't they turn up with Intercity trains?

523. - Go! - Yeah.

524. That's the most ridiculous spectacle

525. I've ever seen in my entire life.

526. A Mercedes with no bonnet, no front wings, no doors!

527. In the hands of African Stig though, it was flying!

528. That is the latest in a long line of pedigree Mercedes-Benz sports cars.

529. There's never been a Mercedes rally car.

530. Ah, yours is flying up the hill, mate. Look at it go!

531. You wait till you see, the Lancia will dance through there.

532. Oh, yes. Lovely. Oh! It's out of control, man!

533. That's a big slide!

534. - One minute, six. - I'll just do my ancient...

535. I hate you gloating. Let him do it.

536. It's like winning a semi final.

537. Time now to put James in his place

538. because the Lancia was on home turf

539. with its rally pedigree.

540. Stratos 037... What?

541. That's not dust, it's on fire!

542. Shut it down. Can you turn it off?

543. Look at it all!

544. Stopwatch still running. 45 seconds.

545. - We'll replace the seal. - Yeah.

546. And then, when it's cooled down a bit, he'll be able to do the lap.

547. You'll have difficulty, though. He's off.

548. And maybe he's started. Maybe... Start the stopwatch.

549. I think he was in a hurry so he decided not to take your car.

550. - Hey, Jeremy. - What?

551. You're right, though. Your engine. It's canted.

552. The next day in the centre of Maun, we got our next challenge.

553. - Ah. - This is it.

554. The glittering golden envelope.

555. "You will drive your cars to Namibia

556. "through the Okavango Delta."

557. That's... That's the really big wildlife place.

558. "In the Okavango, you will encounter many deadly animals,

559. "including lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas,

560. "wild dogs, hippos, black rhino and crocodile.

561. "Bird, snakes, shield-nose snakes, puff adders,

562. "boomslang, cape cobras, banded cobras,

563. "black mambas, black widows and thick-tailed scorpions."

564. What about the honey badger?

565. - The what? - Honey badger.

566. That's the least scary sounding animal in the world.

567. A honey badger does not kill you to eat you,

568. it tears off your testicles.

569. It does not!

570. Why's it called a honey badger?

571. Maybe because that's what's made it angry.

572. Why isn't it called the badger of death?

573. In order to protect ourselves

574. from the lions and the honey badgers,

575. Jeremy and I would have to rebuild our cars.

576. But because we'd left all the bits on the other side of the salt pans,

577. we had to use whatever we could find.

578. Could a lion eat this?

579. Who do I see about the, erm, corrugated metal?

580. - Suppose I better practise, at least, my lion drill.

581. Oh, no! There's a lion coming! Ah! What shall I...

582. That. Oliver will protect me.

583. Because Mercedes were very popular in Africa,

584. James soon found a spare door and boot lid for his car.

585. And while he was looking for more bits,

586. - I hatched a plan.

587. Look what I've got.

588. That's a cow's head. Yeah.

589. Now, this will attract flies

590. - which will make his life unpleasant. - Yes. Yes.

591. It will also attract lions, tigers.

592. - He effectively becomes a burger van driving through.

593. And to make sure the lions didn't miss...

594. Oh, yeah! That's a whopper! - That's a good piece.

595. Oh, yeah, under the seat.

596. - And the smell... - Ooh! The smell will really... That will be beautiful.

597. We also attached a cowbell to the underside of his car.

598. But while we were doing this, he was making merry with the paint.

599. That afternoon, we left Maun and headed north to the Okavango Delta.

600. Right. My car now has been readied.

601. As you can see, I have a wooden door here.

602. It's a gull-wing, so I can get in and out, obviously.

603. God, this is like being in an allotment shed.

604. On a very windy day.

605. On the left, I have all the cans

606. that were in the car for the last few days,

607. they've been arranged.

608. And the piece de resistance.

609. Badgers go away.

610. I am the road warrior.

611. Mad Jeremy.

612. It's a police car.

613. Can anybody else smell burning, or is it my car?

614. Is it like a barbecue smell?

615. As we went through the gates

616. and into the game reserve, the road changed again.

617. For the worse.

618. This is new. Very soft sand.

619. To stop our cars bogging down,

620. we had to drive as fast as possible.

621. We had ourselves another rally stage.

622. Amazingly, even Jeremy had his work cut out

623. keeping up with the Opel.

624. Hammond's car just looks so composed.

625. I'm developing this irrational hatred of him and it.

626. This is such a good game!

627. Eventually he was slowed down

628. by a bridge over the river Khwai.

629. The rally stage had taken its toll on one of the cars,

630. take a guess which one.

631. I'm in a car which as you can probably hear,

632. has got a throttle that's jammed wide open

633. and I can't hold it on the brakes.

634. Hammond, move!

635. You're gonna have to go faster or I'll hit you.

636. - What?

637. Oh, God!

638. Thanks! Well, help yourself to my brakes, why not?

639. - I've lost a skull. - Monkeys.

640. I'm sorry, I can't...

641. Whoa!

642. Just hear the throttle. That's tick-over.

643. Look, my leg's not on it.

644. Having bodged my throttle,

645. we headed deeper into the Okavango.

646. Front, 12:00, 1:00. One.

647. This is where wildlife cameramen

648. come to make a name for themselves with David Attenborough.

649. But unfortunately, our film crew are best, really, with cars.

650. A giraffe on the right.

651. There, the big thing.

652. If we ever do a programme called The Back End of an Animal...

653. These are the boys to hire.

654. This week on Too Late To Look.

655. Baboon on the left with animals, with a baby on its back.

656. To give our crew a chance, we stopped,

657. and discovered that we weren't much good at animals either.

658. - Wow, look! Look! Where?

659. - A hippo's head. - Oh, it is.

660. It's probably a whole hippo.

661. The rest of him's under the water.

662. What does a hippo do just before it's about to attack?

663. - Opens its mouth. - Opens its mouth.

664. It can open its jaw. There's a thing it can do.

665. Ah, look! Ah, look at that.

666. They've stopped for a drink,

667. using their noses to shovel water into their mouths.

668. Jeremy, that's a rubbish commentary.

669. James took over.

670. That one's lifting its paw up a bit like a dog does.

671. Paw!

672. - Hoof, foot, whatever you call it. Hoof?

673. What is it on an elephant? It's amazing.

674. There's a man over there with the best comb-over I have ever seen in my life.

675. That is...

676. He's got four partings as a result of that, can you see?

677. Why don't... You're bald, live with it.

678. Oops, he caught me looking at him.

679. I was looking through binoculars.

680. I was looking at the elephants really, I was.

681. Look at that sun now, boys.

682. Elephants, rally special stage.

683. Best comb-over I've ever seen.

684. Everything's here.

685. We camped by the river,

686. and while James serviced his car, I hatched a plan.

687. Jeremy! Jeremy!

688. Jeremy! Quick, come here. Come here.

689. It's the cow's head.

690. Yeah. It wasn't working in the boot but I've had a better idea.

691. - What? - Tent.

692. - His tent? - Yeah.

693. Love your thinking. It's the second one from the right.

694. You find it. That's his.

695. In, in, in!

696. - Put it under his bed.

697. - Shh. - What?

698. What's that?

699. It was a hippo.

700. - What? - Close?

701. There's a very big hippo.

702. Oh, my God, look at that.

703. Hippos spend all day in the water,

704. and then they come out at night because...

705. I can't remember why.

706. Well, thank you. That's useful.

707. What's that?

708. Oh, brilliant! Look!

709. Do you wanna go out there with a hippopotamus?

710. Or do you want to stay in here with a horse's head?

711. That's not a question that's ever been asked.

712. It's not a horse either, it's a cow!

713. Um, hang on.

714. That's my bag in James's...

715. This is my tent!

716. Oh, man! Get it out!

717. Our starting point at the Zimbabwe border

718. felt like it was in another time zone.

719. But still there were many miles of delta to cover,

720. and our cars were in a really bad way.

721. The bush mechanic we have on the team

722. took two cubic feet of sand out of my carburettor last night

723. and asked if I wouldn't mind driving a little bit more slowly today.

724. James's cowbell!

725. Our ordinary second-hand road cars

726. were getting more and more out of their depth.

727. This is proper off-roading now.

728. Men in camouflage trousers in Wales

729. who like murdering people at weekends

730. would say this was tough-going.

731. It was a whole... Oh!

732. - What is it? It's like iron. It's a tree root.

733. I think I've bent my steering rack a bit.

734. Wow!

735. Wow, there is an elephant right there.

736. A door down.

737. 'Cause that would stop an elephant.

738. Soon our route was blocked by a river,

739. and what you're supposed to do is wade in to check the depth.

740. Right.

741. James went first and I said I'd watch for crocodiles.

742. Oh, I say! There's a ground hornbill over there.

743. It's getting deeper!

744. Oh, hang on a minute!

745. Permission to say cock.

746. It's coming in!

747. Thunderbird One to the rescue!

748. Come on, I'm sinking by the boughs.

749. Coming.

750. Oh, no!

751. I can't help you!

752. Come on!

753. James, I'm in a low-slung sports car!

754. I'm going down!

755. That's good. Yes!

756. I've got water coming into my car!

757. Oh, God! I've got a wet bottom!

758. We're through!

759. Both our cars were flooded

760. but our guides weren't bothered at all.

761. People of Surrey, if this happens to you, you get water in the footwell

762. and you need to drain it out, you need a hole,

763. well, the people of Botswana have a tip for you.

764. Meanwhile, using patience,

765. I'd found a proper crossing point.

766. There is a technique to fording rivers.

767. Even on a proper ford like this.

768. You've gotta keep enough speed up

769. to you push a bow wave like that.

770. Then you use whatever power you've got in the engine.

771. Come on, come on, come on.

772. Oh, my... No!

773. Oh, God!

774. He stalled! He's going down!

775. I can't open the door! Oh!

776. Oh, God!

777. Please! Come out!

778. Come on! Float! Float! Float!

779. Oliver!

780. Hammond, how's it going?

781. Well, I got a bit of water in him.

782. We did as well, but it doesn't matter.

783. Using rifles, we shot the cars

784. and the water's all drained out. It's brilliant.

785. Good.

786. I might need the rifle.

787. As a local tourist truck pulled me out,

788. the laughing hyenas arrived.

789. May gave his diagnosis.

790. Oh, mate.

791. Starting from the top, the battery's probably pretty knackered,

792. and then the carburettor will be flooded.

793. Mmm, very.

794. And then working down, the distributor cap will be full of water.

795. The engine itself, I mean, if a bit of water went into the cylinders,

796. you might've compressed it and broken something.

797. - The oil will be ruined. - I know all this. I can fix him.

798. You are going to try and mend this?

799. If you'd leave me to it, yeah.

800. So we did.

801. Oh, that's harsh.

802. That is quite harsh but go on.

803. Oh, he'll like this one.

804. (BOTH CROONING ALONG WITH RADIO) ♪ It's sad so sad

805. Unfortunately, you can only give a man so much sympathy.

806. So James and I went ahead to make camp.

807. Hammond knew that in the morning,

808. if his beloved Oliver wasn't fixed,

809. he'd have to leave him behind.

810. So he got our bush mechanic to bring the generator down.

811. And worked on through the night.

812. Morning came.

813. And still no Hammond.

814. I'm knackered today.

815. I mean, I'm feeling quite like an explorer.

816. Is that Hammond?

817. Is it a Beetle, more to the point?

818. No way.

819. - No way.

820. Oh, yeah! Yeah, he's back.

821. Ah!

822. And here's the best thing. Do you remember the horn which was rubbish?

823. It's excellent.

824. - Is that technically possible? - Probably not.

825. In 47 years, I've never been speechless.

826. With all the cars defying all the odds,

827. we began our final push to the border.

828. My car is working perfectly, as usual.

829. I've got no brakes, the pedal goes straight to the floor

830. and I have to de-clutch to stop,

831. so I just tread on my own foot.

832. So I'm using the handbrake. Ha!

833. The Lancia could beat that.

834. Every time I brake, it spears off to the right

835. and I'm unable to steer left to correct that.

836. This has now gone from being a nuisance

837. to being downright dangerous.

838. We soon reached the end of the Okavango,

839. so we pulled over to remove the animal protection.

840. And then, guess what?

841. The Lancia simply would not get going again.

842. It now won't start because the starter solenoid

843. has chosen this moment to pack up.

844. But when it was running, it wouldn't move off in any of the gears.

845. It was just that last 60k.

846. It had that feel of a car that was dying.

847. Richard actually sympathised because he'd been there.

848. As for James?

849. Beetle.

850. I'm not gonna give up. I'll push it.

851. Is this a good time to acknowledge

852. that mine is the only one that has worked consistently?

853. No.

854. This is worrying. I need to be home by Saturday.

855. I've been invited to a Beetle drive.

856. The entire crew was working on the stricken Beta.

857. Until we were rewarded with the most glorious sound in the world.

858. Life.

859. It lives!

860. It lives!

861. I got a whole 100 yards.

862. - Oh, I'm not stuck.

863. My idle speed's not good.

864. - Bye, everybody! I can't stop!

865. Please! Please!

866. Soon we hit the tarmac

867. and we started to taste the hope.

868. Just 20 miles,

869. you can do that, you've crossed Botswana.

870. Now I'm stuck in second but second will do.

871. Obviously, mine would keep going to the other side of the whole continent

872. but, you know.

873. Come on, 10 miles, please!

874. Then something really surprising happened.

875. Oh, no. Not now.

876. Please!

877. Because the Lancia had been such a problem child, everyone was fed up with it.

878. Only two of the crew stayed behind to help.

879. Carburettor's gone.

880. Even if we can get that fixed, the starter motor is gone.

881. We've put it into gear, it goes into third

882. and then that just stalls the engine.

883. And then you're back to square one again.

884. The border was just five miles away.

885. Well, there you go, this is an object lesson

886. for the owners of old cars everywhere.

887. You can drive'em round the world.

888. Yeah, it's really relaxing.

889. - Come on.

890. Border!

891. 1,596 kilometres.

892. That's near as damn it 1000 miles,

893. I've still got half a car left and very bad hair.

894. I don't believe that!

895. Sorry! I've got no brakes.

896. Um... Yeah.

897. It's there.

898. We've done it!

899. All we had to do now was wait.

900. Wait to see which car Jeremy arrived in.

901. - Is that an engine? - That's a car.

902. Unmistakable clatter of an air-cooled engine.

903. It's gonna be the Beetle.

904. And it was.

905. But I wasn't driving it.

906. Yeah!

907. Yeah, I'm almost pleased. Yes!

908. Oh, that's excellent.

909. Watch it! Brakes don't work!

910. Sorry, there's no brakes.

911. Congratulations.

912. That's astonishing!

913. I think realistically we have to say

914. the Lancia's won it.

915. Why? By what possible measure?

916. - It's the most surprising. - It's the worst.

917. Well, you don't buy a second-hand car

918. to be surprised that it still works.

919. It had to be rebuilt once a day.

920. Yeah, you're right. It's rubbish.

921. The Mercedes is the best car.

922. What?

923. What have I had to do? I've had to...

924. Take the entire body off!

925. It's a showroom model, James.

926. All right, I admit it's not entirely original

927. but in mechanical terms it was perfect.

928. You cannot break that.

929. I think, honestly, we have to be magnanimous here

930. because only one of the cars has actually made it unmodified.

931. So that brings us on to a Top Gear top tip.

932. If, people of Surrey,

933. you want to replace your BMW X5

934. with something that's brilliant off-road...

935. - Simple. - Simple.

936. - Inexpensive. - Easy to maintain, surprisingly comfortable.

937. Absolutely.

938. Then you've got to get yourself a Volkswagen Beetle.

939. A what?

940. - It's true. - Jeremy's right.

941. - It's true! - He's right.

942. You've replaced all the electrics in that...