Top Gear 12x7

1. Tonight, I look at the future of sports cars.

2. James investigates the future of, quite literally, everything.

3. Hello!

4. Hello, everybody. Hello and welcome.

5. Welcome. Thank you so much.

6. Now, we begin tonight...

7. We begin tonight with a tribute, a birthday tribute, in fact,

8. to Top Gear's favourite motor sport.

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

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

11. Yes, we're here to light some candles,

12. 50 of them, in fact, for British touring cars.

13. And in that 50 years,

14. show me another sport where there's been more close racing,

15. more overtaking and more amazing driving.

16. Nothing comes close for excitement.

17. Oh, my goodness!

18. Touring car racing was created to help the motor industry

19. shift metal in the post-war years.

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

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

22. Tyres, they were skinny, very, and also cross ply,

23. which means you went everywhere sideways.

24. Roy James, the legendary getaway driver

25. for the Great Train Robbers, was a particular fan.

26. But if he was stealing a Jaguar for a getaway car,

27. he always made a point of taking one that had been prepared

28. for touring car racing.

29. But then, in the mid '60s, the Jags had their noses put out of joint

30. because there was an invasion.

31. The Mustang, the Falcon and Chevy Chimera.

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

33. But the Yank invasion did bring about

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

35. We call it the David and Goliath effect.

36. Basically, you had small-engined nimble Escorts and Minis

37. up against 5-litre V8 monsters.

38. And with the big boys fast on the straights,

39. but the minnows quicker through the corners,

40. the racing was incredible.

41. Graham is challenging for the lead

42. and Marshall is challenging for second.

43. What a race this is!

44. Naturally, the Minis, being plucky Brits,

45. were involved in quite a lot of this David and Goliath stuff.

46. And in their over-eagerness,

47. demonstrated that other great trait of touring cars, crashing.

48. But BTCC isn't just about crashing.

49. It has many other fine qualities.

50. It is, in fact, the only sport where, over the years,

51. we've seen loads of F1 superstars up close in showroom cars.

52. Graham Hill.

53. Jim Clark.

54. Nigel Mansell.

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

56. Mind you, even though they were racing at much slower speeds than in F1,

57. that didn't stop them crashing.

58. Here, for example, is Mansell crashing.

59. And here is Gabriele Tarquini crashing.

60. Oh, it's Tarquini!

61. But let's not get hung up on crashing.

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

63. Everyone agrees that Ford brought motor sport to the working man,

64. and some say they did it through rallying.

65. But I disagree.

66. I say they started this social revolution through touring cars.

67. Escorts, Cortinas and Capris.

68. Over the decades, they had their lot.

69. But their crowning glory was this, the Sierra Cosworth.

70. 2 litres, turbocharged up to 550 brake horsepower.

71. In the late '80s, it was invincible.

72. It won 43 races.

73. The Fords were hungry for wins and inevitably, in their over-eagerness,

74. there were some crashes.

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

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

77. Especially during the 1990s, a decade when all the engines were capped at 2 litres

78. and nearly every manufacturer was taking part.

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

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

81. any one of three drivers could have won the championship.

82. And just look at the kind of racing that produced.

83. One of the contenders, Steve Soper,

84. having been punted off and now fighting his way from the back,

85. drove out of his skin.

86. Soper goes through to fourth position inside the Vauxhall.

87. Tim Harvey in the second BMW is inside, clearing the bridge.

88. He's gone through. But John Cleland is attacking Soper.

89. He's up on two wheels. Soper holds his line.

90. He attacks again as they go into the right...

91. And they both spin!

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

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

94. naturally, there were a few spills along the way.

95. Here.

96. - And here. Oh, look at that!

97. And here.

98. And here.

99. So, happy birthday, touring cars.

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

101. I love it. I love it.

102. The only problem is...

103. The only problem is, for the last, what,

104. two or three years, it hasn't really been as good as it used to be.

105. Well, it's gonna be worse next year because Seat's pulled out

106. so it's just gonna be Vauxhalls.

107. I've just thought of a way it can be rescued.

108. - Oh, God. - No, no, no, no.

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

110. Yeah, I'm sure, I will, but I just bet it's not very realistic.

111. Let me run this past you, okay?

112. You line all the cars up on the grid,

113. and then just before the flag drops, set them all on fire.

114. - Yeah, like I said,

115. - not very realistic. - Think, think, think!

116. You can either drive slowly,

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

118. or very fast to try and put the flames out.

119. - Imagine, who here would like to see that?

120. That's 100% of British people,

121. want the BTCC to become the Burning Touring Car Championship.

122. Yeah. Shall we do the news now?

123. Right, the news.

124. Now, a lot of people are very angry that Jeremy and I may have

125. accidently set fire to a Morris Marina that we bought last week.

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

127. Now this has... This has enraged the Morris Marina Owners' Club.

128. - The what? - Morris Marina Owners' Club.

129. Ever heard of an organisation you want to be a member of less than that?

130. What I've got here are some of the things they've been saying

131. on the Morris Marina Owners' Club website.

132. "Top Gear can eat and die."

133. A bit strong?

134. "Clarkson and his cronies should be hung, drawn and quartered,

135. "or is that too good for them?"

136. It should be too, T-O-O, just small point.

137. This just goes on and on.

138. This is one of my favourites, "I will send the BBC an e-mail

139. "and I don't care if they don't read it."

140. - Well, they did! Ha!

141. They really are very, very angry, aren't they?

142. Can I just say...

143. Joking aside, we don't like to upset any member of our audience,

144. no matter how mad they might be.

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

146. In fact, we've gone one better than that, because

147. just this week, we've been out and we've bought another Marina, okay?

148. And, uh, it's a beauty. It really is, absolutely.

149. Low mileage, leather seats...

150. No, there's no, "Ooh!" about it... Leather seats...

151. We've brought it down, we got it here. Look.

152. This is live feed out to our track.

153. And that is going to be preserved as an example of what...

154. - Oh, God!

155. God!

156. Oh, no.

157. Somebody's dropped an old piano on it.

158. How unlucky was that?

159. This is happening all the time.

160. Now, it's always happening at our track.

161. - It rains pianos here. - Yeah.

162. You know what is this, it's that new helicopter piano removal company,

163. that moved in next door.

164. - Careless Airways. - Yeah, they're rubbish.

165. Yeah, slapdash services.

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

167. We'll have to get another one.

168. No, just let's be honest, actually.

169. I'm sorry to really bang on about this,

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

171. You don't need to preserve two.

172. - Well, it's not like you need to preserve a breeding pair. - Exactly!

173. You need one as a warning from history.

174. Right...

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

176. it's time for the annual Top Gear

177. look at Christmas presents with a motoring theme bit.

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

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

180. Go on then, what have you got?

181. Starting with this, okay, it's an eco-calculator from Renault.

182. Now, you charge it up by doing this.

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

184. Oh, I don't know, I think some people just find this sort of thing

185. comes more naturally to them.

186. Renault think it comes naturally to their customers.

187. - So there you are. That's that.

188. Now, smokers, are you worried

189. about the excess space around your existing pink metallic ashtray?

190. Are you a motoring enthusiast?

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

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

193. - What is that? - Look at that.

194. Who would have thought pink and red would be a good idea going together?

195. You think that's his biggest problem?

196. You're worried about the colour scheme?

197. Look at these, these are little remote-controlled cars that we've been sent.

198. You turn them on. They make a bit of a din because,

199. for reasons we can't work out, they stick to vertical surfaces,

200. and then you can drive them about.

201. Now, this is great, okay, this is fantastic.

202. Except, of course, us three decided to see how big the range was.

203. Earlier in the week, we decided to try them out

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

205. So, if you were watching The One Show last night, you probably saw this, okay.

206. 'Cause they're in the office above us.

207. supermarkets, along with every other kind of store,

208. try really hard this time of the year

209. to stop us counting the pennies in favour of throwing financial...

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

211. Now, is it me? Yes!

212. We're so rubbish at Christmas.

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

214. - It's what? Shewee.

215. How can you know that?

216. Have you got one?

217. Our friends bought us one as a present.

218. This lady knows the answer.

219. This is a Shewee.

220. Yeah, they're with you! They're with you!

221. You don't know, though, you're with me. The idea is, okay,

222. that if you, during a long motorway journey, desperate for a wee,

223. you undo your trousers...

224. Ladies, this is ladies... This is ladies.

225. It comes with a little bag...

226. I'm disturbed by what I'm seeing!

227. - And you fill it up.

228. The only thing is, okay, the literature here... The literature here, okay?

229. It says it can also be used on aeroplanes,

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

231. - Queuing? - Queuing.

232. - What, in the post office? - Yes.

233. Does anybody here want to see...

234. Any girls want to see if they can have a wee in this bag

235. without the person next to them noticing?

236. What I like is, if you read through the marketing stuff on the box,

237. there's a lot of, kind of "Yeah, feminists! Go on, go, girls!

238. "You get it because men have had this for ages, it's your right now."

239. And then it goes on about using this thing

240. to wee in post office queues and wherever

241. As if they imagine that those of us who've had one for years,

242. it's like a natural "hewee" that we're born with...

243. What? I've had that for 38 years

244. and I've never got it out in a post office queue to have a wee.

245. Right, I'd like to demonstrate this.

246. It's what I like to think of as the perfect social leper kit.

247. Now partly because it's a belt-mounted

248. leatherette smoker's pouch, so you can put your cigarettes and your lighter in.

249. But, it's like a double whammy because then it comes in with a really big right hook.

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

251. It's an MG smoker's pouch.

252. Which means you'll walk into your favourite pub

253. and they'll say, "You, outside."

254. "I wasn't going to light up."

255. "No, but you might talk about MGs. Get out!"

256. It's shameful.

257. I have to say, as well, okay?

258. MG branding is out of hand, MG socks, MG underpants,

259. MG overnight bag, here, which is full

260. of all the MG things we could lay our hands on yesterday.

261. Uh, we're gonna play a game now.

262. We're gonna see how much of it we can get

263. on to Richard Hammond in 30 seconds.

264. No, we are. Who'd like to see that? Anybody?

265. Somebody start the clock. May, you're going to have to give us a hand here.

266. - All right, I'm taking me jacket off. - Ready, steady, go!

267. Let's dress Richard Hammond. Where's the belt?

268. Where's the bloody belt gone?

269. - Go, go, go. - Arms up!

270. Shoes... Hammond, Hammond, Hammond. Slippers, slippers, slippers.

271. - Hat, hat, hat. - Slippers.

272. Belt, belt, belt.

273. Come on! Get the apron!

274. - Right, shoe off, shoe off. - Shoe off!

275. Give me the apron, apron, apron...

276. It's all brokered!

277. - It's okay, it's okay. - Keep going!

278. It's okay.

279. What have you done to our tree?

280. Look at our tree!

281. Yeah, that might have happened.

282. - Look! - Still on.

283. - He's done it. - I've got you in the face.

284. Here, James, you can keep the fairy.

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

286. Right, back to it.

287. Actually, I just, can I just make a point?

288. Can I just make a point? It's a serious one, actually.

289. Grandparents, if you've got grandkids who like cars, what they like is cars, okay?

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

291. No, apart from anything else, name stuff is often a bit of a waste of money.

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

293. If you get a bottle of red wine with the Alpha Romeo logo on it,

294. it's 15 quid.

295. Ooh, I can beat that, mate. You see, this is an ice scraper, okay?

296. It's covered in Santa's pubes.

297. It's got Saab written on it.

298. £38.50.

299. - What, for that? - It's given us an idea, this.

300. See this, this is a plate of sick.

301. Ugh!

302. Oh, it is, okay, utterly worthless,

303. but if I just pop a BMW badge on it, £13.80.

304. It does work, this sort of branding.

305. - This wizard's sleeve, for instance.

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

307. This pork sword...

308. James, don't do the pork sword!

309. This cock...

310. - Has it got four rings on it? - Yes, it has.

311. - Put this cock in your wizard's sleeve... - Thank you.

312. - Okay. Okay. - It's all gone horribly wrong.

313. Okay, that is the end of the news,

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

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

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

317. I mean, take the Toyota Prius here and the G-Wiz, very earnest.

318. But there's nothing here to make an ordinary human being go,

319. "Whoa, yeah, I want one of those."

320. Now, however, there's an eco-electric car which does.

321. It's called the Tesla.

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

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

324. However, you are going to look like a bit of a berk

325. driving around in a low-slung convertible sports car

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

327. The thing is, though, that Tesla say it is pretty nippy.

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

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

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

331. There's no noise at all, but anyway put it into drive.

332. It has a one speed gearbox.

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

334. We're in drive and I'm ready.

335. God almighty!

336. Wave goodbye to dial up

337. and say hello to the world of broadband motoring.

338. 12,500 rpm, I cannot believe this!

339. That's biblically quick!

340. This car is electric! Literally.

341. The top speed may only be 125.

342. But there's so much torque, it does 0-60 in 3.9 seconds.

343. Not bad from a motor that's the size of a watermelon

344. and only has one moving part.

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

346. Filling a normal Elise with petrol costs £40.

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

348. It's not what you'd call quiet,

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

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

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

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

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

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

355. but it has 6,831 of them.

356. So Tesla say, even if you drive quickly,

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

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

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

360. The chassis is aluminium and the body is carbon fibre,

361. which, of course, is very light,

362. but with that big lump of battery in the middle, it's kind of like me,

363. thin at one end, thinning at the other,

364. and then sort of with a big, fat bit in the middle.

365. Couple that to wheels which are set up for rolling resistance

366. rather than handling, and the result is this.

367. The Elise will squeak past in the Hammerhead.

368. However, come the next straight...

369. Yes, come on! Come on!

370. Hello! Bye!

371. The volthead has overtaken the petrolhead.

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

373. This car then really was shaping up to be something wonderful,

374. but then...

375. - Oh!

376. Although Tesla say it will do 200 miles,

377. we worked out that on our track, it would run out after just 55 miles.

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

379. Okay, to fill the tank on a normal car takes what, a couple of minutes?

380. To fully recharge the batteries in this

381. from a normal 13 amp socket, like that,

382. takes 16 hours.

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

384. And before green people say, that's a price worth paying,

385. let's not forget, shall we, where the electricity in this socket is coming from.

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

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

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

389. That's 25 days.

390. And that's assuming it's windy, which it isn't.

391. Perhaps, then, the best idea is to have two Teslas,

392. so you can use one while the other is charging.

393. Unfortunately, that is quite an expensive solution

394. because Teslas cost £92,000 each.

395. 92,000.

396. They're three times more expensive than Elises.

397. That's madness!

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

399. Oh, I don't believe this.

400. The motor's overheating and I've got reduced power.

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

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

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

404. I did think that the Teslas would bring

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

406. Didn't think it would be this much peace and quiet, though.

407. That is the sound of silence.

408. What we have here then is an astonishing technical achievement.

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

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

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

412. It's not good, though, is it?

413. No, I think the price will come down.

414. You know, once... What's he called?

415. Brad Cruise and Leonardo Di Clooney,

416. once they've bought 600 each, then the price will drop.

417. And I guess, once they've made a few of them,

418. they'll get better at the reliability.

419. Well, that's as maybe, but, and as I aim to demonstrate later on in the show,

420. battery-powered electric cars will soon die altogether.

421. No, we're looking forward to that film, well, I am anyway.

422. Now, however, we gotta find how fast the Tesla goes round our track.

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

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

425. A point that was proved last week,

426. when he was caught in the back of shot by an eagle-eyed viewer.

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

428. Right, there he goes, to the sound of... Some sporty silence.

429. It is quite eerie, okay. He's powering hard now down to the first corner.

430. Eco-tyres squealing, steady on, umbrella boy!

431. More Morse nonsense there to excite the Internet.

432. He's looking very quick through Chicago and it's the Hammerhead next.

433. Hard on the brakes.

434. Sure doubt the Tesla has a system that uses energy from the brakes

435. to top up the batteries.

436. Feels a bit weird actually because it gives you more braking than you'd expect,

437. but that hasn't fazed The Stig.

438. Now, time to turn up the dimmer switch,

439. through the Follow-through, does he lift? Hard to tell, actually.

440. But that's fast past the tyres.

441. Shame it doesn't come with a CD of V8 noises, really.

442. Now, there's two corners left, really slings it in there.

443. And here we are in Gambon... Oh, look, maybe there are a few Elise genes.

444. And across the line!

445. Okay.

446. It did it...

447. It did it in 1:27.2 on a mildly moist circuit, so look at that.

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

449. And that is incredible. But also, as James will explain later,

450. completely irrelevant.

451. Now, we all know the problems faced every day by the elderly.

452. At home, watching television, something comes on, they don't want to see,

453. they want to change the channel, "Can't reach!"

454. So they have to build up enough momentum in their rocking chair

455. until eventually they can reach forwards and get it.

456. And that's hard if you've got arthritis.

457. However, you can now wave goodbye

458. to the misery of being forced to watch Adrian Chiles

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

460. It's actually the same Corvette engine that we used a couple of weeks ago

461. to power the food blender.

462. Actually, didn't you say you were going to use it to power a Stannah stair lift?

463. Yes, I did. Sadly the test went wrong.

464. Used an old lady and her spine, it came out of the top of her head.

465. It was...

466. Anyway, look, let's not dwell on who killed who,

467. because it's time now to test this one.

468. Yes, I think we'll use a dummy this time.

469. Yes, good idea with the dummy.

470. Now, I should explain, okay, normally the accelerator

471. for the engine would be on the chair itself,

472. so the elderly person could simply push it there.

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

474. Now the idea, we start up the engine,

475. the chair begins to rock

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

477. So are we ready to try that out?

478. Yeah!

479. Here we go.

480. I think that didn't work very well because...

481. No, listen!

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

483. Because, the noise is so great you'd never hear the television, would you?

484. Yeah, there is that and the fact that the old lady has disintegrated!

485. Her head's come off.

486. I tell you what we'll do now, okay?

487. We'll put a star in a reasonably-priced car.

488. Now my guest tonight has said that he doesn't like it when women

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

490. booming out in his big Welsh way to the audience.

491. He's never said anything about men though.

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

493. Sir Tom Jones!

494. Hello, Tom!

495. I can hardly believe it!

496. A legend!

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

498. Thank you.

499. I never thought the day would come when I'd be interviewing Sir Tom Jones.

500. - Ah, well! - Here. But we are.

501. - And can I begin, if I may, with your voice? - Yes.

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

503. - Ah, I still do. - You still do?

504. Yeah, sometimes, it all depends if I record with somebody

505. that I haven't recorded with before and they don't know how much volume I use.

506. 'Cause I remember that Perfect Day song,

507. you'll probably remember, a while back?

508. The BBC did it, where they got everybody to sing a different line.

509. And you came right at the end.

510. It was that marvellous thing. It came on the radio,

511. I went, "Oh, I really this." You turn it up and everybody's warbling away

512. and you always forgot Tom's about to come on,

513. and he'd blow the bloody doors off. The car's like...

514. Blood pouring out of my ears, and so on.

515. - Does age diminish it? - Not at all, no, no.

516. - It doesn't? - No, not with me, anyway. Thank God.

517. - Do you maintain it? Do you eat lozenges? - Yeah, Vocalzones.

518. - What are they called? - It's a Vocalzone.

519. Is that one of those black things?

520. - Yeah, yeah. - It tastes disgusting!

521. No, they're great, they're unbelievable.

522. - I've been... - They're made in England. They could be great things.

523. Made in England? I don't think you'd like that!

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

525. Why do you think the Welsh are such good singers?

526. Ah, maybe it's something to do with the Welsh air? The Welsh water?

527. But you're in Los Angeles now! Unless you import it.

528. Well, I get...

529. Big pipe over the Atlantic, piping it in from the valleys.

530. From the valleys.

531. I was looking into Welsh things the other day.

532. There's a type though, isn't there?

533. It's the Aled Jones, it's the Harry Secombe, it's the Max Boyce.

534. - Then you've got Duffy. - Duffy, quite right.

535. - Who isn't your daughter. - Not as far as I know.

536. Now you've got a new album out, which is, of course, why you're here,

537. - to tell us all about it. - Mmm-hmm.

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

539. Um, well, I co-wrote most of the songs.

540. - You wrote them? - I co-wrote, with other writers,

541. but there's a lot of me in there.

542. Like, when I asked Bono to write me a song

543. and he said he would like to write one for me, but he would like it to be about me.

544. So, he asked me some questions, I gave him some information

545. and he wrote Sugar Daddy.

546. - That's the name of the song. - What questions did he ask you

547. to come up with the answer of Sugar Daddy?

548. He asked me what I did before I got into show business.

549. He remembered when he was a kid and saw me come on television

550. and he liked the shirts and the shoes.

551. So those things are in there.

552. The lines are in the song. So that's what led to this album.

553. - Have you had... - No.

554. - Nothing? - Well, I had my nose fixed.

555. - Oh, did you? Why, what was the matter with it? - It was broken.

556. - Oh, was it? - Yeah.

557. - Vinnie Jones? - Yeah, yeah.

558. You know, a lot of that. It was a Welsh kiss!

559. - What, when you were a kid? - Yeah, when I was a teenager.

560. - What about the barnet, the hair? - Yes.

561. If you were to grow it long, would it be like as dreadful as mine is?

562. - Uh, I would think so. - Is it the same? Have you got the same problem...

563. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, curly hair. - Basically, pubes.

564. - Pubic hair.

565. I may have got off topic here.

566. Chest hair, your chest hair. Is it true that you once insured it for $7 million?

567. - No, no, it's not true. - It's not true.

568. No, I don't know where the rumour started, but people were asking me about it,

569. - they thought it was true. - Of course, one thing that isn't a rumour.

570. The knickers thing, okay, the girls throwing knickers at you.

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

572. didn't she get fed up with you coming home every night draped in underwear?

573. No. No, I never took any home.

574. I think the band used to eat it or something, I don't know.

575. They used to...

576. I did ask if any men want to throw any pants at you.

577. - We'll see how that goes.

578. Uh-oh!

579. - You're well to look frightened! - Yeah, I bet.

580. This audience, anything could happen.

581. - Now, cars, okay? - Mmm-hmm.

582. How long have you been driving for?

583. 'Cause obviously in Wales there wouldn't have been any cars when you were growing up.

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

585. - Horse and carts it was. - But it would have been?

586. But there were some horse and carts around.

587. - So what was the first car? - A Jaguar, a 3.8 Jag.

588. - And what became of that? - I crashed it on Park Lane.

589. But it was, erm, I was banned, I was banned in Wales from driving

590. because I was driving without a license and insurance and stuff and they...

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

592. I had to wait until I got a driver's licence

593. and funnily enough, that's the last time I drove a manual shift car.

594. - And what do you drive now? - Uh, I've got a Mercedes 55 SL.

595. - Ooh, I used to have one of those. - AMG.

596. - Yeah, I know. - It actually sounds like you!

597. - It's funny because I heard you said that. - It does.

598. - You start it every morning. "Is Tom Jones here?" - Yeah.

599. You actually live in the exhaust pipes!

600. - Anyway, look. The lap, how did it go? - Well, it was great.

601. I mean, as I say, though, I hadn't been, you know,

602. clutching and changing since the '60s.

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

604. - Yeah. - So anyway, so I was having a few words with it.

605. Yes.

606. Stig says you were an incredibly diligent pupil.

607. You apparently were an hour and a half getting lessons, which I think is...

608. Yeah, because I wanted to be sure how to do it.

609. Especially at that kind of speed, because there were a few places there

610. where, as you know, you go up into the fourth gear...

611. - The Follow-through? - ... and you flat out.

612. You know why it's called the Follow-through?

613. Yeah, 'cause you follow through.

614. - And then you get... - And the tyres as well, 'cause that's also flat out.

615. Ooh, yeah!

616. I can't believe I'm sitting here, talking cornering with Tom Jones!

617. How could this have happened?

618. Anyway, who here would like to see Sir Tom's lap?

619. Yeah!

620. Okay, let's play the tape, see how you got on.

621. It's a bright crisp day and a very good start.

622. Okay.

623. There we go! Hu-argh!

624. That's first, first! - Yeah.

625. - There was one in there somewhere...

626. That's tidy, nothing wrong with that.

627. Absolutely nothing wrong with the first corner.

628. There we go, swearing at his tools.

629. Brake!

630. Yeah. Good plan, very good plan at the 50 board.

631. Okay, here we go, this is... Do you go outside the line? No, that...

632. That's not bad. - You can be proud of that corner.

633. Oh, here's the fast one coming up.

634. Are they driving gloves? - Yeah.

635. He's wearing driving... Look at this!

636. That's flat through the tyres.

637. - Here we go. Looking nervous!

638. - Whoa! That's very good! - Yeah.

639. Oh, hang on, we've slowed down a bit here but it's a good line.

640. It's a good line through there and...

641. I was cocking up a little bit there.

642. Bit wide through there, but other than the last two corners,

643. that is a great lap.

644. - That is a great lap.

645. Now...

646. So...

647. These are the people who have been here before.

648. - Where do you think you've come? - I don't know, I've no idea.

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

650. - You weren't thinking about the time. - Just getting through it.

651. Well, let's have a look, shall we?

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

653. Right.

654. You did it, Tom Jones, in 1:52.2, which puts you...

655. There! There!

656. - Let's look for some good news in that. - Okay.

657. Has anybody who's ever performed in Vegas been faster than that?

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

659. He's a nice chap.

660. Yeah, lovely.

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

662. So there we are, you are the fastest man who's ever performed in Vegas

663. to go round our track.

664. Ladies and gentlemen, Sir Tom Jones!

665. You star. Thank you. Thank you so much.

666. So let's move it on to the glittering, star-studded

667. Top Gear Awards for Motoring Achievement 2008.

668. Yeah! Here we go!

669. Right, this is the award for the best noise we've heard all year.

670. These are the nominations.

671. The V8 bellow of the new Mercedes CLK Black.

672. The V8 bellow of the Ferrari Scuderia.

673. And the V8 bellow of the Alfa Romeo 8C.

674. Well, the winner of this category.

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

676. No, actually. The winner is...

677. - Will Young's new single! Yes! - Yes!

678. Yes! Yes!

679. He actually wells up when he hears it.

680. Those are real tears in his eyes.

681. These are tears of rage.

682. - You love him, just admit it. - No.

683. - You do. - It is a good single, though, actually. Have you heard it?

684. See? He goes on about it all the time!

685. - 'Cause his boyfriend sung a little song. - Just let...

686. Does he sing it to you? Does he?

687. Can we get on with our awards? James.

688. And now, the John Sergeant Award.

689. This is awarded to the celebrity who performs the best dance

690. on learning their time in the star in a reasonably priced car lap.

691. There is only one nomination and it's Jay Kay for this.

692. - And the winner is... It's Jay Kay! Yes!

693. Ha, ha!

694. He's here!

695. That's the one. Thanks.

696. Tell you what, mate.

697. Since you're actually here...

698. - Merry Christmas. - Nice to see you.

699. Merry Christmas.

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

701. James has it and it's for...

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

703. The fastest lap of the year!

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

705. Proud that he won that and stayed there.

706. - That's lovely. - Can I just...

707. - You actually spent some money on that. - No, we didn't.

708. No, we haven't.

709. Can I just ask, a couple of weeks ago, were you watching when Kevin McCloud came here

710. and I sat and went, "You did it in 1:45 point..."

711. What was the shape of your bottom when you thought you were going to be beaten?

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

713. - Like that, yeah.

714. Could you tell it was a quick lap?

715. Yeah. You could see it was. Where did he come from?

716. I don't know. He came from Grand Designs and damn nearly...

717. Unbelievable!

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

719. - That's a load of bollocks!

720. - Thank you very much. - Ladies and gentlemen,

721. - the fastest man round our track, Jay Kay. - Thank you very much.

722. - Well done. - Thank you.

723. Right. Moving on.

724. This now is the award for the Most Painful Injury to a Motoring-Related Body Part.

725. Nominations are

726. Jeremy's neck in the Nissan GTR.

727. - Whoa, yes.

728. Quite a powerful contender that one.

729. The next nomination, Jeremy's neck

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

731. - Sorry, different response. - Very different reactions there.

732. Yeah, astonishingly different reactions to that.

733. And then, um, because we need a third nomination,

734. um, Jeremy's flick on the ear just then.

735. - I'm sure that was very, very nasty. - That hurt!

736. Yeah, well, that was the third nomination.

737. Actually, it isn't the winner, because the winner

738. of the award for the Most Painful Injury to a Motoring-Related Body Part is,

739. Max Mosley's bottom.

740. - Hang on. Whoa, wait. No, whoa, whoa! Okay.

741. We might be in the law courts!

742. Right. Moving on to our next award.

743. It is now the Most Embarrassing Flirting on Television award.

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

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

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

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

748. Have you ever heard?

749. - Okay, James, what was that? - That's the worst, it really is.

750. I'd forgotten how bad it was.

751. You have to start with "Hello".

752. - What's next? - Right. In second place,

753. Jeremy Clarkson, for this inept, charm-offensive

754. on an American girl in our studio, only the other week.

755. - American. - You're American?

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

757. - It was direct. It was a compliment. - Isn't that flattering?

758. It was a compliment.

759. But that's not the winning entry, because the winner is...

760. Jeremy Clarkson interviewing Will Young, here he is.

761. Here he is admiring his physique.

762. Let's have a look. Let's remind ourselves...

763. Let's remind ourselves of when the magic first bloomed for us all.

764. Here it is.

765. I've just got arms like pipe cleaners. You're quite trim, actually.

766. I mean not trim, fit.

767. - Not fit. I'm saying all the wrong things.

768. You're giggling! You're giggling! He's giggling!

769. That was a giggle! That was a giggle!

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

771. You giggled. You did giggle.

772. Now, it's time for our coveted Car of the Year.

773. Okay now. We're not just looking for a car we all like,

774. because then it would be a Range Rover. Again.

775. So this year, we decided to award the award

776. to a car that does things better than cars which cost a lot more, okay?

777. So the nominations are...

778. The Nissan GTR, which goes round the Nurburgring

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

780. - Go on! - Go on!

781. The Ford Fiesta.

782. Makes a perfect landing craft and for a lot less

783. than the £1.2 million jet boats the Royal Marines use at the moment.

784. And the Fiat 500 Abarth, for being everything you want in a £100,000 car

785. for just 13,500.

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

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

788. It's dweeby, it's geeky, it's ugly, it's old,

789. and none of us would have one in a million years.

790. But it is our Car of the Year. Ladies and gentlemen, the Caterham R500.

791. Deserving winner?

792. The marvellous thing about awarding this car our top prize

793. is that we can now look, once again,

794. at that incredible lap it did last week at the hands of The Stig.

795. Here we go.

796. Look at the way it corners! This is proper, old-fashioned racing car handling.

797. This is not grip. Look at that.

798. You actually have to drive that car.

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

800. That is the perfect Stig car. Look at it.

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

802. My favourite is when he comes out of Hammerhead, okay?

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

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

805. So there we are, everybody. Top Gear's Car of the Year.

806. A wonderful thing. I'm delighted. I think we did all right.

807. - A horrible car. - But it's brilliant.

808. Now, this has been a little bit of a mad show, ladies and gentlemen,

809. so I thought I would introduce a note of sensibleness.

810. You see, in the last series, we talked about a car which we said,

811. would be the most important one for 100 years.

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

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

814. First, I had to fly to Los Angeles,

815. which, as we know from the song, is a great big freeway.

816. That makes it the perfect place to test the most important car

817. since the car was invented.

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

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

820. But if Raymond Baxter, God rest him,

821. were here with us today, he'd be wearing a perfectly-cut suit

822. and he'd be saying that this is the future of motoring.

823. And that's certainly not because of the way it looks,

824. because it looks just like a car.

825. There's more normality, too.

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

827. This is remarkably like driving around in a Honda.

828. What the Clarity is, is an electric car,

829. but it's nothing like the Tesla that Jeremy drove earlier.

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

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

832. But there are no batteries.

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

834. And that takes the form of a hydrogen fuel cell.

835. And now, viewers, you'd better brace yourselves.

836. Either that or turn over to the soft porn and Nazi sharks on Channel 5,

837. because I'm about to explain all this.

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

839. but instead of filling it with petrol or diesel,

840. it is filled with compressed hydrogen.

841. Now this hydrogen is combined with oxygen from the air in the fuel cell.

842. And in a rather complicated and boring way, that makes electricity.

843. That electricity is then used to drive the electric motor,

844. which turns the front wheels, like it might do in a perfectly normal

845. front-wheel drive car.

846. The whole process is controlled... Ahem!

847. The whole process is controlled by a box of electronics under the bonnet

848. where the engine would normally be.

849. And that really is all there is to it.

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

851. that's put the Clarity in a different league to every other electric car.

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

853. that take all night to recharge

854. and then take half a minute to reach their maximum speed of 40,

855. and then run out of juice miles from anywhere.

856. Prius? Sucker!

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

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

859. You fill it just like a petrol car.

860. And the only difference is, because this is under pressure,

861. you have to lock it with this lever. Terribly important, that.

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

863. In America, hydrogen costs roughly the same as petrol.

864. But unlike petrol, it'll never run out,

865. because it's the most abundant element in the universe.

866. That whole process has taken somewhere between two and three minutes

867. and has given me another 270 miles of driving.

868. And there's another bonus with hydrogen.

869. The only emission from this car is water,

870. because that's what you get when you mix H and O, H2O, water.

871. Of course, I'm not going to pretend that a four-door saloon

872. is as much fun to drive as that Tesla.

873. But that said, the Clarity isn't bad.

874. I mean, it develops 136 horsepower.

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

876. and 0-60 in just over nine seconds,

877. which is right on the money for a family car.

878. At least in this, we're belting through the mountains,

879. accompanied by a little "Whoo" sound!

880. Whoa, this is making my blue ball go all orange.

881. I should probably explain that.

882. You see, on the dash, there is this little blue circular symbol

883. which grows, the more vigorously I drive.

884. The bigger it is, the more hydrogen I'm using.

885. If I put the hammer down like this... It turns orange.

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

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

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

889. He's American talk-show host Jay Leno.

890. This is my favourite ad.

891. If you notice the car is skidding off the road in their own ad.

892. That's how bad handling a car it was!

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

894. albeit quite a bit smaller.

895. It turns out that Jay, like me, is a fan of the Clarity,

896. not just because it's clever, but because it might just be

897. the saviour of all the amazing gas guzzlers in here.

898. Car enthusiasts used to think, "Oh, this is gonna be awful."

899. No, it won't. It'll save the petrol.

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

901. And you go out on the weekend, you have fun and then you put

902. this in the car park during the week.

903. Much like the automobile was the saviour of the horse.

904. You know, in the cities, at least in America,

905. horses would be whipped, and they'd drop dead...

906. And then when the car came along, it freed up the horse to be used

907. for recreational purposes, and just the beauty of the animal, whatever you want to call it.

908. And I think these types of cars will be the saviour of our sports cars,

909. our MGs, Porsches, things like that.

910. You know how the Toyota Prius is the sort of darling of Hollywood?

911. It's a fashion statement.

912. But you know why? You see, 'cause it has the moral superiority.

913. With the Prius, you can go,

914. "Look, I am driving an unattractive car because I'm saving the planet."

915. See, in America, we like everyone to know about the good work

916. we're doing anonymously.

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

918. And there's a very good reason for that.

919. One day, we will sadly run out of oil and then we'll need something else.

920. Now electric cars have always seemed very promising,

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

922. I mean, think of all the people down there, driving around.

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

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

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

926. If it's replacement is something that goes for 10 yards

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

928. The Clarity, though, is different.

929. It fits the life we already have.

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

931. So we can think of that car as a normal car, okay?

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

933. Exactly.

934. And the only thing that comes out of the exhaust pipe is water.

935. Just water.

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

937. Because it is the most abundant thing in the universe,

938. but it's always stuck onto something else,

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

940. But actually, it isn't really any more difficult

941. than drilling oil from underneath the sea, and we did that okay.

942. And I presume that when they actually make these things for real,

943. they won't cost any more than what we think of now as a normal car.

944. No, possibly less.

945. I actually think they'll be much more reliable and they

946. will never need to be serviced,

947. because there are no moving parts.

948. There's just one moving part in the engine.

949. Very simple, mechanically.

950. So while everyone was worrying about Honda pulling out of Formula One,

951. - Honda has actually saved the world! - It would appear so.

952. Uh, now that is all we have time for.

953. We're back now on the 28th of December at 8:00.

954. It's a Sunday night with a Top Gear special from Vietnam.

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

956. Take care. See you soon. Good night.