Top Gear 12x6

1. Tonight, Boris Johnson is the mayor

2. in our reasonably priced car.

3. Yeah!

4. Jeremy attempts an old-fashioned sensible road test

5. of the new Ford Fiesta.

6. And has communism ever produced a good car?

7. Hello! Hello. And... welcome.

8. Thank you.

9. And we start with this phenomenal new Caterham,

10. that is actually too small for Jeremy to fit in.

11. Happily, I fit in it perfectly,

12. which is why I have been driving it.

13. And here it comes now.

14. And there it goes.

15. The model we have here is the R500

16. and it likes to go this quickly all the time.

17. Ye Gods!

18. This is something else!

19. It moves with the agility of a flea.

20. Every little input through the steering, the brakes, the throttle,

21. you get a result every time.

22. The figures that go with this little thing are off the scale.

23. Naught to 60, 2.9 seconds.

24. Ha-ha!

25. Power to weight, 520 horsepower per ton.

26. That's the same as a Bugatti Veyron.

27. If you define driving excitement

28. as just raw, pure adrenaline,

29. then, well, this is it.

30. And I'm really glad I'm driving it on our track,

31. but not for the reason you might think.

32. No, the reason I'm glad to be here

33. is that no one can see me.

34. Allow me to explain.

35. This is the Top Gear Excellence/Embarrassment graph

36. and it measures how good a car is to drive

37. against, well, how embarrassing it is to be seen in.

38. Some examples. The Alfa Romeo Spider is a pretty shonky thing to drive

39. but very cool to be seen in,

40. so it sits about here on our graph.

41. The Audi RS4 is undeniably very, very good to drive,

42. but driven exclusively by cocks,

43. so pretty embarrassing to be seen in.

44. It ends up about here.

45. Last example, Citroen Pluriel.

46. Well, that's... terrible to drive

47. and really very embarrassing to be seen in,

48. so it sits, well, right up here.

49. Finally, then, the Caterham R500 Superlight.

50. Well, there's no denying it is absolutely brilliant to drive,

51. but also catastrophically embarrassing to be seen in

52. because it's driven only by geeks and nerds.

53. So it ends up, well, in the problem area of the graph...

54. Up here.

55. What we need, then, really, is a Caterham that's okay to be seen in.

56. And this could be a contender.

57. It's called the Veritas RS3

58. and there's certainly no problem with its appearance

59. because it looks like a 1930s racing car from the future.

60. Now, you've probably never heard of the Veritas

61. and that usually only means two things.

62. Firstly, it's built by a man in a shed.

63. Secondly, that man's wife will leave him

64. when the bank manager forces him to sell the house

65. to pay for his fibreglass lash-up.

66. However, the Veritas is German.

67. And annoyingly, German shed-cars

68. can be as good as most other people's factory-cars.

69. This incredible body is hand-crafted

70. from carbon fibre and Kevlar, with precision.

71. And that's German precision, remember, which is the best sort.

72. Then there's the engine, which is a V8 from BMW's M division.

73. Now, the M division don't sell their engines to cowboys or losers.

74. So the Veritas has got a good job reference right there.

75. And what this also means is that the Veritas is pretty quick.

76. Whoa! Where have I felt that before?

77. Oh, yeah. In that Caterham about five minutes ago.

78. This V8 once powered the BMW M3,

79. but has been tuned up from 420 to 473 horsepower.

80. Naught to 60, 3.6 seconds.

81. For every time you stamp on the throttle,

82. this thing just drop-kicks your stomach

83. half a mile back down the road.

84. The reason for this speed isn't just power.

85. It's also down to weight or, rather, lack of it.

86. The Veritas only weighs a snatch over 1,000 kilos.

87. But then it would, because you don't get

88. ABS, traction control or a windscreen.

89. And there's no roof, just a sort of submarine hatch

90. covering the passenger seat.

91. But this complete absence of anything

92. does come at quite a price.

93. £246,948, to be exact.

94. But you do get this glorious Riva-speedboat-style wooden flooring

95. and these hand-milled bespoke switches and...

96. Well, couple that with the fact that

97. in the jet set there's generally one born every minute

98. and it all sort of makes sense, really.

99. At least, what the Veritas lacks in toys or value for money

100. it does make up for in history,

101. because many decades ago

102. Veritas was a German sports car company

103. and they made the very first German Formula One car.

104. Which means, if I apply some Top Gear logic,

105. this thing should be good through the corners.

106. In fact, it's nowhere near as sharp as the dweebie Caterham.

107. The biggest problem, by a country mile,

108. is the big, round thing in front of me.

109. Steering... appears to have been taken from a lorry.

110. I mean, look. I have to keep turning.

111. Keep turning, take my hands off and... do some more turning.

112. Now, Veritas say they won't be selling cars to customers until next year,

113. and that by then the steering will have been sorted out.

114. But even if it is, this won't be the car for me.

115. It's just too serious. The price is too serious.

116. The engine. Kevlar.

117. I want my Caterham back.

118. I want my fun back.

119. - Very good, but Hammond... - Yes.

120. I'm slightly perplexed.

121. You say if you drive around in one of these you look a dweeb.

122. Yes.

123. You know Jeremy's wife's got one of these?

124. Very fond of it. Big fan. She's here today, actually.

125. - Yes, all right. Thank you. - She wants a word with you later.

126. Anyway, if you drive one of these and you look a dweeb,

127. how do you think you look in that?

128. Emeritus professor of history?

129. Edward Fox, perhaps?

130. - Or a big, slobbering... - No! No.

131. Look. But the thing is,

132. this costs £212,000 more than the Caterham.

133. Yeah, exactly. So you're paying a lot more for a car that's... worse?

134. Ah, well, no. Because to find that out,

135. we have to see how fast they go round our track.

136. And for that, we need our tame racing driver.

137. Some say one of his legs gets longer when he sees a pretty lady.

138. And that I haven't done one of these for some time

139. and I've forgotten to make up a second thing.

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

141. And he's off! Lots of wheel spin off the line

142. but then it digs in and unleashes

143. the full force of that four-litre V8.

144. Powers down towards the first corner, turns in...

145. rather gingerly, it must be said.

146. I should add that since I drove the car,

147. Veritas have given it a faster steering rack,

148. which should make it easier to drive quickly.

149. Stig's certainly having no problems at Chicago.

150. Down to Hammerhead now. Hard on the brakes.

151. Turns it in. It seemed to scrub off quite a bit of speed there.

152. But then he's right back on it now,

153. kicking the tail out on the exit!

154. Now let's see him really wind it up for the follow-through.

155. Here he goes.

156. It doesn't actually sound like a V8 there.

157. Just two corners left now, going into the penultimate corner.

158. Very smooth. Just Gambon left.

159. Very composed into there.

160. Just a little flick of opposite lock and across the line.

161. And it...

162. Don't forget, a big V8 in there, a powerful car.

163. So let's have a look. It did it in 1:24.2, which puts it in there.

164. That's faster than an Audi R8. That's a quick time. Well done, Veritas.

165. Now we must find out if the Caterham can do any better.

166. Off it goes again and let's just see

167. how quickly the Caterham gets off the line.

168. It is like a little flea, this thing.

169. Piles it into the first corner, locking up the brakes.

170. Like the Veritas, the R500's got no ABS or other electronic nonsense.

171. Beautiful drift through the other side.

172. Just sliding it around Chicago.

173. That is how this car should be driven.

174. Hammerhead now. Stig is so excited he's flicked on the indicator.

175. But he's rarely had so much fun out here.

176. You really notice that bump on Hammerhead in a car as light as this.

177. Only problem is that lack of weight

178. can make it hard to get heat into the tyres.

179. This is a very cold day, remember.

180. Here it comes, that two-litre Ford engine.

181. Half the cylinders and capacity of the Veritas

182. but, by God, it flies.

183. Neat through the penultimate corner.

184. Stig really on it now, loving every minute.

185. Slings it through Gambon and across the line!

186. Obviously, the big question is

187. did it go faster than the Veritas?

188. In fact, it did go faster, quite a bit faster.

189. Quite... quite a lot faster.

190. Actually, quite a heck of a lot faster because it's up here!

191. - 1:17.9!

192. Look at that!

193. 1:17... That's nearly as fast as a Zonda F convertible.

194. That means the 36-grand Caterham

195. is faster than a million-pound Bugatti Veyron!

196. - I just...

197. Amazing little car.

198. Absolutely fabulous. And now... the news.

199. And it's great news, ladies and gentlemen,

200. it's news to warm the hearts of nations.

201. Jeremy Clarkson has lost his voice.

202. Oh, man, I'm sorry.

203. I know.

204. Imagine how we feel.

205. They're gutted, mate. They're gutted.

206. But the good news is that means we can talk about whatever we like

207. and say whatever we like.

208. So, no, let's, let's...

209. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever.

210. So, let's get on with the news.

211. And I thought we'd start this week

212. with talking about this magazine called Heat.

213. Oh, yes?

214. Every year, they do a survey in which they ask the whole world

215. to tell them their sort of weirdest crush,

216. their strangest, freakiest, oddest,

217. most embarrassing, ridiculous person to fancy.

218. And uh... Well, do you wanna guess who's...

219. - He's won it, ladies and gentlemen!

220. - Here he is! Look at that!

221. There.

222. "Number one weird... weird crush."

223. And the other thing, ladies and gentlemen, in the same magazine...

224. This is... This is actually quite poetic

225. in the romance

226. because he's in the same magazine as his boyfriend, look!

227. - Aw, your Will Young. - Aw.

228. And he loves him so much.

229. So, Jeremy, you must be...

230. I'm really pleased that you should share magazine space

231. with Will Young, your boyfriend.

232. You know what he did the other day, when he still had his voice?

233. He came into the office and went,

234. "Have you heard Will's new single?

235. "It's fantastic."

236. - He loves it. - Notice it was "Will".

237. He went on about it all the time.

238. "I love Bill's new song." He does.

239. Can I just say... - Ooh, it speaks.

240. Or... or sort of squeaks.

241. - Is that?

242. - Yeah, no, I've got... - Oh, that's just a noise.

243. Are you deflating? What's that?

244. "Synthetic saliva?"

245. It means that I have just a few minutes of speaking.

246. Oh. So you like... you need more saliva?

247. Well, ladies and gentlemen,

248. I've no doubt we could oblige with that.

249. How do you know it's synthetic and it isn't just some bloke...

250. "Bottle it."

251. You can shut up for a kick-off, as well.

252. - What? - What is that noise you're making?

253. Have you seen his eye?

254. He's got the biggest eye infection I've ever seen.

255. At least I don't look like a mutant.

256. Has it come to this? I'm working with these two.

257. This isn't a television program any more, it's a colony.

258. I tell you what. Instead of hurling abuse at each other, why...

259. Excuse me.

260. Why don't we do the news?

261. Yes. Let's do the news.

262. Good news, okay?

263. We haven't been asked to do the commentary

264. - on the Formula One coverage on the BBC next year. Yeah, it's a relief.

265. Oh... - No, it's good news.

266. What they've got... They've brought Martin Brundle over from ITV.

267. That's fantastic. We'll be able to watch

268. the slow march of his trousers up his stomach.

269. They've got Eddie Jordan.

270. He's gonna be a pundit. That's fantastic. Eddie's a great guy.

271. Uh, David Coulthard, though, is the other pundit,

272. and that worries me

273. because I think that means that on lap two of every race

274. - your telly will suddenly go off.

275. Or it'll just fall off the stand for no reason. "Why's it done that?"

276. - Apparently, they've got Murray Walker involved. - They have.

277. Murray Walker's coming back to the BBC.

278. - He is. Yeah.

279. - Bless him. - It is good news.

280. Did you know, though, he's 84?

281. And now he'll be going to Silverstone, going,

282. "It were all trees here when I were a lad."

283. "Ferrari's pulled in for their first pit stop.

284. "Let's go over to Murray Walker. Murray."

285. "Can someone change me bag? It's full again."

286. - Bless him.

287. At 84, to be commentating on F1, that's pretty cool.

288. You won't be commentating on anything. Look.

289. I've just thought, okay? I wanna move it on.

290. You know the Duchess of York? Okay?

291. Sarah Ferguson.

292. She recently sold her Jaguar,

293. which has ended up in the hands of...

294. Well, it was in the papers this week.

295. Uh, the hands of a cabbie.

296. Uh... Steve Coulson, 31, of the North somewhere.

297. He's gone to the papers because he found

298. that she's left all the addresses

299. she's been to in the sat-nav

300. still programmed into the system.

301. He's saying, okay,

302. "What if I'd been a terrorist?

303. "This car is a suicide bomber's dream."

304. Now, one of the addresses in there is Windsor Castle.

305. Well...

306. - Another is Buckingham Palace.

307. I think some people know where those things are already.

308. No, don't laugh.

309. This is a national security nightmare.

310. Oh, yeah.

311. So he has inadvertently made himself

312. the world's most hunted man

313. - because I'm presuming he's looked at this sat-nav... - Yeah.

314. - He's seen the address of... - He knows where Windsor Castle is.

315. Well, every terrorist organisation in the world

316. is going to be after him for his lethal secret knowledge.

317. I think there's only one decent course of action.

318. - What? - Behave with honour.

319. Well, assuming he has destroyed it now, that's fine.

320. He has read it.

321. Therefore he must kill himself

322. and take his knowledge to the grave.

323. Now, there's a new Mini convertible.

324. It's got better engines, bigger boot.

325. But the thing that caught my eye

326. is it's fitted with something

327. called an "openometre".

328. I'm not making this up.

329. An openometre.

330. Which tells you how much you've driven it with the roof off.

331. Well, what's the point in that?

332. You may as well have a dial that tells you

333. how many times you've driven it through Leicester.

334. Why is it important to know how many miles you drove with the roof up

335. and how many you drove with the roof down? It makes no sense.

336. Well, it isn't.

337. But do you remember Chevrolet, on the early Corvettes?

338. They had a little dial that showed you

339. how many revs the engine had done...

340. - Revs? - From new... Revs, yeah.

341. What, going round at 5,000 rpm?

342. Yes.

343. It would have to be th...

344. It would be wider than the car just to get the dial in.

345. I worked it out for my old Porsche, actually.

346. You what?

347. My old Porsche's 25 years old.

348. I worked out that it had done 8.4 times 10-to-the-8 revs.

349. You worked that out? Yes.

350. For your car? You spent time...

351. Wow! So you must actually have done

352. everything there is to do in the whole world

353. to get to the bottom of the list

354. of everything a human being can do.

355. What's it like on the top of Everest?

356. - Is it good? - It's all right.

357. Richard, I went to a dinner party the other day

358. and I sat next to a girl who said

359. she couldn't believe that James May was still single.

360. - There's your answer.

361. There's your answer!

362. Anyway, look, tough times for car-makers, as we know.

363. They're all in really, really deep...

364. Oh, dear.

365. I've arrived at a point where I can't say the word...

366. Deep mess.

367. Okay, now they've resorted...

368. They've resorted to offering incredibly long test-drives to people,

369. just to get them into the showroom, okay?

370. Lexus will lend you a car for 48 hours. Two days.

371. BMW say you can go in one of their cars for 100 miles.

372. Peugeot, 24 hours.

373. - Peugeot? - Peugeot.

374. Are they surprised when people bring it back after 24 minutes?

375. - That's enough of that.

376. Now, the reporter who uncovered this story,

377. he says he went to a Peugeot dealership to try a 207

378. and the salesman said, "Oh, I can go one better than that, sir.

379. "I can lend you a 4007."

380. That's not one better, is it?

381. That's 3,800 better, he went, just to try and get a sale.

382. One better than a 207 is...

383. Work it out. It's um... It's herpes.

384. - Yeah.

385. Think about this logically.

386. How many people here drove down to the studio today?

387. Everybody?

388. That Peugeot is a brilliant car. Best in the world.

389. What's a brilliant car?

390. The Peugeot 406 with the six-player CD.

391. Best car in the world.

392. - That's you told.

393. He's making a fine case for it.

394. Would you like to?

395. He thinks that the Peugeot 406, with a six-player CD,

396. is... is the best car in the world.

397. Not an Enzo, as it turns out.

398. We've been wasting our time.

399. And I'm glad you brought that up

400. because I'm gonna skip on down, if I may.

401. Please.

402. The number of lunatics in Britain has been halved.

403. I know there's some evidence to suggest

404. that they're out and in the countryside, and among us,

405. but I have arrived at this conclusion

406. with a simple and alarming fact

407. that came across my desk only this morning.

408. Electric car sales are down by half.

409. Which must mean that loonies are fewer and further between.

410. Really, I genuinely congratulate you for your bravery.

411. Now, it seems these days that absolutely

412. everything you buy is made in China.

413. Chopsticks, Ming vases, mah-jongg sets.

414. - Dogs. - Exactly.

415. And some people are saying that soon

416. we will be buying cars made in the People's Republic.

417. Thing is, though, okay, China is a communistical country.

418. And that got James and me wondering.

419. Communism.

420. Has it ever produced a good car?

421. We thought it would be ironic to film our hunt here...

422. at the Greenham Common airbase...

423. Home in the 1980s to 96 US air force nuclear missiles

424. and several hundred lesbians.

425. Today, they're all gone, and in their place we find this...

426. It's a Lada Riva, which started out in life as a Fiat 124.

427. One of the most advanced sports saloons of the period.

428. But the Russians made a few changes to the original design.

429. They replaced the excellent disc-brakes

430. with drums, which were... worse.

431. They fitted a starting handle, a manual fuel pump,

432. and they made the body from much, much thicker steel.

433. As I shall now demonstrate.

434. With my hammer. Ready?

435. It's nuclear.

436. The heaviest part of the car, though,

437. was not the nuclear-bunker bodywork.

438. It was the steering.

439. I actually believe it's set in concrete.

440. In fact, the only good thing about this car

441. is that you can drive it in a hat.

442. Let me give you an example of its terribleness.

443. The rear brakes were made from aluminium and they must have thought,

444. "Aha! You see, that's very advanced.

445. "The West hasn't thought of this."

446. There's a very good reason for that, though.

447. Aluminium has the same braking properties, really, as... cheese.

448. Slow down, you bitch.

449. Despite all these things,

450. the Riva is still being built today, under licence, in Egypt.

451. Imagine that.

452. A 40-year-old Italian design, improved by the Russians

453. and now built by a bunch of Egyptians.

454. I can't think of anything worse than that.

455. Well, I can.

456. You see, the Lada was not the only car to come from the Soviet Union.

457. There were hundreds of the damn things.

458. GAZs, VAZs,

459. ZILs and ZISs...

460. ZAZs

461. and this, the Moskvich 408.

462. Now, this car was originally launched

463. at the 1964 British Earls Court Motor Show.

464. And it was communism's response

465. to our very own people's car, the Mark 1 Cortina.

466. And as you'd expect, the Moskvich was very cheap...

467. just £679.

468. The Cortina was a whole pound more expensive.

469. The gearbox is sloppy, the suspension is bouncy,

470. the steering is very heavy and yet very vague.

471. And just listen to the noise when you hit 40.

472. Interestingly, this particular one

473. was built in the factory where they also made the AK47 rifle.

474. The difference is... this is much more lethal.

475. So whose car was the most wretched?

476. That is simply the worst car in the world.

477. - It's even worse than this. - Disagree.

478. Have you seen the pedals in this?

479. Look where the accelerator pedal is,

480. in relation to the other two pedals.

481. - Thought so. - What?

482. - A rev counter. - Yes.

483. You decadent capitalist pig.

484. Ownership of a rev counter is theft.

485. This is the colour of a prosthetic limb.

486. You've got wipers on your headlights. - They don't work.

487. That's not the point. It's aspirational.

488. Rear suspension made out of cart-springs.

489. What have you got on yours?

490. - Coils. - Exactly.

491. - Elitist. - The coils, James,

492. are from a Bulgarian's biro.

493. We decided to settle our argument

494. by finding out which was the slowest in a quarter-mile drag race.

495. And, to spice it up, we would be racing

496. against a Western car from the time...

497. A Ford Cortina 1600E, and a dog.

498. Fast as you can. Don't cheat.

499. Why would I need to cheat?

500. Uh... launch control.

501. Clearly, the commie cars would be a while. So let's move on...

502. To this, the "Zgzz" 968.

503. Maybe this could save the day for socialism.

504. Oh, my God. There's no key.

505. Yeah!

506. Interestingly, the Zapo was rear engine,

507. so it was exactly the same as a Porsche 911...

508. except for one thing.

509. Look at this.

510. Under the carpet here, in the passenger footwell, there's a little flap.

511. You open it and there's a hole.

512. The idea is that you park your car on a frozen lake,

513. cut a hole in the ice,

514. drop your fishing line through the hole,

515. plug in your interior lamp like that,

516. and then you hang that up

517. and you can sit back and do an evening's fishing.

518. Not even a Maybach has this!

519. Better still, the Zapo 968 was available with a choice of trim levels.

520. Unusual, in a single-party state.

521. - This is the standard 968, okay? - Mmm-hmm.

522. What do you suppose the 968 B2 was?

523. - It was an estate version. - No.

524. It was for people who had the use of only one foot.

525. Ah.

526. 968 B?

527. That's the least of its problems.

528. - 968 B. - Twin carb.

529. No. For people who didn't have the use of either foot.

530. 968 A.

531. People with...

532. one foot and two hands, but one of them's frozen.

533. No. That was the one with the 0.7 litre engine.

534. - Wow.

535. Now, if your name begins with R and ends with Thurscargill,

536. you might like to claim that we're wrong

537. to blame communism for all these truly terrible cars.

538. You might say that it's actually just a Russian problem

539. and that the Russians are to making cars

540. what the Germans are to making... love.

541. Well, Mr Scargill, a quick canter

542. through some other Eastern Bloc cars will prove you wrong.

543. Take this, the Wartburg from East Germany.

544. When they made a rally version of this,

545. they had to fit up rated brakes,

546. which they got from an Austin Maxi.

547. How bad do the standard brakes have to be

548. for a Maxi's to be better?

549. And then there was the equally East German Trabant,

550. which was made from, and I'm not making this up...

551. Cotton.

552. Mr Khrushchev once said, "We will bury you."

553. What with?

554. This?

555. It's actually made from leather

556. and I think it looks like somebody's crashed a motorcycle

557. into the back of a cow.

558. And then, from Poland, there's the FSO Polonez pick-up truck.

559. And of course, we know a thing or two on Top Gear

560. about how to test such things.

561. This free-world Toyota, for example...

562. We dropped it from a 23-storey tower block and it worked afterwards.

563. So, surely the rugged FSO from the world's best plumbers

564. could survive... this.

565. It didn't.

566. Hmm.

567. Maybe we should try dropping it from a slightly lower height.

568. It's a bit late now, isn't it?

569. Finally, from Britain, there was the Morris Marina.

570. The unpleasant log laid by British Leyland

571. after communism crept, like an itchy red blanket, over the shop floor.

572. God Almighty.

573. God Almighty.

574. Britain made this.

575. They had the effrontery, the bare-faced...

576. cheek to call this a Super.

577. I suppose you weren't actually allowed back then

578. to call it Trotskyite crap.

579. Maybe that's what the TC version stood for.

580. Still, having it here enables us to answer an important question.

581. You see, the Cold War ended before we ever got the chance to find out

582. who would have won if we'd actually started fighting.

583. Yep, but now we can find out with a race.

584. We have all the ingredients here.

585. It's cold.

586. The track's much too narrow.

587. It's too pock-marked, it's bumpy.

588. Uh, I shall be driving the Morris Marxist

589. and you shall be in the um... what is it?

590. - The Lenin 1.6 SLX. - Lovely.

591. And the winner gets Berlin.

592. - And the loser has to sacrifice his bath plug.

593. So now we see, Mr Clarkson.

594. Oi!

595. Welcome to the inaugural round of the BTCC,

596. the British Touring Communism Championships.

597. If I can get him on the inside...

598. Yes!

599. Oh, no, he's coming through!

600. But he has got 86 brake horsepower.

601. I've only got 83.

602. May!

603. Marvellous.

604. Russian communism is better than British communism.

605. Ooh, how do you like that, Slow?

606. Come on! Get out of my way!

607. Ah!

608. This thing is impossible to steer.

609. Oh!

610. I missed the track.

611. Oh!

612. Oh!

613. I can take him here.

614. Get off!

615. No, May! No.

616. I'm back in the lead!

617. The handling is simply diabolical. There's no other word for it.

618. Yes, the Polaris is way in the lead here.

619. Gaining.

620. Gaining.

621. No, wait!

622. The SS A-Team is coming through!

623. He's hit me! He's hit me!

624. Oh, God!

625. There's nothing I can do!

626. That'll annoy him.

627. There's some catching-up to be done now.

628. Come on, Marina!

629. He's in my sights.

630. The Marina caught the Lada quite quickly,

631. which means we would have won the Cold War

632. if we'd started fighting.

633. Oh, yes! What do you think of this?

634. No!

635. Goodbye, Mr May.

636. Ooh, dear.

637. I seem to have accidentally killed James May there.

638. Anyway...

639. The miracle is not that the Marina won that,

640. it's that it was built in the first place.

641. In Russia, you had to work hard in the car factories

642. or you'd suddenly discover

643. how difficult it is to mine Siberian salt

644. while wearing a hat made from your wife's head.

645. British communists didn't really bother with any of that.

646. Mostly, in fact, they didn't bother turning up for work at all.

647. They'd simply get to the factory gates,

648. where they'd spend the rest of the day chatting

649. and huddling for warmth round a burning dustbin.

650. It does work well as a brazier.

651. It does. But that's what they were best at,

652. 'cause they spent far more time with braziers

653. - than they did making cars. - That's true.

654. So far, then, we've established

655. that communistical cars

656. were not fast, pretty, well engineered, cheap or reliable.

657. But, while all the animals were equal,

658. some were more equal than others.

659. This is a GAZ Chaika.

660. They made just 144 of these every year

661. and not one of them ever made it

662. into the hands of the proletariat.

663. These were for high-ranking officials.

664. Aha. You know the KGB used these?

665. Except theirs had more powerful engines

666. and they imported their fuel from Finland

667. because it didn't have twigs in it.

668. You should see the amount of space back here.

669. You could chop up 30 dissidents in the back of here.

670. But despite all these plus points,

671. the Chaika isn't a good car.

672. What was th... Was that a gear change?

673. It was.

674. Is there a man in the gearbox with a sledgehammer?

675. - That's what it feels like. - It's unbelievable.

676. So how's the steering? Precise?

677. Um, yeah. No.

678. - Don't do that! - I'm doing 20 miles an hour.

679. How can I shoot you if I can't sit still?

680. - Top speed? - 99.

681. - So it couldn't even do 100? - No.

682. - With a five-and a-half-litre V8. - Quite.

683. I suspect this is as far as we go, Mr Clarkson.

684. You're going to have to turn it round.

685. That's going to take the rest of our lives.

686. Oh,

687. It's disappeared into the bloody dashboard.

688. I'm going to grab this camera

689. so that you can actually see, hopefully, what has happened here.

690. Now, these are the buttons that change the gears.

691. That's park, that's backwards and that was forwards.

692. And I promise you I merely pressed it and my finger just...

693. So they couldn't make a decent luxury car, either.

694. But what about the other end of the scale, rugged simplicity?

695. Surely this is good commie territory.

696. This is the Lada Niva.

697. Russia's workmen's workhorse.

698. It does seem to have been built on relatively

699. sensible principles, this...

700. add weight and simplify.

701. What's more, it had coil springs,

702. not the RSJs you got in Land Rovers of the time.

703. So it was surprisingly comfortable.

704. You know, I once drove one of these

705. down a very heavily rutted track at 50 miles an hour

706. and I was able to use the cigarette lighter,

707. 'cause it was so smooth, to light a cigarette.

708. It was that smooth.

709. I'd actually quite like to demonstrate that for you now

710. but unfortunately,

711. we don't live in a free country.

712. We ploughed on through the field and things looked promising.

713. - Come on, commie. - Come on, communist!

714. But then...

715. Oh, now you've done it.

716. Oh, give up.

717. We're in Berkshire and it's been completely defeated.

718. I was wondering. If this comes out,

719. I can stand up like Rommel and guide you.

720. We don't need that.

721. Right. Forwards, slowly.

722. - Ah! No! No, no, no. - Oh, my God!

723. In the end, we had to be pulled free

724. by a decadent capitalist Land Rover.

725. But we were reluctant to give up on our little Niva.

726. And it is quite a rugged, personable little thing.

727. Yes, it is, actually.

728. It is. I mean...

729. It's the sort of car you could give it a name.

730. It's got one. Niva.

731. Do you think we've actually found

732. a communist car that we like?

733. No.

734. Right, shall we get the train?

735. Simple message.

736. Don't buy a Chinese car until China renounces communisticalness.

737. You pair of idiots. Did it, what, slip your mind?

738. These three cars.

739. Maserati, Lamborghini, Ferrari.

740. All three built within 30 miles

741. of the Italian city of Bologna,

742. which, well, for 50 years and until nine years ago

743. was run by the Italian Communist party.

744. Which means that actual Ferrari was built by communists.

745. I'm glad he brought that up.

746. Because London used to be a communist city

747. but now, thanks to my guest,

748. it isn't any more.

749. Ladies and gentlemen, please...

750. Actually, you do this 'cause my voice isn't up to the enthusiasm.

751. - Go. Quickly. Quickly. - Okay.

752. Ladies and gentlemen, Boris Johnson!

753. Boris.

754. You're here. How are you?

755. Fine. Very, very well. Nice to see you.

756. Good. Have a seat.

757. Thank you, Jeremy. Thank you.

758. What's this uh... Is that for you?

759. - Is that for me? - No, no, it's my urine sample.

760. It looks very...

761. - I'm very startled. - What's that?

762. How can you be a journalist and a politician and still be loved?

763. 'Cause I think most people still love Boris.

764. Well, l, I... l, I resent, you know...

765. I think I'd resist your... your analysis there.

766. What you find is that people, very far from loving you,

767. actually shout all sorts of hostile things.

768. Who shouts hostile?

769. Well, you know, I was just watching your program

770. and someone said I was faffing around

771. in trying to remove the... the bendy buses.

772. Let's get straight to...

773. Yeah, let's get to the point.

774. How long have you been Mayor of London for now?

775. - Eight months. - Eight months.

776. You said, before you were mayor,

777. "If I become mayor I'll get rid of the bendy buses."

778. And I will.

779. - Burning? - This Friday, I am told...

780. Burn them.

781. that we are announcing the removal of uh,

782. the bendy bus from three routes. 80 buses.

783. See, you're talking but I'm hearing music.

784. And when's this happening?

785. They... they will be off by 2010.

786. - Oh, for God's sake!

787. You're a very hard man to please.

788. - You are a very hard man. - Can I just say...

789. Any... anybody would... anybody would think

790. you were some kind of crazed petrol head.

791. Now, I'm looking at what you've done,

792. all your initiatives since you came in here.

793. And it is extraordinary how I disagree with almost all of them.

794. Things like not drinking on the tube.

795. Well...

796. I'm 48 years old.

797. If I want to have a refreshing pint on the tube...

798. A 44-year-old man can't tell me not to.

799. Well, listen... I'll tell you what.

800. - Am I allowed to drink on the tube? - No, you're not.

801. I'll tell you why. There are people who drink on the Tube

802. with six-packs of beer,

803. who lol around in their seats, who swear and who curse

804. and who offer aggression towards their fellow passengers.

805. And I think that removing that possibility

806. actually makes the tube friendlier.

807. Although I have to admit it was rather wonderful

808. that thousands of people

809. had a party, hurling execration at my name, uh...

810. - Over the drinking. - Over that.

811. It took Margaret Thatcher ten years

812. to achieve that level of sort of uh...

813. of unpopularity with the youth vote.

814. So I thought it was quite something

815. to have pulled it off after only six weeks.

816. You're going to allow motorcycles to travel in bus lanes.

817. From January, there is going to be a trial

818. because I think it would smooth... smooth traffic flow,

819. provided those motorcyclists

820. remember that they can't, you know,

821. terrify vulnerable road-users such as cyclists.

822. What about bus drivers?

823. You cycle. Have you not been attacked by a bus driver?

824. You don't cycle round the streets of London.

825. - No. Because I have a car. - The other g... The, the little one. Um...

826. - Hammond. - Yes.

827. He... he... he knows what he's talking about.

828. I remember watching your show where he beat you hollow.

829. - At what? - Around London on his bike.

830. - You were going by speedboat. - Yes.

831. He was far quicker than you.

832. And he will confirm

833. that bus drivers are, in fact, extremely considerate.

834. What he actually says is they're a load of murdering

835. I speak from experience.

836. They... they look at their mirrors,

837. they know where you are

838. and, by comparison with HGV drivers,

839. they are extremely good.

840. No, I won't have that.

841. Ooh... - It's true.

842. Who thinks lorry drivers...

843. I'm a big fan of lorry drivers.

844. Who thinks lorry drivers are better...

845. Wait, wait.

846. Before I needlessly throw away the lorry-driver vote...

847. Which you just have.

848. I just want to say that they're not all bad...

849. But they need to look in their mirrors.

850. Let's move it on, okay?

851. - If I may. - Yes.

852. You were the motoring correspondent of GQ magazine.

853. - Si. Yes. - I believe.

854. Do you know how many...

855. - Where's this going?

856. Do you know how much you built up in parking tickets

857. on those cars that you tested?

858. I'll tell you something. I jolly well paid them.

859. - Because... - Ooh, now.

860. Your publisher argues with that.

861. - They paid for them. - Well, no.

862. There were two phases in our relationship.

863. There was the phase when they paid for the parking tickets

864. and there was the...

865. Do you know how much the phase cost them

866. when they were paying for them?

867. - No. - £4,500.

868. Well, that's...

869. So they may... so they may claim now.

870. Uh, now, can I just... While we're on the subject of this,

871. there's a photograph which I took...

872. We brought this up on the program a few weeks ago.

873. This is a message from you on the back of one of your buses.

874. "Changing gears at lower revs reduces your CO2 emissions

875. "and saves you money."

876. - Yes? - Very good.

877. - You've put that out. - Absolutely right.

878. Let me draw your attention to something you wrote in GQ magazine.

879. "The essence of it is, in my view,

880. "not to change up until you hit about 6,000 rpm."

881. Well, listen, in the case of the uh...

882. The Ferrari 430...

883. Which I was... I was... I admit I was driving.

884. It may very well be

885. that that was the cleanest, greenest,

886. most fuel-efficient way...

887. of changing gear.

888. But I think it's a very sensible message

889. and, you know, I...

890. On your very track the other day,

891. I was introduced to this wonderful electric car

892. - by the proprietor of this Dunsfold track. - Yes, yes.

893. And we've all got to go electric. We've got to go electric.

894. One p a mile. One penny a mile.

895. And where does the power come from, Boris?

896. - It comes from the plug.

897. In fact...

898. In fact, I'll tell you something.

899. You... No, it's going...

900. l, I ma... I make this prophecy...

901. I make this prophecy, Jeremy,

902. that the gear is going to be obsolete

903. and your program will have to change its name to Top Plug.

904. Can I just talk about the Olympics?

905. Do you mind? I know this is off-topic.

906. Talk about anything you like.

907. We're going to make a mess of it, aren't we?

908. No, we're going to... It's going to be fantastic.

909. - We're going to ruin it. - No.

910. We're going to do it brilliantly

911. but in our own particular, ingenious... British way.

912. I just have this vision of the opening ceremony

913. and there'll still be one council house in the middle of it

914. and a bloke going, "I'm not bloody moving."

915. You can just see it.

916. You know in Beijing, when it closed. You were there, of course.

917. The British sort of um, handing-over ceremony,

918. there was a bus and a girl from the X Factor.

919. Why didn't you have a Jaguar XKR and a DB9

920. and a Rolls Phantom?

921. People would have thought, "God, that looks like a great country,"

922. instead of, "That looks."

923. People loved that thing with Beckham kicking the football and...

924. And Jimmy Page, giving it some Led Zeppelin, I'm very fond of that.

925. But Jimmy Page

926. standing at the back of a burning Jaguar,

927. power-sliding round the...

928. That would have been fantastic.

929. Perhaps we should commission some of your ideas

930. for the, you know, the opening ceremony.

931. Let's do that. Can we do that?

932. I'm gonna ring Jimmy Page immediately.

933. Anyway, look, the lap. Uh, it was,

934. shall we be honest, pouring with rain.

935. And it didn't go quite as smoothly as perhaps you'd hoped.

936. Because most people, as you know,

937. spin off on the second-to-last corner.

938. Boris decided he was going to spin off on every single corner.

939. Who'd like to see Boris's practices?

940. - Yes! Yeah!

941. Shall we have a look, Boris?

942. Here we are. Second-to-last corner,

943. there is the traditional spot for going off.

944. And here we are on the final corner, Gambon, and off we go again.

945. Here we are now, on the actual... past the tyres...

946. I think the problem is, Boris, you can't turn left.

947. Oh, no, wait. You're going right here and...

948. Oh, dear, that's gone wrong, as well.

949. First person ever to go off on the follow-through.

950. Well done, Boris.

951. It was fantastic.

952. - I think that was great. - The at...

953. The atmospheric conditions were extremely challenging, I would say.

954. - It was your fault. - The weather?

955. - If you believe that cars cause global warming... - Ah.

956. Get a Range Rover, it will warm it up.

957. Anyway, you did eventually um, complete a lap.

958. Who'd like to see that?

959. Yes!

960. Let's have a look at Boris's lap here.

961. God, it really is wet, isn't it?

962. There's a determined looking man behind the wheel there.

963. Oh, that's soaking wet.

964. Trinny-and-Susannah wet.

965. Looking smooth.

966. Talking in Greek.

967. Oh, more funny noises.

968. And into the Hammerhead.

969. Can't even tell whether you are in the lines or not.

970. Ooh, yes, no, that's actually very well done through there.

971. Sounding patronising.

972. I apologise. This is good coming out.

973. Ooh, no, hit the rev limits.

974. Happy, were we, with our gear change?

975. That's lovely. Ooh...

976. Watch out for the rubber tyres.

977. The rubber tyres, yes.

978. Missed those.

979. Now, come on, Boris.

980. Foot down... Oh, you've slowed.

981. Come on. Faster, faster, faster, faster.

982. - And into Gambon. That was tricky.

983. Gone a bit wide but well held.

984. And there we are, ladies and gentlemen, across the line.

985. To be brutally honest, in conditions such as those

986. you aren't, realistically...

987. Keith Allen would be our fastest very wet lap on 1:51.

988. Bloody hell.

989. So there's no point hoping for that.

990. No. No. Well, l, I don't... I mean, I've no idea how fast it was. The...

991. Did it feel... I thought it was pretty smooth.

992. Pretty sluggish, pretty sluggish.

993. - You think so? - Yeah.

994. You did it in 1...

995. Which in itself, in conditions like that...

996. Yeah, I liked that word. Phew.

997. Would you like to stop the interview there?

998. Yeah.

999. That would be a good idea

1000. because the next bit is a 50...

1001. - 7.4. - Oh, that's all right.

1002. Which puts you, and give him a round of applause

1003. 'cause I think that's...

1004. I'm off the bottom, I'm off the bottom.

1005. Now I look at it, it's catastrophically bad.

1006. I'm afraid there's no other word.

1007. It's the slowest very wet. No, it's the same as Fiona Bruce.

1008. I feel very proud of that.

1009. - What's wrong with that? - Very proud.

1010. It's been marvellous having you here, Boris.

1011. Thank you very much.

1012. Thank you so much for coming. Ladies and gentlemen...

1013. - Boris Johnson. - Thank you.

1014. Now, every week on Top Gear we get a stack of letters.

1015. But this week, one in particular caught our eye.

1016. It's from a Mr Needham and it says,

1017. "Why do you not test cars properly any more? Have you forgotten how?"

1018. Now, this really hurt us, so we decided to take the new Ford Fiesta

1019. and do a proper road-test,

1020. like they used to on Top Gear in the old days.

1021. Yeah, to be honest, we were quite looking forward to it,

1022. but then, at the very last minute,

1023. Jeremy came in and said he wanted to do it.

1024. Right, there's the car in question, the new Fiesta.

1025. And what I thought I'd do

1026. is break the road-test down into segments

1027. so, hopefully, we'll cover all the bases.

1028. Well, behind the extremely pretty body,

1029. I'm sorry to report... there are one or two small problems.

1030. The back seats, for instance, do not fold flat.

1031. And other cars in this price range do have bigger boots.

1032. However, despite this,

1033. there is still room in the boot for a zebra's head.

1034. Pop the neck in first.

1035. There we are.

1036. So if you're a sort of Mafia game-ranger...

1037. that goes very nicely.

1038. And then, in the back seat, there's room

1039. for the traditional 2.2 children.

1040. I should say so.

1041. This new car may be the biggest Fiesta yet,

1042. but it's a whopping 40 kilograms lighter than the last model.

1043. That'll help at the pumps.

1044. There's even a 1.6 litre diesel model called the Econetic,

1045. which produces such a small amount of carbon dioxide,

1046. you pay no road tax on it at all.

1047. I wouldn't bother with that particular model, though,

1048. because it'll almost certainly be sh...

1049. Ever since the Ford Focus came along in 1998 or whenever it was...

1050. all Fords have had a driving feel

1051. that you just don't get in other cars of the same size or price.

1052. And this is no different.

1053. Here, as I go through the Hammerhead, for example,

1054. I can feel that it has a sort of

1055. Volkswagen feel of solidity

1056. and a Lotus feel of sportiness.

1057. Rare to get that combination.

1058. The steering has a linear response,

1059. under steer well tamed, no tread shuffle.

1060. It feels fabulous.

1061. And, if you go for the 1.6 litre

1062. Ti-VCT engine that I have in this test car,

1063. it's pretty fast, as well.

1064. Certainly, it will easily do 70 miles an hour, which is what I'm doing now.

1065. And that's the maximum speed

1066. that you can go in Britain, so that's good.

1067. Is this thorough enough for you, Mr Needham?

1068. I hope so, 'cause I think it's going well.

1069. Hopefully not.

1070. Quite apart from the fact it's made by Germans,

1071. most of the equipment on this car

1072. has been fitted to other Fords for years.

1073. And we've heard no horror stories.

1074. If you are worried, there's an entry-level version

1075. which has no equipment on it at all,

1076. so there's nothing to go wrong.

1077. Do you want that one, though? Really? Honestly?

1078. A basic model?

1079. 'Cause I bet that's also sh...

1080. 'Course it's easy to park.

1081. It's got windows.

1082. It's got a steering wheel.

1083. There we are.

1084. Next.

1085. This can happen.

1086. Oh, and it just has.

1087. Here we go!

1088. Good grip.

1089. Power!

1090. I am now breaking the speed limit indoors!

1091. He's right on my tail.

1092. This is where front-wheel drive comes in.

1093. Round the palm tree. There we go.

1094. He's taken out Costa Coffee!

1095. The baddie has made the classic baddie-error.

1096. He's got too much power.

1097. I've got 120 horsepower in this.

1098. You don't want any more than that on marble.

1099. The bears.

1100. Handbrake.

1101. Does he have to hit absolutely everything?

1102. Steering is light. The turning circle is good.

1103. I was once chased through a shopping centre

1104. in Putney, actually, in southwest London, by baddies.

1105. I had an original Mini and I must say that was very good.

1106. Just cut through British Home Stores.

1107. Dab of the handbrake and there we go.

1108. Mmm.

1109. The Corvette is stuck in British Home Stores.

1110. Turning circle's not good enough.

1111. Okay, I'm getting away!

1112. Yeah, this is the roof.

1113. 6,000 rpm. Come on!

1114. Instruments are superb. I mean really sharp.

1115. Handbrake!

1116. The headlamps are brilliant.

1117. Excellent range on full beam.

1118. Look at him. Look at him.

1119. He'll never find me if I go through here.

1120. Oh, he is doing.

1121. The upshot is that after half an hour,

1122. I got out of the shopping centre.

1123. And the Vette didn't.

1124. Yes.

1125. Very.

1126. Well, prices start at around £8,500

1127. but you need 11,000 to get a decent mid-range model.

1128. So, if you have £11,000 to spend on a car, then yes, you can.

1129. But if you've only got 40p, then...

1130. no, you can't.

1131. Although it is quite large for a supermini, very large, in fact,

1132. it still fits on the Marines' LCVP mark 5

1133. landing craft with room to spare.

1134. And now um...

1135. If you'll forgive me, we are approaching the beach, the gunfire has started.

1136. Lads, do you wanna mount up?

1137. That gunfire can be quite loud, can't it?

1138. If you get that door shut...

1139. Barely hear it now.

1140. Hey, look at that!

1141. The smoke grenades fit perfectly in the cup-holders.

1142. What about the glove-boxes? How much ammo

1143. can you get in there? Just two mags.

1144. The windscreen is heated but not bulletproof.

1145. Stand by the beach!

1146. - You cold? - Yeah, I am.

1147. - And shoot!

1148. Let's go!

1149. - Fire! - Go on!

1150. Come on, Fiesta!

1151. Oh, that was quite a lot deeper than I thought.

1152. Look at this for a beach-assault craft!

1153. Oh, yeah, you've got a bit of water coming in there.

1154. - Come on! - Are we nearly there yet?

1155. The kids are being annoying. Shoot them.

1156. We're going, boys.

1157. Do you want to just shoot from in here?

1158. Would that be more comfortable?

1159. 'Cause the electric windows... I'll just quietly put...

1160. Go, go, go!

1161. Shoot the enemy in the middle of its face.

1162. Carry on. There's a plucky chap. Well done.

1163. These carpets are excellent.

1164. No evidence at all of the marines' muddy boots.

1165. Release!

1166. So, there you are, Mr Needham.

1167. The most thorough test of a car

1168. ever undertaken on British television.

1169. The Fiesta's come through with flying colours.

1170. Drive safely.

1171. - That was admirably thorough. - Well done.

1172. Foot on the bonnet at the end. Traditional.

1173. Jumper. All of it.

1174. Anyway, that uh... that's all we've got time for this week.

1175. Next week, for reasons we don't understand,

1176. we're on at nine o'clock.

1177. So we'll see you then, unless you're watching this on Dave in February,

1178. in the middle of the afternoon,

1179. in which case we hope you get a job soon.

1180. Take care. See you soon, bye!