Top Gear 14x3

1. yes, a problem with the ice. James wears a stripey

2. jumper. Richard drives a stripey Lamborghini, and we name the

3. Thank you so much, everybody. Amazing.

4. Now, as we know, as we know, you can never get rid of a baddie, OK?

5. No matter how much you kill them. Remember Glenn Close in Fatal

6. Attraction? She was stabbed, drowned, half an hour later, reared

7. up. Then you got the Daleks, Blofeld, Peter Mandelson! LAUGHTER

8. They just keep coming back. Then there's Top Gear's perennial baddie.

9. Yes, it's the caravan. Also regular viewers of Dave will

10. know we have, over the last 24 hours, done our very best to rid

11. the world of the caravan menace. That is, I think you'll agree,

12. sterling work in our battle to free the road of these mobile traffic

13. jams. Sadly, it's a battle we're losing. There are now almost half a

14. million caravans on UK roads, and the British are the most prolific

15. caravanning nation in Europe - a title we've held for almost four

16. years, according to the Caravan Council. In short, they're building

17. them faster than we can destroy them., so we need a scientific

18. Subtitles unavailable for 1 minutes

19. approach to getting them off the What you're witnessing here,

20. viewers, is the maiden voyage of the world's first caravan air ship.

21. I believe this is the solution to I believe this is the solution to

22. all our problems. There are only two ways to go

23. you can have your two- litre diesel, toe your caravan,

24. obscure the view of all the people you're annoying or you can bring it

25. up. Here. Everybody wins. Driving is more fun and caravanning is more

26. exciting. As with all all cutting edge engineering projects, there

27. are teething problems. Normally, you drive along with your caravan

28. and car and when you get to the site, you have a car to use. I need

29. somebody to take the car to the caravan for me.

30. And for that, I'm calling on my old caravan-destroying mate, Mr Richard

31. Hammond. And because it doesn't have the

32. caravan around, it can be a nice car.

33. This car will never, ever hitch itself to a swift Rapide. It's a

34. Lamborghini, probably the least caravanish car company ever. This

35. is their new Gallardo Balboni, a tribute to Valentino ball boney.

36. Although he wore a cardigan to work, he was a mentalist. As a tribute to

37. his mentalness, this is the most mental Lambo there's been for a

38. while. More of that later. First, I shall ring James and offer him some

39. encouragement. Hammond? That thing is going to

40. crash, burn and explode and you'll be scatter nerd a million pieces

41. across the English countryside. Don't be so defeatist. Anyway, I've

42. got an address for you. Hunter's Moon Caravan Club just outside wear

43. ham in Dorset. I've made the booking. They are expecting an air

44. ship. See new a bit. Caravanning in a Lamborghini.

45. I think he might actually be on to something here.

46. It's 125 feet long, 110,000 cubic feet of hot air holding it up and

47. it's an ingenious solution. All the caravan attachments are still here.

48. Instruments flip up out the table, the gas burners go where the cooker

49. would be, the beds fit where I'm sitting here. It is still a caravan,

50. it's just a flying caravan. It floats with the infinite blue.

51. It's superb. Meanwhile, on the ground, this was

52. turning for the best drive to a caravan site ever. According to Top

53. Gear research, 47% of caravaners enjoy wife swapping. Think what

54. will happen when the keys for this baby come out the pot! As I was

55. saying, because this is a tribute to their looniest test driver,

56. Lamborghini ditched a a normal four-wheel drive and went back to

57. the hairy-chested rear wheel drive making it 120kg lighter, steel

58. brakes, it's Lamborghini's punk album. How are you? Very well.

59. How's it going? Pretty good. Slight issue on the horizon, though.

60. It's not the fastest aircraft in the world. How not quick is it?

61. Well, top speed is about 17. miles an hour isn't bad, in a

62. straight line. No, 17 miles an hour. I think Dorset might be a bit far.

63. I've got a new address for you. Another address? Dale Acres caravan

64. club site in Kent. Probably not my first choice of caravanning

65. defendant naigts. I'll buy you an ice cream. See you there.

66. Right, campsite number two. It's now time for a spot of

67. airborne lunch. This is unquestionably the most

68. powerful cooker ever fitted to a caravan. Very well cooked on one

69. side. It's all part of the adventure of

70. caravanning. Back to the Balboni. The thing is, the basicness makes

71. it better to drive. The steering feels so much quicker because

72. there's no four-wheel drive in the way and the gear change, the manual

73. box feels like it's shaking hands with an old friend.

74. Everything that isn't basic is price, because weirdly, this

75. stripped out strictly functional costing £163,000, which is 18 grand

76. dearer than the ordinary four-wheel drive one, so maybe less really is

77. more. The Balboni propelled me towards

78. our campsite in Kent. And then James rang again. Hello?

79. Hello. Are you ringing from the grave? No, not at all. It's going

80. marvellously up here, mate. You'd love it. There is one slight hitch,

81. thoxt What is up now? performance is slightly marginal.

82. If I get ahead wind of more than 30 knots, I start to go backwards.

83. can't go into a wind of more than 30 knots? No. What is the wind

84. speed now? It was 12. You're telling me you're being blown

85. around Britain? It takes too long to get down to Kent so I will turn

86. round and go the other way up to Suffolk.

87. Right. Anyway, I've got an address for you. Why not book us into every

88. caravan site in Britain before we left. Stop nit-picking, will you?

89. What a norbert. If this air ship caravan skex his catches on, what

90. we'll have is the skies full of air ships crashing into each other when

91. the wind gets up and the roads crashing crashing we'll have cars

92. crashing into each other pause they With the wind behind me, I headed

93. for our new destination. Frblg morning, caravan club. Any pitches

94. available at the White House beach club? What is your surname? Do you

95. have facilities for people arrive by air ship? OK, are you actually a

96. Here I am in the village of - here, this village! And it's somewhere I

97. would never have seen. It's a really, really big tower

98. over there. That's - well, that's clearly just a danger to caravaners.

99. Look at it. Must remember to tell James about that. As As it turned

100. out, at that moment, James had more than a tower to worry about.

101. May Day, May Day. Norwich golf pap pa golf, I'm about to enter your

102. air space. You're entering an area of intense

103. aerial activity at the moment t is imperative that you remain clear -

104. well clear. Sorry, cannot comply, have no

105. control over air ship owing to wind conditions. Remain well clear.

106. Norwich cannot comply. You have traffic left, 11 o'clock range of

107. half a mile, fast moving. Have visual. Further traffic in your

108. That's the news report and no news of a massive fireball burning over

109. Northamptonshire or of people in the streets being hit by pieces of

110. long burning hair and bad jumper. Anyway, I'm probably being

111. pessimistic. It sure is going very well.

112. Stay where you are, man! heading close to the City Hopper.

113. Police helicopter not necessary. I will attempt to clear your zone at

114. this altitude. Please don't call the police.

115. Police helicopter to Golf Tango. We're not aware of your intention,

116. but you've strayed into the controlled air space of Norwich

117. airport. I may be about to get a Suffolk, a popular holiday

118. destination. Just a few miles away now. James will have landed, set

119. the van up, organised our little home from home, probably got the

120. kettle on. Finally, I reached a caravan site.

121. I didn't know if it was the one I had booked into, but it would do.

122. Here we go. The landing you won't even notice. This is a lovely

123. approach over the trees. This is a matter of a resting descent.

124. People who envisaged the elegance of the majesty of lighter-than-air

125. flight, zeppelin, Barnes Wallace, Drifting. This is difficult. Gas!

126. Gas! It's going down. May Day, May Day!

127. Bloody hell, stop! Stop! Stop!

128. Papa Charlie echo, whiskey, echo, what? I think it has a lot of

129. promise. Airships have never worked? Jew can't land being full

130. of hot air. I have been in a hot air balloon once, it landed

131. dragging itself through sideways through a hedge in a field, I ended

132. up jammed on the lady Mayoress in a field. I want to talk about lighter

133. than air transport. I want to talk about the Lambourghini? It is

134. heroically daft, by going down from four-wheel to rear-wheel drive, it

135. is bonkers, it is like free climbing rather than all the ropes

136. and harnesss. Compared to, we must compare it, rear-wheel drive, to a

137. Ferrari 430? It is not as good, it is better. It is the white stripe.

138. Super car. You have to drive it a lot more than you thought, because

139. of the freak weather conditions that blighted James, the light

140. breezes. It was more like a Hurricane. It

141. was puffy clouds. Let's do the news. The Danes have made Anne noupsment,

142. they are going to start — an announcement, they are going to

143. start making a supercar. It has a V8, supercharged and turbochargeed,

144. they say all of the components, where possible, will be made and

145. sourced by companies in Denmark. Yes? Will it be made of bacon.

146. it be lubricated with Lurpak? know Bang & Olufsen, and inside it

147. is all, as far as I'm aware, Philips electronics? It doesn't

148. stop you buying pretty much everything they make. I am a bit of

149. a sucker for Bang & Olufsen. The new Audreys have their speakers

150. rising up out of the dashboard. Bet you're rising up with them.

151. am. It works like kit nip on him, if you give him a bang and Olaf sen

152. he grips it and hugs it to his chest. What is cat rip? You give it

153. to cats and they hug it. The only thing I want to give a cat is its

154. name and address to my dogs. He said when I said I would set my dog

155. on his cat that he wouldn't be able to do it? Uuraguay dog comes around

156. to see my cat, it would get its bloody head kicked in. Bang and

157. Olaf sen brings me bang and Olafson brings me back to that car.

158. A woman had a baby, while she was on her way to hospital in a Kia,

159. they have called the baby Kia. It could have been worse, it could

160. have been Proton. Because these people called their baby, Kia, Kia,

161. the people who made the cars have given them a Kia car. We have got a

162. picture of the handover. This brings us on to a very important

163. Top Gear, top tip, if you are on your way to hospital in Labour, and

164. you're in a Kia, for God's sake get out. Let the child be Christened

165. skip, bus stop, phone box, anything, just get out. I Christen this child,

166. doorway of Currys, because at least that way you get a free microwave

167. and not a hidious car like that. Reckon this whole story and baby

168. Kia here, it could spark a whole load of copy cats, a whole load of

169. dads waiting until the due dates and driving a Lambourghini and

170. driving really slowly to hospital. Why are you called Zonda with the

171. brake package. Last weekend the three of us were in Middlesborough,

172. on Saturday night we had to drive back to England, it meant going

173. down the M1. The truth of the matter is all three of us had been

174. away from home for six weeks, looking forward to seeing our

175. families. Belting down the M1, you arrive in Leicestershire, and there

176. is a 20-mile set of road works there. They have average speed

177. cameras set at 50 miles an hour, for the entire length. Traffic is

178. light, there is no rain, it is three lanes, but you're forced to

179. do 50. I don't know who the Minister of Transport is, I want

180. him to find the man who came up with that idea, go round to his

181. office on Monday morning, and punch him really hard on the side of his

182. head. Because if he doesn't, I'm going to find the man and attach

183. him to a milling machine, and see if it is possible to turn a man's

184. head into a perfect cube. Do you know why they have the 50 mile an

185. hour speed limit, to protect the work force, who weren't there. They

186. were in bed, where I wanted to be. I agree with you entirely. But the

187. answer is not cubing people's heads, the answer is when the work force

188. aren't there is do 70. You will get nicked? Who here would just do 70

189. through a set of road works with speed cameras. If you go charging

190. through you get booked. Do 70 you take it to court in front of a jury,

191. you argue correctly that it is wrong to apply the 50 mile an hour

192. speed limit when there is nobody there to protect. You are saying it

193. is logic? It is logic. It is logic to kill Peter Mandelson. But you

194. can't do it. Killing Peter Mandelson is a grey area, but doing

195. 70 miles an hour on the motorway is an absolute. How many people went

196. on the anti-war march, a million, we went to war. How many people

197. went on the countryside march, 400,000, and fox-hunting was banned.

198. The Government is not interested in the will of the people.

199. Particularly if it is not some long-haired old Queen arguing about

200. speed limits. Speed limits are a pain, there are two solutions

201. outlined, revolution or cubing people's heads, or alternatively

202. you could just leave a bit earlier. No, cube their heads. Leave five

203. minutes earlier. It is not five minutes any way. It is five minutes

204. a day. Any here from Leicestershire. How did you get here, Jesus.

205. He's from Leicestershire. He's Jesus, come here, Jesus, come and

206. talk to me. Congratulations. It's slightly

207. bigger news than the M1 but nevertheless let's gloss over the

208. second coming, do you commute on the road? I go the back way.

209. Because of that. How much does it add to your transport every day?

210. Ten minutes, quarter of an hour. Day? Each way. It is an hour and 40

211. minutes a week the Government is stealing from Jesus.

212. This is a sore point. Gordon Brown is stealing an hour and 40 minutes

213. from Jesus. Any way, time to move on. Because

214. last week we asked you to nominate the car-maker that you thought over

215. the years has made the largest number of great cars. There have

216. been a couple of quite interesting nominations, one was Matchbox,

217. clever, I thought, the other was James May, he tied with Chrysler.

218. It was weird he's only ever made one great car, James, the Eagle

219. Hamthrust. This is the top ten, as you can see we have Ferrari,

220. Lambourghini, coming up now we have the top three, here they are.

221. Automatic board. Cost a lot of money. In third place, according to

222. you, the voters. BMW. In second place, even though they made the

223. worst car in the history of the world ever, the Beatle, it is VW.

224. You can applaud this if you like, the winner is Ford.

225. That is it, the thing is, though, you're wrong.

226. Ford hasn't won this at all, we reckoned Ford has made four great

227. cars over the years. But the car company we think is at the top of

228. this list has made seven. The car company we have in mind, there were

229. 350 million people watching last week's show when we asked you to

230. vote. The number of people who voted for, what we think is the

231. greatest car company in the world was nine. Not nine million. Just

232. nine. No ideas? Made some of the prettiest cars ever. Let me put it

233. this way, Mitsubishi has won the World Rally Championship once, did

234. you brew three times, Ford three times, the company we have in mind

235. won it ten times. No, silence. OK then, watch this.

236. This is a collection of art, of madness, of brilliance. This is a

237. collection of pornography, this is a clocks of Lancias. But this,

238. annoyingly is the Lancia people remember best of all, The Beatles.

239. It was made from steel so thin that on a windy day it would actually

240. change shape. And it wasn't much cop in the rain either. This was

241. fine yesterday, but then this morning we had a bit of a shower

242. and now look at it. The fact is though, that all

243. Lancias had problems. The Gamma, for instance, exploded every time

244. you turned the steering wheel. And then, there was the Fulvia.

245. It is a fantastic little car this. It's like driving a wroughty sorbet.

246. With its clever V4 engine, it was the first Lancia to win the World

247. Rally Championship. The thing is, though, when all is said and done,

248. it was a very small, 1.3 litre, front-wheel drive, two-door saloon

249. car. It cost when it was new, more than an E Type Jaguar.

250. We forgave the Fulvia the silly price tag, because what made it

251. great, the same thing that made all Lancia's great, the way it looked.

252. It really is as pretty as the sunseting over Charlize Theron. In

253. its day, this was too. The streamlined aPrince Williamia, the

254. first — Aprillia, the first car to be designed in a wind tunnel.

255. Inevitably there were problems. The doors opened like this, it was

256. lovely, it meant getting in and out was very easy. When they were

257. closed they didn't quite meet, so quite a lot of weather could get

258. inside as you drove along. It was only made with right-hand drive,

259. fine in Britain and Sweden, which drove on the left at the time, but

260. it was quite annoying everywhere else.

261. And then there was the Monte Carlo. This was a wonderful car, a mid-

262. engineed mini-Ferrari. Because it was actually a Lancia, the things

263. that were right were balanced out by the things that were wrong. If

264. you so much as looked at the middle pedal, the brakes would lock up and

265. you would crash into a tree. Lancia took the thing very seriously, so

266. much so they stopped production for two years whilst they looked for a

267. solution. They found one. What they did was remove the brake servo, so

268. then it had no brakes at all. And... The Monte Carlo then was quite

269. dangerous. But in that Lancia way, it was so pretty I wanted one more

270. than I wanted my next breath. Sometimes, though, Lancia's lunacy

271. did produce results. Did you know Lancia was the first

272. car company ever to sell a car with a monocop. They were the first to

273. offer a five-speed gear box. First to sell a car with

274. supercharging and turbochargeing on the same engine. First to sell a

275. car with a V6 engine. First with an electric boot spoiler. They did all

276. these mechanical firsts, if you say to anyone a Lancia, they snigger

277. and say they fall apart. It is ridiculous. Holy moly, does the

278. bumper come off? I believe it has. You need to define greatness, that

279. is the important thing. Just because something is unreliable. Oh,

280. it doesn't mean it isn't great. Stephen Hawkins, great bloke, even

281. though a lot of him doesn't work. Yeah. I wouldn't break it to him

282. like that. But the principal stands. The principle stands. Meryl Streep,

283. everybody says she's a great actress, and then she appears in

284. Mama Mia, the worst film ever made. She's still a great actress. Have

285. you seen Mama Mia? Yes I have. Big girl. To prove even the

286. tattyist Lancia is tougher than you might think, we have bought this

287. 1982HPE. I shall now drive it non- stop through the night on a rough

288. rally stage. I shall be racing, not racing, been

289. told about that, dangerous, driving at the same time, on the same track

290. in a similar vintage car. This Morris Marina. Hammond, winner,

291. last one still running. Fair enough. Let's do it.

292. This is not a promising start, dispelling the myth that Lancias

293. were not very good. Yes! Never doubted it. Obviously, the Marina

294. Now, you might be saying, it's a Morris Marina, a pan piano is going

295. to fall on it. I bought a Marina which already are a piano since we

296. were doing serious research, we agreed there would be no childish

297. racing. I've hit Hammond! That's OK, OK!

298. Proving what a fine and strong breed of car the Lancia always was.

299. 8 hit Jeremy as he goes round this really difficult corner. He's got

300. the outside there. He'll never get by, and he hasn't.

301. We're not racing, we're not racing. It's through. I got my sun sun

302. visor out of the way. For hour after hour, we continued continued

303. to not race around the rally stage. It's pretty close to dark, still

304. literally no faults to report. Eventually, after not racing some

305. more, the Marina began to pull ahead.

306. It's of course a well-known fact that a piano on the roof aids

307. traction and gives you more speed on a rally-special stage. Then,

308. predictably, it broke down. So I went to get some tools to try and

309. fix it. There he is! It's Hammond! He's

310. The Lancia soldiered on alone, but then I got a warning light.

311. Literally. Orbg no!

312. I can't see through through the flames! I've got to blow this out.

313. Maybe if I sped up like in Memphis Belle.

314. No, that's not working. I can't see anything.

315. No matter, though, because here's proof that Lancias are tough and

316. strong, and dependable. This is a Stratot. It had a 2.4

317. litre Ferrari V 6 mounted in the middle. It was Italian, styled by

318. Bertone and completely impracticalable. It therefore

319. ticked all the supercar boxes. Unlike any other supercar before or

320. since, it wasn't designed to be parked in Monte Carlo.

321. It was designed to get there like this.

322. It's ab- its absurdly short wheel base meant it was agile and Ferrari

323. power meant it was so fast, it won the world rally championship three

324. times. And joy of joys, they made 500

325. What a fantastic car! Of course, there were a few

326. problems with it. Chief among which was a lack of

327. space inside. A gynaecologist would get in here

328. and go, "I'm at work!" It's like climbing into somebody else's giant

329. red posing pouch. James May's! touching my knee. You try changing

330. gear. I'm going to change gear now. This will involve man touching. The

331. list of faults doesn't end with the tiny cockpit.

332. Why did it give the passenger the pedals and the driver the wheels.

333. They're definitely over to the right-hand side. You're sort of

334. sitting a bit sideways. These window winders are not very good.

335. The other thing I really like as well is, you know a Porsche puts

336. the rev counter right in front of you, Lancia in this put the oil

337. pressure right in front of you. He What does that tell you! So, not

338. But then you look at it and there's the thing, because it just sort of

339. This is one of the best cars ever made. I would go with that. On the

340. grounds of its achievement, but also that slightly more subjective

341. thing of how gorgeous it looks. Just move your leg. That was a

342. stroke! Move it! After the Stratos came the 037,

343. last two-wheel drive car to win the world rally championship.

344. And the only two-wheel drive car to beat the mighty Audi Quattro.

345. The thing is, though, no-one really Then there's the Fima - the Thema

346. 8.3: no-one remembers this, either, even though it had a fully fledged

347. Ferrari V8 under the bonnet. Without really remembering - we

348. don't really remember any of Lancia's seven great cars, and all

349. Lance weigh was forced by pressure from the media to spend a fortune

350. buying back rusty beaters, scrapping them and giving their

351. owners brand new cars. It was a PR disaster.

352. — Betas. In Britain, Lancia's reputation was ruined. And in 1994,

353. they pulled out of the market However, before the most cars

354. matbreak car maker of them all finally went, they left us with one

355. final reminder of what they can do when they try.

356. This is a Delta Integrale. It picked up where the Stratos and the

357. This thing won the world rally championship six times on the trot

358. - six times! You can feel that DNA in here.

359. The steering is so neat, precise. It settles into a turn and just

360. gripped and pulled twelve back into a corner.

361. Having learned their lesson with the Aprilia, Lancia weren't going

362. to ohm make these in a right-hand drive, so they made them left-hand

363. drive - only. Only lance ia.

364. Despite this, a good one of these today is worth £25,000.

365. And I'm not surprised. Because this is a very unusual

366. Lancia. It wasn't very pretty, but God, it

367. APPLAUSE I'm standing here thinking "I want

368. that." But what I love about Lancia is that they never once just said,

369. "Let's make a medium car." They were always doing experiments. Some

370. of the experiments worked but some some didn't. That was the nraij of

371. it. They thought let's make an engine with seven-and-a-half

372. cylinders. Or make the windows go up and down with magic. No, it

373. hasn't worked. But sell it anyway. And that's what made them so

374. magnificent. They are still going today but now they are just a

375. division of Fiat making things like this, which is neither pretty nor

376. they good. What it is in essence is a Fiat Bravo with Rio Ferdinand's

377. face stuck on the front. If you still hanker over the glory days,

378. then later on in the show, we have something to warm the cockles of

379. your heart. But now it's time to put a star in our reasonably priced

380. car. My guest tonight is a broadcasting legend. He also has an

381. astonishing collection of cars - I list for you here: Ferrari 599,

382. Ferrari F40, Ferrari California, Ferrari Enzo, Ferrari 288 GTO,

383. Ferrari 308 GTS, Ferrari 246 Dino, Ferrari 275 GTB.

384. 8 So, let's find out if there is any particular type of car he likes.

385. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Evans. APPLAUSE

386. How are you? Very well. How are you? Have a seat, mate. Have a seat.

387. Prul, you disagree with our greatest car verdict, then? Quelle

388. surprise. You don't believe presumably, judging by your

389. collection that Lancia aren't a brilliant maker of motor cars.

390. car falling to bits the best mark in the world! Lancia's only came in

391. black and rust! I I still stand by - There's more - the number of

392. Ferrarisl would like to own now is one. What about the A6 0 mopbzia,

393. the PF 250, the four-cam. A lot of people write and complain this

394. isn't a car show anymore. It is now!

395. I love this enthusiasm. Why have you painted all yours white?

396. Because I wanted them to match. I wanted them to be a work of art.

397. I've got a white garage or "car house" as they're sometimes nofpblt

398. it's got a white piano in it, right? That plays itself, and there

399. are these eight beautiful white Farrarrys. It's no — Ferraris.

400. Which led you to the auction. This is terribly vulgar. How much did

401. you pay for that? The most expensive car sold at auction in

402. the world. When I bought it. Last year? A lot of millions? Yes, $12

403. million. How drunk were you? wasn't drunk at all. The point is,

404. I didn't go to buy the car. I went to buy a poster.

405. The 250 Spider came up on the stand, my second favourite car in the

406. world because it was in my Top Trumps collection. I thought I

407. would go for it. That was the best one in the world, James Coburn

408. owned it for 23 years. Talking about this makes the hairs on the

409. back of my neck stand up. It's all documented, I've got the history

410. and that baby is back in the garage at home. I show it to as many

411. people as I can. Unbelievable. I was listening to you every day

412. whilst stuck in a traffic am gentleman, and you've auctioned

413. your entire collection of Ferraris for Children In Need. Yes. So how

414. does that work? People ring in and they were bidding? Yes. And drive

415. whichever one they want? We take the seven highest bids on the day

416. and they spend a four-day tour and during the four days, each person

417. who's bid the amount of money gets to drive every single car. Isn't

418. That terrifying from your point of swru sh It's only tin and rubber.

419. If anybody comes round to my house if they're fitting a carpet, a

420. carpet, burgling, before you take that, come and have a look at the

421. cars. I think it's really important to share these cars with people.

422. But you don't know who's bid. You know their names. You could have

423. any sort of ape turning up. Well, if you bid...

424. You've got a book out. It's not

425. what you think - It's Not What You Think, which is what it's called.

426. Yes. And there's a list of top tens at the beginning of each chapter.

427. Yes. But this car business, it does seem to me that cars, you sometimes

428. claim you're not a Carman, but you bloody well r I'm definitely a

429. Carman. Behind my family, my job, maybe you're not not going to like

430. this, maybe golf, then I am a Carman. Sometimes, if I'm away from

431. home, the first thing I do, I get back home and I have to go to the

432. garage just to have a smell. I love it. The smell of petrol and leather,

433. I love it to death. It's better than stuff I've never tried.

434. When I first met you about a

435. million years ago, you were definitely a Porsche man. You are

436. having a laugh! You've lost your mind. You need to go to Venice -

437. Did you have a 968? No. You did, convertible, Big Breakfast.

438. Mine was mabl. So it was a 944? was a 944 drop top, 19 grand, a

439. great car but it was dull and Obviously the big news is that

440. Chris he have vabs, enfant terrible of the — Evans, enfant terrible of

441. the air waves is about to take over from the Terry Master. Has he given

442. you any tips? He gets up at 7.30 that's not a breakfast show. When

443. do you start? 7.00am. You will have to pretend you are older than you

444. are? People request Van Halen, that is the music. It is all fine.

445. are all going to be, my generation are going to be in our old people's

446. home with Anarchy In The UK in our wheelchairs. We won't have

447. wheelchairs but we will still do that. Give me a wheelchair. I don't

448. want any more Gracie Fields, just this. How did it go for you, out

449. there today on our lap? I did my best, probably the worst weather

450. there has ever been out there. The Stig, what a lovely man, he

451. couldn't have been nicer, what I have decided to do, I have had a

452. great time. I thought if I'm going to die, let me die today on this

453. track. He did actually say, Chris has no sense of self-preservation.

454. Would anybody like to see some of Chris's practices.

455. Let's have a look at some of these practices. At the 50 mark, turning,

456. off the brakes again, brake hard now, into in to second. This is the

457. hammerhead. You feel like you're going out of control, go out of

458. control. Nobody has ever spun there before. That's good. Watch this.

459. This is the last corner. Sideways. Everybody goes here, second to last

460. corner, I'm impressed. You never even made it to the corner.

461. thought I would just go straight on here.

462. That is good bravery. But then, the lap happened for real. Who wants to

463. see it. So you haven't learned your lesson,

464. still going for brute force. Come on, hello family. Concentrate, man.

465. Concentrate on the job in hand, that is wet. Good, it's Joe 90 mind

466. the wheel. That is slippery. You're looking quite good. You have

467. never been good at anything like this in your life, try and have a

468. go at this. Have you never been good at anything? Not like this.

469. I'm with you, all sports are impossible. Not bad. You have to

470. nail hammerhead. You have to do this, even though your chin does

471. look like a bum! Hammerhead, we have put cones out so Jonathan Ross

472. doesn't get lost if he comes back, you're in the white lines, that

473. looks slow but important for a quick time. Aim for the cameraman.

474. I missed the gear aiming for the cameraman. Is he getting tired now,

475. that's looking good. The smell of the clutch. Mmmm. But does it smell

476. of victory. I'm being a bit of a with us into the final bend. Come

477. on now. Cut the corner, just a bit. That's the trick. That's good.

478. That's quite a lot. This one, cut it a lot.

479. So an entirely new way across the line.

480. Here we are. There's the board. There is the

481. board. Where do you think. Obviously we will give you a wet

482. lap. We will butt Chris Evans "wet" on it. Where do you think you have

483. come? I don't think it is impressive, I try my best, I will

484. not lean forward, I will try to be cool. My heart is racing. You did

485. it in one minute, quicker than Terry Wogan was. You are already

486. the new fastest Radio Two breakfast show host we have ever had. In the

487. last 40 years. You did it in one minute, 40. That's good. 1.48.1.

488. For a wet lap that's the third- fastest wet lap we have ever had.

489. There's your ex. I'm just above her, not on top of her, just above her.

490. She's my ex. We were accused of favouritism by her by David Tenant,

491. that we only allowed that because she was wearing a see-through top,

492. but you cut corners as well. Next time I will wear a see-through top.

493. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Evans. Best of luck.

494. Be proud of that time Earlier on in the show, we explained that Lancia,

495. the greatest car company in the world, and just because of a few

496. problems with rust 30 years ago, they are not available in the UK

497. any more. The thing is though, as Jeremy as been finding out, you can

498. still get one, sort of. This is a Lancia Stratos, except

499. for one small thing, it isn't. It wasn't made in the 1970s in Italy,

500. in fact, I don't know where it was made, in a shed in Nuneaton,

501. probably. This, you see, is a kit car. Either you can pay someone to

502. build it for you, or you can make it at home yourself, with a hammer.

503. Apparently, if you're fairly competent it would take about 300

504. showers, obviously it would take me about 300 years, which is a very

505. long time. But, there is an upside, an original Stratos would cost

506. £100,000, maybe more, that is £13,000.

507. In theory that makes this the Hawk HF, the bargain of the century.

508. The body is absolutely identical to the original, all the panels are

509. completely interchangable. The interior too would be familiar to

510. Lancia fans. The pedals are nowhere near where the bottom of my legs

511. are. The steering wheel is perilously close to where my testes

512. used to be, before the seatbelt jammed them up to my lungs. The

513. gear lever is like Bugs Bunny's ears, and one of the buttons on the

514. dash operates the fire extinguisher, but I don't know which one it is,

515. so I dare not touch any of them. The wiper has gone upside down, it

516. wouldn't clear the rain from the window. Then there was a big noise.

517. Wait a minute, what the hell? What was that? The front left brake had

518. jammed on. I have to get this in to a workshop. Come on, come on. I

519. took the car to Nigel, the resident mechanic at our track, and greeted

520. him in the usual fashion. Have you got a hammer? That is scalding hot,

521. as we can see on the thermal-images camera. He has just

522. gone to answer the phone now. While we wait, I suppose I should explain

523. the £13,000 doesn't include the cost of an engine, you have to get

524. one yourself. You have a choice of two, you can either get Fiat's

525. twin-camthat you can buy usedor 5p, for £600 you can get the engine I

526. have in this. This handle is disguised as a spoiler, there you

527. have it, Alpha's V6. This provides more power than the engine the

528. Lancia used, with it the Hawk is faster, when it is working, which

529. it will be, eventually. It is mended. Now I'm going to get

530. back in. Which is a surprisingly elegant process if you're a mouse.

531. That's not good. You sort of get over this roll bar, like this. Then

532. you get your head in, it's probably easier to detatch your head first,

533. and put it back on in the car. There we are. Whenever there, and

534. then you might want to cut the camera for this bit.

535. I had intended at this point to check out the performance, after

536. the brake problem I had rather lost my nerve. 0-60 takes less than five

537. seconds, and what I'm not going to do now is see where that

538. acceleration stops. I really don't want to travel at 150 miles an hour

539. in a car built in a shed by a man I have never met. This is 90 perhaps

540. that's, the wiper has gone. That is an important consideration,

541. you have to bear in mind if you are thinking of buying a used kit car.

542. You have to ask, was it built fastidiously by James May over a

543. period of many hundreds of years, or was it built by a spanner, with

544. a hammer? I mean, would you buy a kit car that I had built? Having

545. chickened on the max speed run, I decided not find out what it is

546. like flat out through the corners. Here we go, I'm going in, and here

547. I am cornering not at all flat out. 60, that's fine. Brakes, three and

548. three quarters of them are very squirrelly. The steering is heavy,

549. a lot of body roll. I think that's probably enough cornering now, we

550. have done that, tick. Certainly then, the Hawk is only as

551. good as the block who put it together. You will spend more time

552. under it than in it, for example. I'm not going to pretend it is as

553. good as an original Stratos, for the same reason that a postcard of

554. the Mona Lisa is not as good as Leonardo's. But one day your car

555. will be working and you will see a reflection of yourself in a shop

556. window as you go by, and trust me on this, that's gonna feel good.

557. Because critically this looks like a Stratos. If we're honest, that's

558. I would like to build a kit car like that, I think it would be very

559. therapeutic. It would be. You know what I mean. It is more satisfying

560. to have something you have made yourself? I don't even like to eat

561. a sandwich I have made myself, because it always has blood in it

562. and bits of my fingers. We have to find out how fast this cargoes

563. round our track, that means handing it over to our tame racing driver.

564. Some say his new Christmas range of fragrances, includes the great

565. smell of Wednesday, and that he was turned down for the job of EU

566. President, because his face is just too recoginsable. All we know is

567. he's call The Stig. He's off, there he goes. I say

568. listen to that noise. The Alpha V6 sounds, if anything, even better

569. than the Ferrari V6. That's fantastic sound. What's happening

570. here. Is he looking for the stereo, no, what's gone wrong? He's broken

571. down. How authentic is that? This is a scene familiar to any Lancia

572. owner, look at him walking off, completing his journey on foot. Not

573. across the line. There is no way we were going to allow our first-ever

574. DNF, on the board, to be a Lancia, no way. So we, mended the car, in a

575. shed, OK, brought it back, it was here, this morning for The Stig to

576. try again. Unfortunately it was raining this

577. time. But the car has set off well, still making a fabulous noise, look

578. at the rooster tails, stip dipping badly underbraking as the tiing

579. turns in. That is a — The Stig turns in. Where are you going, he

580. has got it back. He comes up to Chicago, locked up the front, back

581. stepped out, this is wide he's gone. The Stig has spun. That's not going

582. to stop him, he's still going on, look at that for determination.

583. He's obviously a fan as he comes up to the hammerhead, he has got it to

584. turn in nicely, better than Chris Evans there. Nice through with the

585. whole beautifully-held slide. It's gone wrong, he's headed for the

586. camera crew. I bet they were frightened. Is he breaking down

587. again, that is not at all like a Lancia as he comes to the follow-

588. through. He's backed off of that, I can't say I blame him, as he heads

589. towards the tyres, building up speed, not too much. He's coming

590. down, crikey this is out of control now, he has done it, he's round the

591. second to last corner, he's gone again. That's what I call driving,

592. as he comes round, this time across the line.

593. That is the best-looking lap we have ever seen. I have to say one

594. of the most exciting. Spectacular. Car control is phenomenal. The time

595. was, 1.48.2, which means it's also the slowest slap we have ever had