Top Gear 8x4

1. Tonight, I investigate some new in-car dogging technology,

2. Richard races a man dressed as a squirrel

3. and with a wing and a prayer, the Koenigsegg is back on our track.

4. Hello, and welcome!

5. And we have a packed show for you tonight.

6. We even have a Jedi Knight in our Reasonably Priced Car.

7. But we start with Richard Hammond,

8. who's more sort of R2-D2, really,

9. who's been driving around in an old friend.

10. The Porsche Boxster S.

11. Here it is, and doesn't it look proud?

12. Let's just recap its outings on Top Gear to date.

13. On our track, it monstered the Merc SLK 350 by four whole seconds.

14. So then we stepped things up a notch,

15. by pitting it against the SLK 55 AMG

16. in the industry's standard get-away-from-the-army-snipers test.

17. And guess what? The cheaper, less powerful Porsche still won.

18. You only have to drive one of these things for five minutes

19. to understand just why it's so good.

20. Everything about it is precise and accurate.

21. It's a laser-surgery kind of engineering.

22. It's just... It's just up there.

23. And we were starting to wonder.

24. Was there anything out there that could wipe that smug smile off its face?

25. Well, if anyone can, it's the BMW M division.

26. They are the SAS of BM's engineers,

27. and this is their latest creation.

28. The Z4 M.

29. It's a car dripping with menace.

30. There are nearly as many M badges as there are exhausts.

31. At the front, the air-intakes are big and fierce,

32. and under the new bulges on the bonnet,

33. you'll find a 3.2 litre straight-six from the M3 CSL.

34. That gives the Z4 M 338 bhp,

35. which is 63 more than the Boxster.

36. And now I'm pulling away.

37. 0-60 in five seconds.

38. Mine, I think.

39. Now, the Z4 costs £43,000,

40. which is four grand more than the Boxster S.

41. But, as we've demonstrated, it does have more power.

42. And, as we can see, it's also much better-looking.

43. Now, to make a great car, you can't allow compromise,

44. and at BMW, the M division do as they please.

45. So, in this car, they've thrown out the fancy electronic power steering

46. for a more old-fashioned system that they prefer.

47. They've also got rid of those ridiculous run-flat tyres.

48. And they've not messed about with any fancy gearboxes either.

49. They've fitted it with a proper old-fashioned manual.

50. That is a set of confident decisions

51. so, naturally, you'd be forgiven

52. for approaching any corner with a similar amount of confidence.

53. Whoa! No! Understeer!

54. Bloody hell!

55. I was not expecting that!

56. The Z4 M is, in fact, a bit of a handful.

57. Nothing like old smarty-pants here.

58. Same corner, same me. Just behind a different wheel. In we go...

59. No problem. Suddenly I'm transformed.

60. Back from driving dog to driving God.

61. At first, I thought the M people had come up with a turkey.

62. But sometimes the fault isn't with the car...

63. You see, what I've been doing is driving it like the Boxster,

64. like a precision tool.

65. What you really need to do is grab it by the scruff of the neck

66. and treat it like the lairy beast that it is.

67. What you've got to do is chuck it in.

68. It's a monster!

69. Keep the power on, let the back slide, trust it'll come back...

70. And eventually...

71. We're all right.

72. It's a madman.

73. And whereas the Boxster flatters your ego,

74. this thrills you in the most primeval way.

75. You see, all the recent M cars, the M5, the M6,

76. they've all been crammed full of technology.

77. They've had amazing gearboxes with 11 settings.

78. And I got into this car expecting more of the same.

79. But for this.

80. What the M people have done is serve up Fred Flintstone's car.

81. If I may take a moment,

82. this is a Gordon Ramsay recipe.

83. It is monkfish wrapped in gram reserved Parma ham,

84. on a bed of Savoy cabbage and vegetables in a cream reduction.

85. This is the Porsche Boxster.

86. The very best of ingredients and precision preparation

87. coming together to create one harmonious whole.

88. Then we come to the BMW.

89. This is the red Naga chilli,

90. and on the chilli Richter scale,

91. it measures at just under one million heat units.

92. You can't handle this with bare skin. You have to wear gloves.

93. You don't chop it up and put it in your food.

94. You just touch it against the ingredients and that's enough.

95. This is your BMW Z4 M.

96. The Z4 M really is the hot chilli.

97. The Boxster will never sound as good...

98. nor thrill half as much.

99. It absolutely steals your heart,

100. which is why it's the one I'd drive home.

101. If I could see.

102. Wow!

103. I couldn't agree with you less.

104. What?

105. I drove this, and I thought

106. it was woolly and soft and actually a bit boring.

107. No, that's on the road.

108. Take it on the track, and it's a completely different beast.

109. It makes your eyes water. It does.

110. - Mmm... - No, we're just not going there, okay?

111. Because now we're gonna find out how good it really is on the track,

112. because it's time to put it in the hands of our tame racing driver.

113. Some say his ears have a paisley lining...

114. And he's been banned from the Chelsea Flower Show.

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

116. And he's off!

117. Bucket loads of wheel spin off the line there.

118. It's like an unleashed beast, this car.

119. Up to the first corner.

120. Now it's looking a bit snappy on the way in,

121. but Stig has wrestled it into submission.

122. Punches smartly out the other side there.

123. The toilet doesn't work.

124. Into Chicago. Now nice and smooth on the way in.

125. Entry speed judged to perfection.

126. He's squeezing on the power, booting it out, letting the tail run wide.

127. Hammerhead. If you haven't got the Z4 by the scruff here,

128. it's all over the shot, but Stig's got that covered,

129. removing all chance of understeer by firmly depressing his right hoof.

130. I don't speak Italian.

131. So, four weeks on, and, apparently, he hasn't absorbed a word.

132. Now down towards Follow Through.

133. Come on, Stig. Really let the monster loose here.

134. Oh, that looked fast!

135. Just two corners left.

136. Hard on the brakes.

137. Very neat through there. Only Gambon left to take.

138. Here we go. He flicks it sideways and across the line!

139. Okay!

140. In one minute

141. 26 exactly,

142. which means it goes on the board... Where is it? Just there.

143. Which means it's actually faster than a Porsche Cayman,

144. a Ferrari 575 and an Aston Martin Vanquish.

145. See, told you! Brilliant car.

146. Right, let's do the news.

147. - Uh... You're starting. - Yes.

148. Um, well, the Z4 M Roadster that Hammond was just driving,

149. they've done a coupe version of that. Here it is.

150. It has exactly the same engine, it does 155 mph,

151. 0-60 in five seconds.

152. But the really good thing is, it's about 1,700 quid cheaper with the soft-top...

153. Yeah, and, Hammond, you thought the soft-top was hard-core.

154. What? Yes.

155. That hasn't got a single creature comfort in it.

156. No. That is sort of quadruple X-rated, that thing.

157. Yes. And incredibly ugly!

158. - Hey, now, Lexus, okay,

159. launched a new Hybrid. Got a photograph of it here.

160. It's called the GS something-or-other.

161. - And it's got a V6 engine and an electric motor, okay?

162. And they say it'll do 35.8 miles to the gallon.

163. - Bet it doesn't.

164. - No, no, it won't!

165. Did you see Cameron Diaz last week, when she said,

166. "My Toyota Prius does 52 miles to the gallon in the city"?

167. No, it doesn't! It just doesn't!

168. No. Absolutely not.

169. In fact, when they said, Cameron, "It does 52 miles to the gallon,"

170. they were acting!

171. Yeah.

172. In fact, if she can do 52 miles to the gallon in that car,

173. - I'll let her sleep with me.

174. That's fair. And that's not the sound of Cameron Diaz reaching for her car keys!

175. - Come on, then. - What?

176. - Well, you were there, weren't you? - What?

177. Oh, what, where? The big party! Beckhams.

178. - Oh, the Beckhams! - Oh, that one!

179. I went.

180. The best bit, I would say, right... The best bit was...

181. We got a car to take us, with a driver

182. and my wife got into it to go home at about 3:30 a.m., got halfway home.

183. It's a long way, about an hour-and-a-half...

184. Turned to tell me something, and realised she'd left me behind!

185. Okay. Private number plates, we don't really them very much, do we?

186. Awful. - Apart from when?

187. The only time they're really vaguely acceptable

188. - is when they make a rude word. - Yeah.

189. Well, the DVLA has been sifting through them.

190. Every now and again they have a cull

191. of ones that they think might be rude.

192. - So there's another batch that aren't allowed. Hmm?

193. Well, you can't now have "AA 55 HOL..."

194. - That's a bottom thing. - Yeah. You can't have that.

195. Um, you can't have... Oh, yeah, that's a shame.

196. - You can't have that.

197. That's a bottom thing.

198. These have all really been banned.

199. But there were a few surprising ones.

200. I couldn't get this at first, but you can't have that.

201. And It took a bit of time, but I worked it out.

202. - Hamas. Yes. Hamas.

203. Hamas. That's a pity.

204. I'd like to have had that, put it on a Toyota pick-up truck.

205. - Oh, yeah! - You could have parked outside the Palace of Westminster

206. and nobody would have given you a ticket!

207. If you'd left, like, an alarm clock on the passenger seat!

208. - Just some big pipes on top of it.

209. "Just delivering pipes today."

210. Yeah. Oh, God, now listen. You know eBay, okay?

211. If you're planning on selling a car on eBay, a couple of tips.

212. Try to get as much information about the car without being boring, okay?

213. So service history, mileage. Okay? And get a nice photograph.

214. Don't just use one that you've got lying around,

215. especially if you'd taken it just after the car had been put in a ditch,

216. - like this chap. What?

217. That's not... - That was a genuine...

218. And as a result of that, the winning bid was £139.

219. It's in a ditch!

220. Yeah. He said that was the only picture he had of it.

221. - What an idiot! - Yeah.

222. Oh, now, there was a great one in the papers this week.

223. Oh, see, now, I cut it out, right. I brought it along.

224. That's a wristband, okay, which you wear,

225. - and it stops you falling asleep at the wheel. - How?

226. Well, if you don't move your wrist for 15 seconds, it buzzes.

227. So you've got to keep your wrist moving.

228. I was gonna say you'd have to remember

229. to take if off before you went to bed, but maybe you wouldn't.

230. I'm gonna have to explain all this to my nine year old boy.

231. Who's 10, I've just remembered!

232. Maybe I won't have to explain it to him after all now!

233. Uh... Right. Hey listen, gonna have a quiz.

234. What was the first car, production proper car,

235. ever to be fitted with electronic anti-lock brakes?

236. S Class. - It was the Mercedes S Class.

237. Don't come to my house for dinner.

238. Okay then, I'll try another one.

239. What was the first car ever to be fitted with airbags?

240. Yes, Mr Boring Man's got it again! It was the Mercedes S class.

241. Of course, now every car has ABS and every car has airbags.

242. All right, for three points, seatbelts?

243. Mercedes S Class!

244. SatNav?

245. - Mercedes S Class!

246. In fact, the message here is really very clear.

247. If you wanna know what toys are going to be

248. fitted to your ordinary family saloon in, like,10 years' time,

249. there is only one place to look!

250. Here, on the new Mercedes S Class.

251. It's more than just a car.

252. It's a glimpse into the future.

253. It's a showcase of everything that can be done,

254. and everything that everyone else will be doing very soon.

255. You can't get too excited by the basics.

256. It has doors, four of them.

257. Under the bonnet, there's an engine,

258. and under the car there are four wheels, which are circular.

259. But you can certainly get excited by some of the garnish.

260. You don't have to do anything as old-fashioned as push buttons in this car.

261. You just tell it what you want it to do.

262. For example...

263. - Station, Radio 2.

264. And it goes to Radio 2. Or...

265. - Station, absolute rubbish.

266. Look, Radio 1! It knows! How brilliant's that?

267. This also works for the telephone.

268. You tell it who you want to call.

269. It even works for the satellite navigation.

270. - So you just go...

271. enter destination.

272. Would you like to spell the name of the town?

273. W-A-R-S-A-W.

274. Starting route guidance.

275. And there you are! Poland!

276. All this means you never have to take your hands off the wheel.

277. But weirdly, you can take your feet off the pedals.

278. You see, it has something called radar-guided cruise control.

279. So I just set it to the speed and it follows the car in front.

280. It slows down, we slow down. If it speeds up, we speed up.

281. My feet are not on the pedals.

282. The question is, will it actually bring us to a halt

283. when we get to the roundabout up here?

284. I... This is... Are you going to stop, car?

285. Are you going to be able to do this?

286. Right. The car in front is braking for the roundabout.

287. I'm just going to cover the brake pedal. Just in case.

288. No, no, we're slowing. We're slowing.

289. How is it doing this?

290. I'm not touching anything. I'm not...

291. The car just stopped itself!

292. I'm gonna get out.

293. - There's no need to have me in here. You don't need me.

294. The big one on the safety front is a whole new way of stopping.

295. You just touch the brake pedal

296. and then it works out how much braking force is actually needed.

297. Not so little that you run into the car in front,

298. but not so much that you get rear-ended by the car behind.

299. It's when night falls, however, that things start to get really advanced.

300. When it gets dark, the headlamps come on automatically.

301. That's fine, of course, but it's a bit 20th century.

302. So what I'm gonna do now is turn on the infrared camera.

303. Watch the speedo and...

304. This means I can see much further

305. than I can with ordinary headlights.

306. And the extraordinary thing is, it's not distracting.

307. You just glance at it, like you glance at the rearview mirror.

308. It really is quite something, this.

309. Especially if you're a dogger.

310. Just put "dogging" in the SatNav...

311. However, Collymore vision is just the beginning.

312. This is where the S Class really gets into its stride.

313. It's even got a DVD player and surround sound,

314. for the full home cinema experience.

315. And it's the first car in the world which can receive digital television.

316. This means, of course, that you get all the digital channels.

317. That means, of course, you're never more than two clicks away

318. from something with Richard Hammond in it.

319. I might actually try...

320. The best thing though, is that all this stuff is so easy to use.

321. And that means this is a very relaxing car to drive.

322. I'm just selecting what sort of massage I'd like from the driver's seat here.

323. I think this feature is called the Bangkok Ladyboy-tronic.

324. Slow and gentle.

325. Oh, yeah... Mmm...

326. Tests have shown that in an S Class,

327. your heart beats five or six fewer times a minute

328. that it does in, say, a BMW.

329. So if you buy one of these, you'll live longer.

330. And so, apparently, will our precious planet.

331. Which one of these do you suppose

332. was awarded the first ever environmental certificate

333. from the German TUV people?

334. The big 5.5 litre V8 saloon car

335. or the Toyota Hybrid?

336. Nope, you're wrong.

337. It was the Mercedes.

338. The judges were impressed with how ethically it had been made,

339. how much recycled material was in it and how cleanly its engine burnt fuel.

340. So it can save the planet,

341. but better still, it can get round it very quickly indeed.

342. Computer-controlled air suspension

343. keeps the car flat and level.

344. And then 388 bhp

345. keeps it sideways.

346. It's the first time I've ever done a power slide in a home cinema,

347. that's for sure.

348. Amazing car, this.

349. £70,000.

350. Amazing car, except for one thing,

351. which we'll get to later on.

352. Now though, it's time to put a star in our brand-new Reasonably Priced Car.

353. Now, in his career so far, my guest tonight has snogged Scarlett Johansson,

354. climbed into a lavatory,

355. ridden a motorcycle round the world and been to outer space.

356. So we thought we'd put him in our Chevrolet Lacetti

357. - and show him some real excitement.

358. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Ewan McGregor!

359. - How are you? - Good to see you.

360. Have a seat.

361. All right?

362. Great, let it start.

363. Just to prove this isn't Parky, all right?

364. First question, your manhood. If you don't mind.

365. - Prove it! - You did say it was quite large.

366. Yes. I'm all right. I haven't had any complaints.

367. There's a guy in The Times reviewed it the other day as being "handsome."

368. And I was just thinking how unfair it is

369. that you should be a film star and have a big penis.

370. No, no, God was being pretty generous the day you popped out.

371. 'Cause I don't have that.

372. Yeah, some people come to movie stardom later in life, you know.

373. Mmm, it's not the movie stardom I'm worried about.

374. - Um, right. Now, let's get cracking. - Right.

375. - Star Wars. - Yes.

376. - Okay. Have you actually been on a space ship? - No.

377. - 'Cause it's all done on blue screen. - It is, yeah.

378. The classic was the very last scene I have

379. in the trilogy that I took part in.

380. The very last shot was

381. where I take the baby, you know, back to...

382. I don't even remember the names of anywhere.

383. - Tatooine... Where do I take them? - It's been...

384. Tatooine. - Tatooine. They all know. Worryingly.

385. Where I take Luke there, don't I? And I hand... So I...

386. I came down and I had friends on set.

387. And I said, "We're going down. It's a big... It's the last...

388. "It's my last moment in the trilogy."

389. So we got on the set, it's green.

390. Three sides of green and a green floor and a green box

391. like an old gymnastic horse thing, you know.

392. So I come up and I'm giving this baby... This is not a real baby.

393. And I'm sitting on this block. So I have to get on this block and it doesn't move.

394. So I have to go like this.

395. And it's not going anywhere.

396. And they're filming me and there are some actors over there

397. and George is going, "Look at the moons"

398. to the people who have the baby and they're like...

399. "Look at the moons!"

400. The thing about Star Wars, for me,

401. that I'll always hold the first three, in the '70s

402. with just a huge regard,

403. and the ones I did were the ones I did.

404. Not at all. No! I liked that frown thing.

405. I liked the third one. The third one was good.

406. - No, they were all good. - Okay.

407. I liked them all. I liked every single one of them.

408. Um, I'm actually rambling here, to be honest.

409. Because eventually we have to talk about motorbikes.

410. Yes!

411. No, you have to talk about motorbikes and I have to nod politely.

412. What... You're a bright guy. You're well endowed.

413. Why risk it all for motorcycling?

414. Well, 'cause I love it and it goes back a very long way to when I was five.

415. So I had a shot on someone's little monkey bike in a field

416. and that I think was it, you know.

417. The 2-stroke, the smell of that

418. and the feeling of being able to go quite quickly

419. without having to pedal was really exciting.

420. I still get quite excited about that today, you know.

421. At 90 miles an hour you don't pedal!

422. - A life in trouble. - Evidently.

423. But is it that sense of the freedom the bike gives you

424. or is it the rebel side of it?

425. It's... I don't feel like...

426. In fact, the most rebellious motorcycle I had was a KTM Duke II,

427. - which was a 650 single. - Oh, yeah.

428. - And it's... It's just, you can't...

429. So what is the appeal now? Is it...

430. I like everything about them.

431. The way they look. I like...

432. I'm becoming kind of obsessed about collecting them to a point, you know.

433. - Old ones? - Older ones.

434. And I think because I did the round-the-world trip with Charley

435. and there was something that happened during that trip,

436. where it was perfect for me for the way I feel about bikes

437. and it took me... You know, my bike took me around the world

438. and introduced me to a lot of great people.

439. 'Cause you got on the round-the-world thing,

440. - which was an epic voyage... - Yes.

441. But I love this idea

442. of showing a photographs or keeping a photograph of yourself as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

443. - In case there was trouble with border guards. - Yeah.

444. Come on!

445. But it did strike me as, what if he hasn't seen Star Wars?

446. "Here's me in a monk's outfit with a fluorescent tube."

447. Or Trainspotting. "Here's me diving into a lavatory full of excrement."

448. It's true. It was to be our last resort.

449. And in Chicago Airport, I was strip searched once

450. because the guy recognised me from Trainspotting.

451. He went, "What do you do?" And I went, "I'm an actor."

452. And he went, "What would I have seen you in?"

453. And at that point, I said, "Well, I think the only film

454. "that's been over here would be Trainspotting." And he went, "Oh, yeah."

455. And he wrote all this stuff down on my customs form

456. and then he said, "You want to go down there?"

457. And they did. They had every single bit of my luggage out,

458. - I was taken into a room... - "I'm an actor. Don't you understand?"

459. No, actually carrying lots of heroin into America.

460. You have this proud boast, don't do narcotics, apart from being a workaholic.

461. Which is... I've read that.

462. - Can we talk about cars now? - Yeah.

463. What have you got?

464. I'll do them in the order I think you might like them in.

465. First I've got a 1965 Ford Mustang convertible, right-hand drive.

466. It's really nice condition.

467. I mainly drive a Land Rover, a 110 Fender.

468. Yeah.

469. But everyday normal car, I would drive a Prius.

470. And I'll tell you why. After you've had a go at me.

471. - No, no... I was...

472. - I drive it mainly in London, in the city. - Mmm-hmm.

473. And I would say, probably 60%-65% of the time

474. when you're driving in London, you're not moving.

475. And for me, I feel that when that's the case, your engine isn't running.

476. Yeah. No, you're right. If you look in your Mustang,

477. if you look just at the right of the steering wheel, there's like a key thing.

478. Yeah. Turn it off?

479. And then... It's like you know,

480. I tend not to turn the tap off when it's...

481. - When I'm cleaning my teeth. - Yeah.

482. But you know if you were bothered about the drought, you can.

483. - I do. Yeah, yeah. - You do turn it off?

484. - Yeah. Yeah. - Oh, brilliant.

485. But this Land Rover... You live...

486. - This Land Rover... You live in London? - Yeah.

487. - I like it 'cause I love that car. - Oh, I like Land Rovers.

488. And I bought it after I did Long Way Round

489. 'cause I just thought I am now going to conquer the world

490. in whatever it is I'm driving.

491. So I got a snorkel on it in case there's flash floods in Piccadilly.

492. - Oh, really? - You know what I mean?

493. I've got to say, you know when you're making films,

494. - do they let you ride your bikes? - No. They don't.

495. They don't? You've just done one in the Isle of Man, haven't you?

496. Yeah, I wasn't allowed to ride a bike there.

497. - You're joking! - No.

498. - So you're sitting there with a TT course. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

499. No, I went round as much of it as I could,

500. sitting in the passenger's seat of my driver's car, you know.

501. - It wasn't quite the same, I suppose. - No, it isn't.

502. Yeah. And also they were repairing part of the road over the mountain

503. so we couldn't complete the circuit.

504. But we weren't repairing our track!

505. I had such a good time, I have to say.

506. I got really nervous about this lap thing.

507. - You're joking! - I did. I got really...

508. - You fought the Sith... - Yeah.

509. Yeah, but the Sith wasn't really there.

510. It was green.

511. Yeah, the track really is. And I'm afraid.

512. I'm slightly worried what it might look like,

513. 'cause I found I took it very seriously. I really liked it.

514. Well, who'd like to see Ewan's lap?

515. Yes!

516. Here we go. Let's play the tape.

517. There's a bit of grass there from... Oh!

518. Oh, dear!

519. That lever needs to be down.

520. Yeah. And then, in the next one... Have you got that?

521. In the next one I went, "I'll put the handbrake up." Right?

522. And I went... And I wasn't in gear!

523. - Well, that's very honest 'cause we didn't have that. - Oh, you don't have it.

524. I loved the grass hanging off the front of the car. Have you seen that?

525. That was from an earlier un-filmed excursion.

526. There's more about to come, I think.

527. Let's see the proper one.

528. There's the grass.

529. Yo! Come on!

530. Slipping into the American mode.

531. It's a relaxing technique I use.

532. Blowing the horn. Why not?

533. Go, go, go, go, go, go!

534. That first corner is very tricky.

535. You keep it in nice and tight here.

536. - A little bit too fast there. - McGREGOR: Yeah.

537. There you see, you go slow out.

538. Oh, go to third, you. There we are.

539. It was difficult to get it into third, I found.

540. Yeah, you should've driven the old Suzuki.

541. Oh, this is wide again. But this is a lot more forgiving, this car.

542. Does it look really slow? It felt much faster than that.

543. Now's the quick bit. Now you're flat out all the way down.

544. That's flat out through the follow through.

545. Cut the corner... Yes!

546. Nicely cut. You've got to cut this one as well.

547. This is difficult, I find, this over here.

548. Oh, that is beautifully done.

549. - That's nicely cut. - McGREGOR: And watch this.

550. And Gambon. Yes! Oh, dear! Oh!

551. Well, there you go.

552. - Thoughts? - I don't know. I don't know. I don't know!

553. That last corner's the problem. That going off.

554. - Even so... - Yeah?

555. - Good time. - Yeah?

556. Yeah. 1.48 dead.

557. - Oh, right. - So you go up there!

558. It's a good time.

559. - You pleased with that? - Yeah. That's nice, yeah. Yeah...

560. I'm not really, no!

561. Well, I was gonna say, you've got a UNICEF gig to get off to now, haven't you?

562. - Yeah. - Are they going to be told,

563. "Well, actually I'm going round again"?

564. Yes, I'd like to have another go when it's not...

565. - You can all wait. - Yeah.

566. It's been a massive pleasure having you here.

567. - I had a great time. Thank you so much. - Absolutely wonderful.

568. - Ladies and gentlemen, Ewan McGregor! - Thank you.

569. Thank you.

570. Now, there's been a lot of people recently

571. having a go at 4x4s. But not me.

572. I've been having a go in a 4x4.

573. Welcome to Greenpeace hell.

574. What we have here is the Porsche Cayenne Turbo S.

575. Forget the 911 Turbo, forget the GT3.

576. This, in a headline, is the most powerful car that Porsche makes.

577. Two turbos, two intercoolers and it weighs two and a half tonnes,

578. and yet 0-60 takes just 5.2 seconds.

579. That's faster than a BMW M3.

580. Naturally, the brakes are now the size of planets,

581. and whilst we're on the superlatives,

582. it has to be said it is still the ugliest 4x4 ever made.

583. But at least you'll be going so quickly no one will notice.

584. The power from a 4.5 litre V8 is up from 450

585. to a massive 512 bhp.

586. But they're all just, well, numbers.

587. What it's about is the sensation of this much mass

588. being hurled towards the horizon.

589. This is physics gone mad!

590. The Turbo S costs £81,500.

591. And then, sadly,

592. Gordon Brown will want another 50 quid for his 4x4 tax.

593. But you probably guessed that.

594. And on top of all that, the fuel consumption is...

595. Well, do you really have to ask?

596. So it's a fast and furiously expensive family car.

597. And one which bristles with technology.

598. Like Porsche traction management to cope with tough terrain

599. an active air suspension with six ride-height settings.

600. The next task, then, is to find out what happens

601. when that mighty power and all those gizmos come together off road.

602. So we've devised another Richard Hammond Real World Test.

603. This is Cyprus near Greece.

604. And these roads make up the course for the Cyprus Rally.

605. It's a mezze of rough, gravel tracks

606. and sharp, blind bends.

607. A good place, then, to try out the Turbo S.

608. The other good thing about Cyprus is...

609. Well, the weather is not exactly what you'd exactly call bad.

610. Sun and clear blue skies.

611. Which means this man can see where he's going.

612. He's a Red Devil, one of the British Army's crack parachutists.

613. And today he's going to race me.

614. This isn't actually as daft as it sounds.

615. You see, I'm going to set off from a start line

616. about two and a half miles away over there, in the mountains.

617. I'll then drive as fast as I can down the rally track

618. to the finish point here.

619. Meanwhile, Lance Corporal Mac McAuliffe will jump from 10,000 feet

620. directly above me and race me to the target.

621. As the crow flies, Mac will also be covering about two and a half miles,

622. and that should take him two and a half minutes.

623. Which means, if I'm to have a fighting chance,

624. I'll have to average 60 miles an hour.

625. And that is a tall order on roads like this.

626. The Red Devil will be jumping from this helicopter,

627. which we borrowed from somebody.

628. Now, the challenge facing Mac is he needs to descend as quickly as possible

629. to win the race,

630. but stay high enough to cover the horizontal distance.

631. Which is why he'll be wearing the Phoenix Fly Vampire V2.

632. It's a cutting-edge wingsuit modelled on the flying squirrel.

633. And it allows the wearer to fly faster over longer horizontal distances.

634. Now, obviously, he will have to open his chute at some point,

635. otherwise he'll just fall to earth like a man dressed as a flying squirrel.

636. Within minutes, the Red Devil was 10,000 feet up,

637. hovering directly over my GPS coordinate position on his start line in the sky.

638. Five, four...

639. Three, two...

640. One... Go!

641. Oh, my God, I'm gonna have an off on the first corner!

642. Oh, my God!

643. Come on!

644. All the off-road technology was working fine.

645. It was the tyres that were holding me back.

646. The problem is the 20-inch rims on this car.

647. Porsche don't supply off-road tyres.

648. If you go down a size to 19,

649. they won't fit over the huge brakes that you need to stop the thing.

650. These tyres have absolutely no grip!

651. He's right now falling at just 30 miles an hour,

652. but he's going along the ground at 100.

653. Boot it. Come on!

654. This is terrifying!

655. Come on!

656. I've got another hairpin. Don't overdo it! Don't overdo it!

657. Don't die! Don't die!

658. Three tonnes of car. All the power in the world.

659. How in the name of God do you stop it?

660. I need his parachute. Cliff, cliff!

661. - Ow! Oh, that sounded expensive.

662. I can see him!

663. He's going like a missile!

664. As we neared the halfway point, the Red Devil was well ahead.

665. But soon he'd have to slow down.

666. Literally, my only hope, once he deploys his chute, he's got a 90 second drop.

667. That's when I'm gonna make up time.

668. It's never gonna come! It's a drop!

669. - Oh, big bang!

670. At 2,500 feet, only seconds away from slamming into the ground,

671. the Red Devil has to hit the brakes by releasing his parachute.

672. He's got his chute deployed.

673. Come on! Power! Power! Power!

674. God!

675. No! Turn!

676. Big tank slapper. Come on!

677. No, no, no, no! He's nearly down!

678. Just give me a little bit more now!

679. This is it. Where is he? I can't see him.

680. He's there! No!

681. How close could that be?

682. So a couple of weeks ago,

683. you raced a jet-propelled canoe across Iceland.

684. Yes.

685. Now you've raced a man dressed as a squirrel.

686. So, what is it next week then? An emperor penguin?

687. - Yes, all right. Fine. - In a shopping centre?

688. Look, I was just looking for a high-impact way

689. of showing how good this car is.

690. - Was. - Is.

691. How good it was before you got hold of it.

692. Well, that one particular...

693. Tell the ladies and gentlemen what you did to it.

694. Well, after we'd had the race, I was sort of going back up the hill.

695. Then a member of the production team was sort of coming down the hill

696. - and we had a bit of a slight bump. - A bump?

697. So that's how you would describe it?

698. We've got some photographs. Anyone want to see the "bump"?

699. Yes! - Not really!

700. - No, not really. - They're on the screens. And that's...

701. And who'd like to see the car he hit?

702. - That's not bad. - Let's have a look.

703. There's the car he hit.

704. That'll polish out. It was just a slight shunt.

705. You set the airbags off in the Porsche, look!

706. Actually, that was a bit of a surprise

707. and a bit of a worthwhile test,

708. because I always thought you know, an airbag going off would be like

709. resting your head on a big fluffy pillow.

710. It's not!

711. It's like being hit in the face with a wrecking ball.

712. You have a crash. "Oh, no!" And then...

713. It hurts!

714. I didn't like it.

715. Can I just say as well, he still had his microphone on when he had the accident

716. and the sound recordist distinctly heard him go, "My teeth! My teeth!"

717. Did not.

718. Now I'm afraid we've had another complaint from a viewer

719. that we don't feature enough sensible, down-to-earth cars, on the show.

720. So this week we've got one in the studio.

721. It has excellent luggage capacity

722. and does 33 miles to the gallon.

723. And here it is!

724. It's the Caparo T1 and it's the work of two engineers

725. who used to design Formula 1 cars for McLaren.

726. And I just love some of the details,

727. like the rear light with this trail of LEDs down there.

728. It really is absolutely fabulous.

729. And look at this. These wing mirrors are mirrors on the wings.

730. And then there's the engine. It's a 2.4 litre supercharge V8

731. and it's not cobbled together by gluing two old motorbike engines.

732. It's actually bespoke for this car.

733. It's powerful, 480 brake horsepower.

734. And because the whole thing is so light, it weighs less than half a Ford Fiesta.

735. - Yup. - It's fast. 0-60, 2.5 seconds.

736. And it'll do 200 miles an hour.

737. I think what really impresses me is that it's so reasonably priced.

738. This is £190,000.

739. You laugh at that,

740. - but a Pagani Zonda is what, £100,000 more? - Yeah.

741. - Bargain. - And this will do 33 miles to the gallon. Honestly.

742. Although we did make up the bit about the luggage space.

743. Okay. Earlier on, we looked at the Mercedes S-Class

744. and we decided it was a brilliant car, except for one small thing.

745. If you look on the inside,

746. there isn't a single piece of trim in here that you'd want to put in your house.

747. Not unless the children were being held hostage. And that gave me an idea.

748. You see, so far in this series, we've cracked amphibious cars,

749. we have cracked convertible people carriers,

750. and I thought I'd try now to crack car interior design.

751. What I did was buy an old Mercedes S-Class,

752. which, inside is pretty much the same as the new one

753. nasty leather and nasty, nasty wood.

754. And now I'm going to try and change everything.

755. I mean, how hard can it be?

756. To find out, I've come to London

757. to see Marie-Laurence Camara-Ferguson,

758. who's like Laurence Llewelyn Bowen,

759. only she's French, and a girl.

760. - Hi. How are you? Yeah. - Hello, Jeremy. Nice to meet you.

761. Even so, we had pretty much the same ideas

762. about what's wrong with modern car interiors.

763. To me, the interiors of cars in general nowadays, are extremely boring,

764. very masculine.

765. It's not geared towards being a pleasurable environment.

766. Everyone these days, "We'll build a luxury car that's a mass of gadgets."

767. - Exactly. - Is Dixons a luxury place to go?

768. You need a tactile environment,

769. and we can use materials such as fabrics, such as wallpaper

770. and surround perhaps...

771. Sadly, though, while we agreed on what was wrong

772. we didn't agree on what materials should be used to put things right.

773. We've got aluminium, we've got NASA,

774. we've got liquid floor tiles...

775. Interesting though, all your theories are,

776. it's not quite what I want.

777. So what do you want?

778. I want it to be like my house.

779. - Is your house very stylish? - No.

780. And you can mock, okay, and you probably will.

781. Instead of normal seats, wingback chairs.

782. I want a stone flag floor.

783. Why not a wood-burning stove?

784. Yes.

785. Quaint my ride. You want...

786. Marie agreed to try a few things out,

787. saying she'd meet me at a workshop in a week's time.

788. - Okay, see you soon. Bye-bye. - Take care. Be good. Get to work!

789. Unfortunately, when we met up,

790. it quickly became apparent that Marie had completely ignored my ideas

791. and designed a vodka bar.

792. This is what I have.

793. What I have done is I have actually created

794. a little pod which is for the drivers.

795. On that side, the passenger side,

796. you've got a piece of glass which can convert.

797. It's an electric glass which can become opaque.

798. The actual aim of the design is to create relaxation...

799. You see... No, no, look.

800. Tweed doesn't go with it.

801. Yuck! Sorry, no.

802. I want, I want wingback chairs.

803. I want wingbacks and I want a stone floor.

804. I left Marie to have a rethink and went to meet the builders.

805. How many of you are Polish?

806. You're Polish? And you're Polish.

807. Good. Have you done a car before?

808. - No. - No?

809. - I've done small bathrooms. - Small bathrooms?

810. - Not cars. - It's like that, but we don't need a bath put in.

811. The first job was to strip the Merc of its plastic, wood and ruched leather.

812. I've got a good mind to go round to the boss of Mercedes Benz,

813. to his house, and see if he's got any of that in it.

814. I know you're not happy,

815. but you're designing the sort of thing I'm after, and that's important.

816. This is not design.

817. - This is brilliant! - I'm executing something silly here.

818. It's not silly.

819. - It's a doll's house. - No.

820. - How old are you, Jeremy? - Nine.

821. Really? Going on five.

822. Yes, I'm nine. I know I don't look nine, but I am nine.

823. I've had an idea, okay?

824. We'll try it my way first, and then we'll finish.

825. Meanwhile, the Poles had found a problem with my intended location

826. for the wood-burning stove.

827. Is that the petrol tank?

828. Your scheme is not going to work in this. I mean, hello! Let's be realistic.

829. We have to move the petrol tank.

830. We'll make a smaller petrol tank.

831. That can't be difficult. And then put it in the front passenger foot well.

832. He's a real rosbif. I mean, with all due respect!

833. He has no idea about design, though. Absolutely no idea.

834. Finally, the centre console

835. and all the seats were where they belonged.

836. In a skip.

837. So the problem we've got is that the floor at the back is raised.

838. It's higher than the floor in the front.

839. So where are we going to get a wingback chair that's only two feet tall?

840. It doesn't work. Your scheme does not work.

841. No! This is why you gave in in the war. "Oh, it's too difficult."

842. This is what the British do.

843. My scheme is... Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no, no.

844. That's what we do. We see a problem with it, how do we get around that?

845. Ask them. They're Polish, they'll know.

846. Marie felt car interior design should be done in a studio,

847. but I was determined what we needed was a builder's yard.

848. This is what I'm talking about.

849. A cement mixer.

850. Forget your welding, forget your plastic and your poppers.

851. Some cement and some plasterboard.

852. The cement would form a base for my stone flag floor.

853. And while it was being mixed, I introduced Marie to a builder's lunch.

854. What do you mean? What's the matter with chips with vinegar on them?

855. Oh, this is wrong. That is revolting. That is really revolting.

856. The cement was finally ready.

857. All this concrete together, level, is going to be two tonnes.

858. Well, let's see how well this car's made then.

859. Pour away, and I'll watch the tyres explode.

860. Next, the door panels,

861. and, of course Marie wanted something from the planet Zorg.

862. This is fantastic. It comes in different colours.

863. Jeremy, please, a bit of style.

864. But she lost that battle as well.

865. It is going to be hideous, you realise that?

866. Oh, I'm sorry. What's the matter with plaster?

867. Yes, but what you want to do with it is going to be hideous!

868. Just hear "Agincourt." That's all you need to hear.

869. This is a joke. That's not design. It's set design.

870. Honestly. I would hate to see his house.

871. I can imagine his parents having quite a lot of trouble with him as a child,

872. and today, because he hasn't grown much. Has he?

873. With Anglo-French relations at an all-time low,

874. it looked like the car would never actually be finished.

875. But it was, and here it is!

876. - Yeah.

877. Welcome to Anne Hathaway's cottage.

878. As you can see, I've got a wooden floor in the front,

879. and in the back, I've gone for stone flags.

880. Now, over there, we've got the log stove, the wood-burning stove.

881. There's a little bookcase with a globe on the top.

882. Here's my wingback. I found one that fitted.

883. And of course, all the furniture is fully adjustable.

884. - Like that.

885. This one, you see, goes forwards and back,

886. and this is a really nice touch. I think, that.

887. It is a work of genius, this.

888. I mean, normally, everything I do on Top Gear either ends up in a hedge

889. or at the bottom of a lake, but I really am properly proud of that.

890. - Yes...

891. Well, to find out if his creation worked,

892. we thought we'd take it out for a little test drive.

893. Right, then...

894. Adjust my seat.

895. - Right, are you ready? - Yes, I'm ready. Go.

896. Yeah, that's... That's a design flaw.

897. Yeah, that is a problem. Hang on. Stop.

898. - Why don't you go in the back? - I'm going to go in the back.

899. Now, obviously, Jeremy had added quite a lot of weight to the car,

900. so how would it affect performance?

901. So, this was a 2.8 litre, six cylinder, 0-60 in about 11 seconds.

902. With a concrete floor and floorboards on top of that,

903. it's going to take longer than that.

904. Well, I brought a stopwatch.

905. - Three. Two. One. Go! - Yes. Yes. Yes.

906. - Plant pots are over. - Yeah.

907. Flower arrangement sliding backwards quickly.

908. - Me globe, me pots, me plants...

909. We're approaching 35 miles an hour.

910. This is the fastest Anne Hathaway's cottage has ever been.

911. - Forty-three miles an hour. - Good. Yes.

912. If this gets any slower, we'll have to redecorate. It'll have gone out of fashion.

913. Oh no! What?

914. - The chimney's fallen off. - You're joking!

915. - Keep going. - I am! 56 miles an hour.

916. Hold on! 59!

917. 60 miles an hour!

918. 35.4 seconds!

919. I'm going to have to brake fairly firm.

920. Having retrieved the chimney,

921. we checked out the electrical systems.

922. It's stuck.

923. Reverse gear.

924. Brake lights. Brake lights.

925. - They're on! - They're not.

926. - Well, the brakes are on. - Well, the brake lights aren't working.

927. - That's an MOT failure. - It's more than that, mate.

928. - The wire for the brake lights...

929. The wire for the brake lights...

930. - Yeah? - ... is on the floor, isn't it?

931. - Ah, under the concrete. - Yes. He's concreted that in.

932. Never mind. Time to turn up the heater

933. and test the handling.

934. We must now do a lap.

935. Three, two, one, go!

936. - Plant pots... - My seat's gone back!

937. Right turn coming up.

938. - Braced. - Now turning.

939. Yup, yup, that's bad now.

940. That's bad. That's bad, that was.

941. - James? - Yes?

942. - Hammerhead's next. - Oh, no!

943. Turning it in. Turning!

944. - Regain control of the cottage!

945. - It's okay. Okay. - Get out of the pot pourri, man!

946. Yeah, bleeding quite a lot. James, I can see double.

947. - It's left. Now. Now. - Yup.

948. Yup. That went well.

949. - And we're nearly there. - No, you're not.

950. And across the line!

951. You know what? What?

952. - This is rubbish. - Terrible.

953. You two, you two are clowns.

954. Clowns!

955. This...

956. This is the safest car ever made.

957. - I've got a scar!

958. I've got bruised ribs and a very badly barked shin.

959. - Yes. - Listen. Listen.

960. You see this endless crash test footage, okay,

961. of cars being thumped into concrete blocks,

962. and the concrete block is never damaged. This is a concrete block!

963. I would absolutely happily drive this into the concrete block.

964. Turning left at some traffic lights, however, is extremely lethal!

965. And another thing, why did you polish the wooden floor?

966. I was off like a rocket!

967. The brilliance of this car is you're never really going fast enough

968. to properly hurt yourself.

969. You're "never really going fast enough" to get where you're going!

970. - Sixty miles an hour. What was it, 35 seconds? - Yup.

971. How safe's that?

972. Have you been in a dining room doing 60 miles an hour?

973. Do you want me to show you what it's like

974. to be smacked on the head with a wingback chair?

975. - Yes, exactly. - Listen. Listen.

976. The fact of the matter is, Mercedes have shown us with the new S Class, okay,

977. they've shown us what is technically possible,

978. but I would rather have this!

979. The one you've ruined?

980. Look, the problem is taste, okay?

981. If you made a car to look like the inside of your house, it would have a horse in it.

982. And you, your house is just full of pictures of the Queen.

983. - What?

984. Now, look. Listen, we must move on,

985. because time is pressing, and we've got unfinished business.

986. Because a few weeks ago, if you may remember,

987. The Stig was lapping the 800 brake-horsepower Koenigsegg CCX,

988. and, well, it tried to kill him.

989. Here it is, you see.

990. Coming out of Hammerhead, he's twitching... Oh, he's off!

991. Oh, my word, it's eating tyres!

992. - That is a big crash. It was.

993. The problem was, the car had no down force.

994. Now, the Stig said if it had a back spoiler,

995. then it would handle better and do a faster lap time.

996. So, Koenigsegg took it back to Sweden

997. and it now has the rear spoiler.

998. So, this morning The Stig took it out and had another go.

999. - And he's off! Now, of course, that back wing

1000. is going to affect the top speed.

1001. It won't do 250 anymore.

1002. But what's it going to do for the handling? Let's find out.

1003. Coming up to the first corner. Bit wobbly under braking there,

1004. but it's all nice and smooth.

1005. Yeah, that's looking very good.

1006. There's too much noise.

1007. Yeah, but what a noise it is!

1008. It sounds like a Norse god of thunder gargling a hammer!

1009. - That's a fantastic sound!

1010. Into the Hammerhead. Spoiler won't be working really at that speed.

1011. But now it will. Now, it'll be pushing the back of the car down as he... Yeah.

1012. Look at that! Fantastically composed.

1013. Excuse me, I want to get off.

1014. This is where the last one tried to kill him!

1015. He's lifted a bit. Don't blame him.

1016. But he's still going through there very nicely.

1017. That is quick! Now, will it try to kill him as he brakes at the second to last corner?

1018. Oh, it sort of is doing, but he's holding it together!

1019. Holy Gambon! And that is beautifully done, Stig.

1020. I've never seen him do Gambon better than that.

1021. - It did look fast. - It did.

1022. Now, hey! This...

1023. 1.20.4, that's the old Koenigsegg lap.

1024. We don't need that anymore.

1025. Okay. So, this is the time he was aiming for. 1.18.4 for the Zonda F.

1026. Yes?

1027. - And he did it. - Yes?

1028. - This is the new Koenigsegg. - It's a big one.

1029. - With the Top Gear wing. - Yes?

1030. 1...

1031. 17.6!

1032. Whoa!

1033. It's the new lap record. Amazing!

1034. - The new lap record. - It worked.

1035. - It worked. - Isn't that brilliant?

1036. As in, if you think about it,

1037. we're not just testing cars anymore on this show,

1038. - we're designing them! - Yeah!

1039. And on that bombshell, it's time to end.

1040. Thank you very much for watching. Good night!