- 2 months ago
In Top Gear Season 2, Episode 9, the Stig delivers jaw-dropping power laps while Clarkson, Hammond, and May take on challenges packed with humor and chaos.
In Top Gear Season 2, Episode 9, Jeremy tackles the Vauxhall Signum and the GM Hywire, plus Patrick Stewart takes the Reasonably Priced Car challenge.
In Top Gear Season 2, Episode 9, Jeremy tackles the Vauxhall Signum and the GM Hywire, plus Patrick Stewart takes the Reasonably Priced Car challenge.
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00:00Tonight, Captain Jean-Luc Picard at warp point nought nought nought one.
00:10The Dutch have made a car.
00:12And be still, my beating heart, a new Vauxhall saloon.
00:19Good evening, and welcome to the show that has wheels.
00:23Now, as I'm sure you know, we have a test track outside our base here,
00:28which we use to test the really fast stuff.
00:31The Porsches, the Ferraris, the Lamborghinis.
00:34And this week, the S60R, which is a Volvo.
00:43Don't think, however, that we've brought a bit of sanity to our world of noise and squealing tyres.
00:49Because Volvo say this is a rival for the BMW M3.
00:58To be honest, it's hard to see what they're on about.
01:05It's got a phone, fabulously comfortable seats, cruise control, and it feels soft and flobbery.
01:13Like a big woolly bison.
01:15It's not that fast, either.
01:20They have a turbo and two intercoolers, but it still only develops 300 brake horsepower.
01:26Way less than you get from the Germans.
01:29It's only when you really concentrate that you start to pick up the clues.
01:39The big alloy wheels.
01:41The blue engine cover.
01:45The seats, which seem to have been made out of David Dickinson.
01:51And those three little buttons on the dash.
01:55Comfort, Sport, and Advanced.
01:58These buttons are the key that unlocks Volvo's all-new Skyhook system.
02:06Now, this is a system that's got more computing power than the CIA.
02:10So, let's push Sport, and let's partially disengage one of the traction controls.
02:18There.
02:19Now, let's see what happens.
02:21Now, at this precise moment, the computer is thinking,
02:34Aha, that front wheel's losing grip, so I'm going to apply the brake to that.
02:38I'm going to back the engine power off, and what little power there is,
02:41I'm going to send it to the back to see if I can get the back out,
02:43and then I'm going to pump the shock absorber up here
02:45to see if that'll make a difference.
02:47And then, five hundredths of a second later, it changes its mind.
02:52It thinks, no, no, no, no, no, this has got all the power in the world.
02:55I've got to unleash the engine's power and get it all coming to the front,
02:57back it off to the back, get the back brakes off.
02:59From in here, I have no idea that any of this is going on.
03:06It's very relaxing.
03:08I can just sit here listening to the excellent stereo
03:12and speculate on whether or not these seats aren't really David Dickinson at all.
03:18They might be an off cut of Dale Winton.
03:21A choice cut of Dale.
03:24So, the combination of four-wheel drive and two very clever traction control systems
03:33make this a safe, stylish, likeable, but slightly boring medium-speed cruiser.
03:39A rival for the BMW M3? I don't think so.
03:45Of course, the good thing about this technology
03:52is that when you've finished clowning around,
03:54you can put the suspension back into comfort bison mode,
03:59sink a little more deeply into Dale Winton
04:02and bumble home in your trilby.
04:06Volvo style.
04:08So, what happened to all that usual pointless, you know,
04:19skidding around in a cloud of smoke, headlights on rubbish?
04:22It won't do it. It won't do it, honestly.
04:24It's almost as though the Volvo bosses said to their engineers,
04:27go away, champs, let your hair down.
04:29Never that usual dancing queen, let's have the full Ozzy Osbourne.
04:32They were a year working on it and all they've done is made the normal S60
04:35a little bit safer.
04:38I know what you mean, OK? I've got the brochure here
04:39and I've never seen so many of these stupid acronyms for driver controls.
04:44They've got DCC, wheel hop control, DSTC, CRAP.
04:48What is it all? I mean, can you turn it off?
04:50No, the normal thing is, in a normal car,
04:52when you want to turn the traction control off,
04:54OK, you just have a button, push it and it's off.
04:56Not in this, though.
04:57It says here that you're not allowed to do this
05:00unless you are highly experienced.
05:03And then it says that in order to do this,
05:05you have to press the button five times in succession
05:08with a certain frequency.
05:10Oh, God.
05:11Does it tell you what the frequency is?
05:13No, but this is the country that cracked the Enigma code, OK?
05:16So we had no problem working out what it was.
05:19And then when we'd got it off, we gave the car to the Stig.
05:23So, away he goes.
05:25Now, remember, the traction control is completely switched off
05:28and the suspension is in advanced mode,
05:31which Volvo says make the S60 behave like a pure racing car, apparently.
05:39Stig's playing tribute to the walrus of love there.
05:41Now, he's looking tidy around Chicago.
05:43Not especially fast, it must be said.
05:45The real test here, the Hammerhead.
05:47Wow, there's plenty of understeer.
05:49Oh, dear, that's not good.
05:51Nothing like a pure racing car, then, in fact.
05:54Down to the follow through.
05:56That is quick.
05:57Oh, careful, Stig.
05:59Now, coming up into the penultimate bend.
06:02Lurching a bit there over the first sector.
06:06The Volvo was four seconds down on the M3.
06:09As it slews to Gambon and across the line.
06:12And the time was 1 minute 35 seconds dead.
06:17Oh.
06:18So that goes there, basically.
06:201 minute 35 dead.
06:22Which is still 3.2 slower than the M3, which is a lot.
06:26It is a lot, but look at it this way.
06:28It's less expensive than the M3
06:30and it's less embarrassing than driving an M3.
06:32Deeply less embarrassing.
06:33And the great thing about the S60
06:35is that you can have it as an estate car.
06:38And actually, that is really nice.
06:39I think that is fabulous.
06:41I love that.
06:42It's very, very good.
06:43So, what I do is buy an Audi S4.
06:48Yes, good idea.
06:49Right, the news.
06:50Now, it has been a bad week for the Church of England.
06:52What with them being unable to decide
06:53whether they're in favour of homosexual canons and bishops or not.
06:56And it all got a bit complicated.
06:58But they can take cheer from this.
06:59It's the Ford Focus C-Max.
07:02Yeah.
07:03Basically, it's a Focus, but a little bit taller.
07:06Only seats.
07:07So, your Bishop can get in there quite easily with the miter on, no problem.
07:11It's going to be priced competitively with Vauxhall Zafira and things like that.
07:14But, key difference.
07:16Vauxhall Zafira has seven seats.
07:18Seven seats.
07:19This has five.
07:20Five seats.
07:21So, it's exactly the same as we said, Ford.
07:23But you can drive it if you're a punk rocker.
07:26If you've got a Mohican, this is the car.
07:28Yes.
07:29So, it's punk rockers, bishops.
07:31Surviving First World War German soldiers with pointy helmets.
07:35I think it's a load of rubbish there.
07:37Yes, I'm inclined to agree.
07:38Now, the Conservatives.
07:39Two, three.
07:40Mixed response.
07:41No, mixed response there.
07:42Actually, this is the BBC, so we're impartial.
07:45Anyway, the Conservatives have decided that in order to win votes, they've said that if
07:54they're elected, they're going to up the motorway speed limit to 80 miles an hour.
07:59Yes.
08:00Hooray.
08:01Do away with the vast majority of speed cameras.
08:05Hooray.
08:06A purge of speed bumps.
08:09Hooray.
08:10And, best of all, they will abolish the M4 bus lane.
08:15Hooray.
08:16That's not.
08:18This is great.
08:21However, the government, the Labour Party, not to be outdone, have announced just this week
08:27that they, if they're elected, are going to widen every road in the land.
08:34Hooray.
08:35It's at this rate.
08:36Honestly, the Lib Dems will be on the night this week.
08:38Free Ferraris for everybody.
08:40You even have a Lambo.
08:42Right, look, here's a proper piece of British ingenuity.
08:45A bloke called Jeff, he's made a steam-powered bicycle.
08:48After 30 years' work, he started work on it in 1972.
08:52Roughly 250 years after the steam engine was invented.
08:55He's not really on the cutting edge, is he?
08:58Well, what this bloke has done, he's taken one old technology, one outdated technology,
09:03he's combined them to create something genuinely useless.
09:06It's brilliant.
09:08And this is the best bit.
09:09It runs on unleaded petrol.
09:11A steam engine.
09:12So why not just put the unleaded petrol in a moped?
09:16He says, it gave me such a thrill after all these years' work, I should think so.
09:21And I just ride her round steam fares.
09:24Her?
09:25Her, yes.
09:26Well, it's a steam engine.
09:27They're all girls.
09:28Dude, but what about people who refer to their cars as she?
09:30I find that scary.
09:31What is it about giving cars names?
09:33Now, is this something that only women do?
09:35Because I said this down the pub the other day and then it got my head kicked in.
09:38Has any bloke here ever called their car something like Mini the Micra?
09:43Or anything like that?
09:44Has any man, hands up if you've ever named your car.
09:46Have any women here named their cars?
09:48Yes.
09:49Look at that.
09:50What's the name of your car?
09:52Miles.
09:53Miles?
09:54Miles, that's a good one.
09:55What's the name of your car then?
09:57Mr. T.
09:58Mr. T?
09:59Is it big and black with jewellery all over it?
10:01It's a Toyota.
10:03It's a Toyota.
10:04So you call a Toyota MR2, not Graham Norton, which is its real name.
10:11Well, there we are.
10:13Now, big news.
10:14Very big news.
10:15Rover has announced that it is going to launch a new, well, basically a Metro, isn't it?
10:21I've got a picture of it here.
10:23This is an important car.
10:24This is a genuinely, properly important car.
10:26There we are.
10:27It's called the City Rover and it's got five doors.
10:31Very small car.
10:32It will cost between six and a half and eight and a half thousand pounds.
10:35That doesn't look A, very nice or B, anything like a Rover.
10:40And there's a very good reason for that.
10:42It's because it's actually made by a company called Tata in India.
10:47And then it's shipped over here where we nailed some Rover badges to it.
10:51Why can't we do it?
10:53Why can't we do it?
10:54What, make a small car?
10:55Why can't we, in Britain, the country that gave the world the jet engine and penicillin and the telephone,
11:00why can't Rover make their own small car?
11:03Well, they always turn around and say it's because labour costs are so high.
11:06That's the reason we always get.
11:07Rubbish, though, because the German labour costs are off the scale.
11:10They can make polos and lupos.
11:11Why can't we do it?
11:12Why can't we do it?
11:14We're a pathetic bunch of second-raters.
11:17And now Rover have been around the world hammering the point home.
11:20There is another Rover, wanna see it?
11:23Oh, yes.
11:23No.
11:24This is a beauty.
11:25This is called the Streetwise, okay?
11:29Now this is basically, they're saying it's an Urban On-Roader.
11:33Now, if we analyse that.
11:36An Urban On-Roader is a car designed to go on the road in town, so, it's a car, isn't it?
11:43isn't it it's effectively it's a 25 isn't it onto which they've nailed some
11:48polyurethane bumpers there you are look at polyurethane front end and they've
11:52jacked it up a bit they are saying that it has got a split folding rear seat
11:59like a car yeah like a car it's available with a selection of petrol and
12:04diesel power units yeah various transmissions three trim levels car
12:09like yeah very car like it's fun to drive handy in traffic easy to park and able
12:14to shrug off hard use by active individuals and young families and put
12:18some thought into this everything has elements of the SUV appeal no it doesn't
12:23it's not four-wheel drive with good ground clearance and ruggedness but without the
12:26costs and complexity of 4x4 transmission it's a car at the same time it offers
12:32good all-around performance and capability out of town from motorways to farm
12:37tracks so you can drive out of town yeah it's not just an urban on-roader it's a
12:41motorway on right and it can do farm tracks but nothing too difficult okay now
12:48just to show you how topical we are on this program look what we've got here
12:53it's the new Mazda RX8 and it arrived this morning on a plane from Japan and here's
13:01the proof look on the windscreen Japanese bird poo with SARS now you're looking at
13:07you thinking yes very nice Wankel rotary engine 20,000 pounds but there's lots of
13:12other coupes I could get for that sure there are listen Z car Audi TT Toyota
13:17Sleaker and so on and so forth but none of those can do this there's the front
13:22door and if you want to get in the back look at that they're brilliant we're
13:27absolutely sold on that here and we wanted James to go and test it but he
13:32said no I'd rather go to Germany and drive an American car that runs on seawater
13:38the car has been with us for over a hundred years now and in all that time it's been
13:47evolving really rather nicely but let's be honest it's never really changed until now
13:54this is the General Motors high wire now it still looks pretty much like a car it's got wheels and
14:06windows and what-have-you but it represents a complete revolution in the way a car works
14:12everything that makes the high wire go stop and steer is contained in an 11 inch deep chassis
14:25underneath here somewhere now there's no engine or drivetrain all that's gone there's no gearbox to
14:30worry about there's no fascia no pedals there are no mechanical linkages between the driver and the
14:36driving it's all replaced with this it's a computer cable and this isn't science fiction I'm going to
14:47drive it being British you'll notice that I've got into the wrong side of the car but actually it isn't
14:56a problem there are no pedals to worry about so there you go now this means I could drive down to Dover and
15:05on to the ferry in a right-hand drive car drive off the other end in Calais in a left-hand drive car
15:10right let's see if we can make this thing go so power select drive on a button there twist to accelerate
15:21squeeze them and we brake that's fantastic
15:28oh this is weird it's very very airy and there's a big flat floor and look at the size of that window
15:37up the front sort of like driving a patio this doesn't feel entirely natural to be honest it's
15:44very logical but it's not really second nature because I've spent more than 20 years driving a
15:50normal car but I bet if you're part of the PlayStation generation you'll be able to drive this thing
15:55straight away on level 10 probably rearview mirror bit 20th century so we'll have a TV screen here on
16:03the steering thingy and as for door mirrors we'll have TVs there as well I'm sorry if I'm not talking
16:10in a very normal voice but I am concentrating very very hard here there's only one of these in the world
16:17and it's worth about five million quid right let's have the top off this thing and then we can see how
16:26it works that's easy with no mechanical linkages to worry about it's a simple matter of undoing a
16:36load of bolts and whipping out the computer cable here is an electric motor which drives the wheels this is
16:45the fuel tank full of hydrogen and this is the fuel cell now in this hydrogen from the tank there combines
16:52with oxygen in the air in a complex and frankly rather boring way to produce electricity but the
16:58important thing is that there are no batteries to recharge anywhere on this this has its own onboard
17:04power station and it generates so much electricity that I could actually run my house off it in fact I
17:11could run half my street off it but the real stroke of genius is combining hydrogen power with bywire
17:20controls because here's something you can't do with your car this is essentially a family saloon but what
17:28if you wanted a pickup for the weekend or a people carrier or even a two-seater convertible sports car
17:34well change it go down your dealer get him to unbolt this body and plug a new one in I mean it's only
17:43going to take half an hour even better why not get him to bring one right and here's a thought the
17:50high wire is made by General Motors and they own Vauxhall do you know what this is it's the new Vectra I mean not
17:58the next one probably not the one after that but one day now if we forget all the tomorrow's
18:06world techie why I change the body stuff the most important thing about this is that hydrogen power
18:12station isn't it yeah I think so that is supposedly it really is supposed to be the fuel of the future
18:16they say you know anywhere between 10 and 20 years time they can do this 10 or 20 years we'll be driving
18:22a car and you basically you get hydrogen from water sea water well from salt water yeah you make
18:27from salt water and then all you get out the exhaust is water that's astonishing so this is the future
18:33I mean remember where you are right now because that is the car of the future never mind clever stuff
18:39you'll be able to buy in the future let's look at some gadgets you can get hold of now and first up
18:44this now I've I think this this is going to be an exceptionally useful thing it's basically yeah you've
18:49guessed I know what that is you can send messages you can put it in the back of your car parcel shelf
18:53and you can program it and there's a control somewhere and you put messages in to people
18:56I've always wanted one of these I've wanted one of these for years you know think of the things you
19:01can write yeah you get on and I'm going to program a message in here right this is um this is an alarm
19:08which is nice it's got a little um formula one car and that's a mclaren I believe and uh it it does this
19:14I just want you to imagine it's let's say a one night stand and and time for alarm
19:19seven o'clock in the morning it's nearly but better still you can then you can then lean across
19:26and say ah if I press this accelerator
19:33it's not a noise you want to have in your bedroom is it at seven o'clock in the morning my advice
19:37is just leave it I don't believe this we've broken every single no no no this is a disaster it
19:45censors your message what it says it doesn't really no look watch Hammond is uh
19:58if you write a swear word it it goes you can't have it Jeremy that was a piece of clever technology and
20:04the first thing you thought to do with it was swear genius have a look at this this is
20:10a car driving along oh wow look at that how does that work no idea you can write that on your
20:19wheels that's witchcraft does it censor can it censor that or can i write can i write whatever i like on
20:25that what's that well if anybody's there you know this is a stereo you put your cd in it in the normal
20:31manner but it then memorizes the contents of the cd onto a hard disk like you'd have in your computer
20:36like an mp3 or an ipod very much so but it's ordinary cds that you put into it memorizes it
20:41like a jukebox and that's it it's in you don't have to carry the cds around with and mine would never
20:45be stolen because i could put a sticker on the windscreen saying this stereo contains traces of
20:49barclay james harvest anybody that nicked one of those and all those people with their hats on back to
20:55front who want drum and bass as i like to call it that is a really can we steal that as well
21:03they sent it as a demonstrator they're probably those but i mean i wouldn't imagine sir that's
21:07brilliant what's this rag oh this is very clever this is good let me have a look at this now this
21:11is a shirt it cost two thousand pounds two thousand five hundred sorry two thousand five hundred pounds
21:16it's made of a special material with some sort of metal in it and effectively it irons itself because
21:21the heat from your body even if you've scrumpled it in your suitcase um it makes it go so it's for
21:27reps yeah it's for sales reps you just put it on drive up the motorway with the heater on and 10 minutes
21:32later iron shirt and it's got aftershave smell in it as well it's fearless it's small size oh no
21:41go and try it on we want to see if it works seriously go away go and put that on and even if it doesn't
21:46work boy we're going to have a laugh at you anyway and it'll be better than that figure go go on go
21:52find a changing room thank you don't go and help him right that's got rid of shorty that's good because
21:57there's only two of these i know they are and this is what i arrived on at the beginning of the show
22:01thanks for that basically you can stand on it even though it's only got two wheels because it's got
22:06a gyroscope which is made by british aerospace which balances you and then if you want to go forwards
22:11you just lean forwards and it goes that way and then i break by leaning backwards and then go backwards
22:18again it's completely simple it is and then you can do this i'm a dancer and then you can just turn your
22:27handlebar that way to go that way and thus made in america of course so that fat yanks could go to
22:33the fridge without expending any energy what how much did it cost two and a half thousand quid
22:38start at about two and a half thousand quid the trouble is they're not actually legal in britain you
22:43can't use it on the road because it's not registered and you can't use it on the pavement because you
22:48can't ride it on the pavement the thing they're worried about of course is that pretty much any idiot
22:52could go out and buy one of these anyway um is that man got that shirt on yeah i don't know
22:57does he haven't
23:08so hammond are you hot i'm sorry mate i'm a hot i'm in a room with 300 people a thousand lamps and i'm
23:14wearing this yes i am does it well i'm in an argo that would be hotter you do a little bit like d'artagnan
23:20but shorter okay now last week jody kidd came on the show and drove our suzuki liana around the
23:27track faster than any other celebrity five past nine the following morning we had a call from a
23:32mr jk of buckinghamshire uh who'd been topping the leaderboard for the last one i don't know nine
23:38months or so and he said basically i'll be back well mr k i don't think there's any point because my
23:45guest tonight is used to going around the universe at nine times the speed of light he is the captain
23:51of the starship enterprise ladies and gentlemen patrick stuart
24:07oh yes now um you're the most famous guest we've ever had on this must be a terrible show then
24:19well there was richard whiteley yes who's a legend all the way from wakefield to like newcastle so
24:26what you're saying is that i'm marginally more impressive than him yeah but marginally yeah thank
24:32pretty much i feel really good about being here now i understand that uh last week you were watching
24:39the show and i had a rant about mobile phones and how you should be allowed to use them while driving
24:43it's a rare occasion that you have the opportunity to uh take up an argument with a celebrity such as
24:50yourself who is voicing i mean i use the term celebrity very loosely anyway what's your beef about using
25:01a mobile it's the cell phones um as you may or may not know i do spend a lot of my working life and
25:07that means my driving life in southern california and that largely means los angeles now los angeles is
25:12one of the most dangerous places to drive every time you venture out on the street you're vulnerable
25:17to an incident of some kind but many of these incidents are entirely as a result of people talking
25:23on cell phones i saw a woman the other day this is not invented on the freeway which means that we're
25:28doing 55 60 65 spot they can breathe at that speed all that she's she's talking on her cell phone she's
25:37steering with her left elbow like hooked into the into the wheel because with her right hand she's doing
25:45her mascara i do that except for the mascara yeah and you know what actually you need it i mean the
25:52mascara that is fully made up today so uh no i think it was irresponsible jeremy what what i did
25:58what you said bear in mind is a man who managed to talk on his communicator while being assimilated by
26:04the bull yeah but uh i've had a lot of practice at that but do you think that's a sign of idiocy i'd look
26:11at people's who are you talking to in your car and it always they're talking into their hands-free thing
26:16which i've got in my car i'm very proud to see but what are you doing looking at people like that
26:20where should your attention be jeremy i'm bored driving's boring i just can't say look at him look
26:26at him what sort of geography he teaches it need never be born in his case yes exactly so why are you
26:36over here because obviously you spend most of your time in los angeles well because of work purely because
26:42of work i do have a home here i have a home in north yorkshire i love that don't you love it skipton
26:47isn't it well it's near skip the captain of the uss enterprise has a house in skipton but you are
26:54over here at the moment yes i'm here now because all all of the stuff we were talking about is changing
26:58i'm doing a play at the albury theater called the master builder it's by henrik ibsen and it stars
27:06myself and sue johnston and a brilliant dazzling young actress less than a year out of drama school
27:13called lisa dylan who is uh the other woman in the 19 year old yes are you familiar with the master
27:19builder is anybody here familiar with the master builder see this is the thing the bbc has always
27:24criticized for its lack of arts coverage we can rectify you invite me onto the show knowing that
27:30i'm doing the master builder exactly hot and cold in all rooms but here's what most people don't know
27:35here is the connection henrik ibsen famous norwegian playwright and distinguished formula four and rally car
27:42driver now now very very few people know about this aspect of his life which is why my being on
27:50this program is so appropriate it is henrik ibsen which was clever of him since he was writing plays
27:54i think about 15 years before the car was invented ah yes but that was in the early stages of his career
28:00oh right so he went on i gave up the playwright yeah when you've done header gabler john gabriel bortman
28:05the doll's house himself he just got bored with all of that you know the scandinavians are great rally
28:10drivers absolutely well it all began with him with henrik ibsen it's a little known fact so here
28:15we are oversteer and ibsen on the same program i think that's pretty good really that is culture
28:20because it's the thing about ibsen is that the master builder is that it's it's an architect who
28:25builds a big tower and then jumps off it that's the essence of the play really in a sentence yes it
28:32is but it does miss out misses out one or two critical factors it's about a very powerful very
28:39successful architect slash builder um who is a a an emotional point of implosion when the play
28:47begins and into his tortured existence which is a married existence that's sue johnson appears this
28:54beautiful young woman who says 10 years ago you came to my house you took me in your arms you gave
28:59me a big kiss and said that i was your princess and in 10 years time you would come back for me and
29:03carry me off well you didn't come so here i am and he jumps off his tower this was the same playwright
29:09that wrote a play called the wild duck which is about a duck that gets shot yes yes i think your
29:14plot lines on the enterprise were better i think yeah now um cars yes why we're here well absolutely
29:22when you do love your cars this much is obvious yes there's one primary reason uh we were quite poor
29:30when we were growing up we didn't have a car my parents never ever owned a car of course didn't
29:35drive um in my street there was one family that owned a car and the cluffs had this ss jaguar it was
29:44sorry jaguar it's living in america you learn to say jaguar yeah well you can learn it now because we're
29:50back in yes i know i know where we are um and not only was this a fabulously beautiful car
29:57but the cluffs had a very very attractive daughter you never know who's watching of course when you're
30:02saying this i hope she is watching those doors i don't know where we're going with this but valerie
30:06are you still out there yeah she's behind the sofa no she say you well come on what happened well we
30:14used to as i say about valerie cluff we would make out in the back of the ss jaguar so it wasn't just
30:18that the um and by that i mean you know no heavy petting is as the term is and um i wasn't quite
30:29sure at the time which excited me more the heavy petting or being in the ss jaguar yeah i realized
30:35now looking back that i should have been excited by the jaguar and not by the hetting yeah it's the
30:39double whammy isn't it yeah that's the great thing they're lovely and so is that because you do love
30:43your jags i do yes i've had i'm on my second one now but this one that i have i've had for almost
30:4914 years i bought an xjs the 12-cylinder the big monster um convertible in 1989 and i simply couldn't
30:59get rid of it i still think it's one of the most beautiful cars production cars ever made it's british
31:04racing green it has wire wheels which are a real nightmare because they could really have to tune
31:09no no it's not the clean i have somebody i don't have to clean the wire he's on more than 130 quid
31:14away doesn't he if he's got someone cleaning his wire wheels i have a wire wheel cleaning man who comes
31:19to me to clean and this is the car you bequeathed to your yeah it's in my will it's actually named in
31:25my will i told my son that he was going to get he's getting sod all else mine and the car isn't actually
31:31worth that much i was going to say if you're not going to sell it because you're going to give it to your
31:34son it's going to be frankly he's going to get one pound 50 isn't he let's be honest on the other hand
31:39look at it this way it is captain picard's jaguar and that's got to do something two pounds 50 are
31:48can you have fun driving in america because i find it really quite tricky over there never even if we
31:54ignore the telephone malarkey well if if you if you find it fun to practice defensive driving you know
32:00what i mean constantly then it can be fun it can be interesting because you're always preparing for the
32:05worst to happen what i've enjoyed have been the long road trips i love driving out into the desert i
32:12love going up into northern california and taking several days and just driving but where are the
32:17corners where those lovely corners well um there there are on the freeways you don't get many but
32:23there is one famous place at least for angelino's it's famous there's a section of sunset boulevard
32:30uh it's just in brentwood but it's right before brentwood becomes beverly hills you know what he's
32:35talking about yeah yeah he doesn't he's no idea there are these three banked corners on sunset it's
32:43known as dead man's curve you've got you've got a right-hander a left-hander and a right-hander
32:50and they're very steeply banked i mean in the right direction and those of us who love doing that kind
32:57of thing we will hang back so that we get a gap between us and the vehicles in front and then as
33:01you approach the corner hit the gas and hope that there's nobody around watching no police cars parked
33:06in the side streets and then you can do these turns as if you're you know in a formula one car the only
33:12problem is that a homeowner right there has a sprinkler system and and it comes on at the wrong time
33:19of day so you can hit this at 12 o'clock in the morning and the road suddenly becomes like glass and
33:25it can be dodgy exciting no traction control on your xjs either uh no traction control on that i
33:31my wife has a as a mercedes cl 500 which is an extraordinary vehicle and uh you'd be perfectly
33:38safe with that panzer tank no it's not a tank actually no the cl is not a tank it's heavy it's
33:44a heavy thing it's a lot of car but it's a two door weighs more than the enterprise that thing does
33:49so you've been out this morning in the suzuki liana yes how do you think you got on well uh i'm not
33:58too optimistic about my best i know i know i mean you know you might be looking i would love to beat
34:02gambon gambol yeah what was his time a woman at 55 but he was in the wet you'd like to have beaten
34:08gambol yeah i would i mean you know he's a colleague and an excellent actor but i would he was also i see
34:13him eat my dust he was also the man who did the most spectacular maneuver out there two wheels
34:20around the corner should we find out everyone let's play it that's a great sight you off the bridge and
34:28in a suzuki oh serious how did you find the car ordinary
34:34oh sliding a bit wide there a little bit too much power if i might be so bold i look good though
34:43don't you look good you look the part this is the this is that the hammerheads yeah that's uh that's
34:49the thing that's what jody kid was quick she wasn't over driving yeah oh that's very fast right here we
34:57are coming up to gambol corner and you're across the line everybody
35:04so you want to hazard a guess whitely yeah i guess two years two light years actually
35:14and six warps or whatever it is yes well in fact you did it and welcome to a very exclusive little club
35:23in one minute 50 seconds same time
35:36that's the same time as me same time as jaylee oliver same time as gordon ramsey i find that a reasonable
35:42time to do it in don't you
35:44you just made me very very happy really yeah i think i might might buy the show out tonight
35:53no really you're a second faster than gambol
35:56and so there we are ladies and gentlemen patrick stewart
36:10right right now earlier on we looked at some pretty impressive gadgets
36:15but now it's time for the best gadget of them all
36:24the carver so it's it's a sort of a bike thing
36:28well no i mean it's got a bike wheel on the front but it's got car wheels on the back and
36:32standard car controls to drive in and it's certainly not bike fast
36:360 to 60 takes eight and a half seconds which in bike terms is a week so it's a sort of a car
36:43well no it's not a car because it does this
36:51what a sensation it's got a 660 cc turbocharged engine that's good for 115 fun-filled miles an hour
37:00oh help i'm falling over which trust me is enough i'm in an insane machine
37:14now it may look like a piece of lunatic fun but it's actually very difficult to do this to tilt
37:20it uses a set of hydraulic rams that allow it to go over well increasingly ridiculous angles you can end
37:25up at 45 degrees which well that's madness and then it gets really difficult because the engine is
37:33in this bit that doesn't tilt you're in this bit that does tilt with all the controls to work the
37:39engine and it's all gonna somehow connect up and that's one of the reasons why it's so difficult to
37:44do and why it's so complicated and also why it's so spectacular
37:49but the amount of tilt isn't decided upon by how far you turn the wheel it's how hard it's the force
37:59so if you're aggressive if you tip the wheel hard you tilt but if you're gentle
38:07it doesn't tilt so much so at slow speeds you can turn it for a full lock and it stays level
38:13but if i get more aggressive everything goes insane i am in a miniature road going fighter plane
38:26i want guns strapped to the side of this something that fires missiles maybe
38:30a bit of a dog fight of course there's one thing that's unlikely ever to happen
38:36i'm not going to come across another one
38:37the carver is the result of 11 years of design and development by those crazy sexy dutch
38:48and they believe it could herald a whole new way of motoring
38:54now the bad news is
38:58it's not cheap 22 and a half thousand pounds but this is the gadget to end all gadgets
39:08it's insane who could possibly need something like this me actually definitely
39:21and look the roof comes out yeah it's kind of a convertible thing the best thing about this is
39:26you just know it has to have come from a country where drugs are legal it could only have been the
39:32dutch you can see him now sitting around one night all listening to bob marley and somebody just
39:36yeah these cars too many wheels let's lose one my favorite dutch stories they had an explorer years
39:43ago okay called able tasman who went off to the south seas to try and expand you know find new lands
39:50and so on and he found tasmania because he was able tasman and that's named after him he found new
39:54zealand and he found the fiji islands he missed australia
39:59it's easy it's easy it's easy it was on the deck having a little smoke shell right past it
40:03you've got everything it's unbelievable i'm sorry about that but then they brought it over to this
40:09country and because it's kind of not a car not a bike the bloke in a suit when they brought it over
40:14and said look at this crazy car um he didn't know what to do so as a result i don't you don't need a
40:19helmet no no my wife drove it there you go you know honestly i had one of these last weekend and
40:25i have to say absolute hand on heart i've never had so much fun in a car really and truthfully and
40:31i don't think i'd ever tire of it no you just you'd certainly never tire of people coming around going
40:35can i have a go can i see everyone goes walk can i say the kids were like let's just go for another
40:40ride in that car on yeah and it's when it goes around it's like when it leans it really really really
40:45banks over you have these little warning lights did you show those no well then you know we have
40:49these little warning lights on the dashboard that tell you it goes through the green bit and then
40:53you get into the red bit when it's going to lean too much and it just said in my letter and this
40:57is really good fun it's such a clever idea because it gives you a target the first two red lights
41:03i've got four how many lights have you got on now dad all three red ones whoa leaning around it is
41:11sure i loved it but the great thing was okay i went to a party right in this yeah and as is my
41:19wounds at a party may have had a sherry or two you didn't yeah and decided that i wasn't going to
41:25drive back in this paralytic so my wife said she'd drive and that meant i had to passenger yeah
41:32you're joking no i actually i don't believe you i've tuned it seriously i can get in the back of
41:42this i want to see it do you want me to do the seat for you yeah there is an art to getting in okay
41:46you are joking to do it in a crazy and sexy way yeah you're looking fantastic oh you see look i'm in
41:52you can't believe that right i'm getting in do you see this is this is this is a country where
41:59homosexual marriage is legal he is my partner and also my lover look at that that's marvelous
42:13well that's enough drug-addled idiocy from holland so we'll have insider dealing oh mate i'm never
42:19gonna be able to get that out of my mind where i'm just being jammed between jeremy's lies in a dutch
42:22three-wheeler shut up oh yeah now you may have read a story in the paper this week that says britain
42:27remarkably has become one of the cheapest places in europe to buy a new car you may also have read
42:32a scare story that says as a result all manufacturers want to put their prices up by at least three percent
42:37in fact it's irrelevant because you'd have to be a total donkey frankly to pay the fullest price for
42:43any car in britain speak your mind james i will listen to these is the saab 93 two liter turbo
42:49one thousand nine hundred pounds off the audi tt the 225 horsepower version 2500 pounds off this
42:56gets better bmw 320 diesel 3500 pounds off mercedes c-class 200 auto five and a half thousand pounds
43:05off but this is the one i really like the maserati 4200 gt spider yep 10 grand off
43:13now fiesta size cars this is the biggest market in britain at the moment it's been growing consistently for
43:18about five years but it is still vastly oversupplied think of at least a thousand pounds off a ford fiesta
43:24or a ford car i've seen 1500 quid off a vauxhall corsa active 1100 quid off a one liter lupo over 2000
43:32pounds off a toyota yaris top spec 1.3 liter engine lovely little car fantastic
43:38from the front this looks like a vectra under the bullet it has the same choice of engines as the
43:52vectra and under the body the chassis is the same as you'll get in next year's vectra estate
43:59it even feels like a vectra to drive apart from these silly indicators which seem to have a mind
44:08of their own it's just a collection of elements from the periodic table this however is not a vectra
44:18with its shapely but large jlo rear end this is the future this is the new vauxhall signum
44:29the most obvious difference from where i'm sitting is this panel in the roof which contains
44:35lots of different storage bins now this one i can see is very useful for storing sunglasses
44:43but these two here it's difficult to fathom what you might fit in them i mean nothing you normally keep
44:50in a car would fit road maps cds boxes of tissues and so on the only thing i have been able to find which
44:57does fit is um a stick of celery which look at that perfect and that shows a level of thoughtfulness
45:07and attention to detail that we've simply not seen from any other car maker in every other car i've ever
45:13driven the celery just kind of rolls around getting in the way of the major controls which is poor and
45:19can be dangerous no really who else provides storage for celery not even the new rolls-royce has vect
45:28the biggest change with this car however is to be found in the back
45:34you get a lot more space than you do in a vectra and these seats slide forwards and backwards and they
45:41recline and they fold flat the only trouble is there are only two of them what you get in the middle in
45:49this base model which costs 18 000 pounds is a sort of drinks tray or an armrest or nothing at all
45:58in the more expensive models which cost up to 25 000 pounds what you get here is a fridge and a dvd
46:04player so this is a wonderful car for people in the back and that's great apart from one small thing
46:13i've come to the m40 on a tuesday morning at quarter to 11 and i'm going to give a pound to the donkey
46:24sanctuary in devon for every car that drives past here in the next hour that has someone sitting in the
46:31back no no discovery seven seats and one person in it no no no vetra still no think of the donkeys
46:51yes
47:00right time's up let's see how much we've raised for the donkeys
47:05four pounds four cars in an hour with someone in the back so why has voxall made a car for a market
47:16that plainly doesn't exist they say it does they say they did lots and lots of research and they
47:23found lots and lots of people who wanted tons of space in the back of their car but only two seats
47:30and all these people apparently had one thing in common they were all men
47:41and i understand that first thing i do when i move into a new flat or a new house forget the curtains
47:47and the carpets and the cooker you get your television your stereo and your playstation up and
47:53running that's why i understand this car it's perfectly reasonable to have a fridge come dvd player
47:58instead of a seat it's the obvious thing to do it's fantastic mumsy cars have lots of seats and are
48:05as sensible as big knickers but this has lots of gadgets so it's the world's first dadsy car
48:15the first car ever made which only works if you're sitting in the back
48:21now there are some problems with that i admit like you're not going to get a chauffeur to come and drive
48:27what's basically a vectra and if you can afford a chauffeur you're not going to have a car like this
48:34however the great thing about being a man is that i can improvise so what i've got here is a hoe
48:44and uh and another hoe and a sort of long extending arm thing and some string and some duct tape and a clamp
48:54and i think this is going to work right we attach the end to this prong of the steering wheel here
49:12made in germany so it's very strong where are my scissors gone and then we need the hoe this one on the
49:20extending arm good i think i thought of everything here no wait a minute that's very good this is a
49:32work of genius i've got this to operate the gears this one does the clutch like so uh this is for the
49:41throttle and obviously that one does the brake as well and uh this is the pièce de resistance really
49:49this is my steering look at that look at that so all i have to do now is test it and i shall give a
49:58pound to the donkey sanctuary for every mile i cover without crashing okay here goes handbrake off and um
50:08um clutch clutch in into first
50:17and uh everyone out of the way
50:28there we go well that's a problem if you want to go right you have to pull left
50:34all right a little bit of throttle and away she goes second
50:41nice
50:43it works it works
50:52no no thank you everybody no because it didn't work jeremy did you saw it work it worked that time it
51:02didn't work the first time you tried it did it it went a bit wrong when it crashed i just slightly
51:08went into a field and crashed and slightly broke the front now unfortunately the cameras weren't rolling
51:14for that first take which is sad but this is actually better because what i've got here is the insurance
51:20claim for and the best bit is where it says where were you at the time of the accident
51:25in the back
51:29and on that health and safety bombshell it is time to end the show good night
51:41go on slivered into top gear again next sunday night on bbc prime
51:49well next tonight the extraordinary story of the dinosaur that fooled the world
52:02so
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