Top Gear episode 10x04 - Botswana Special
Corrected English version by mcdrifter.blogspot.com
Hello! Hello and welcome! Thank you very much.
Now, as you know, the producers on this show like to give us challenges,
specifically where they give us a very small amount of money and tell us to buy a used car
then they set unbelievably hard tasks to do to see which one of us got the best deal.
Yeah. This week for a Top Gear special they came up with a real humdinger.
They gave each of us 1500 quid
and told us to go to Africa...
...and buy a car.
Yeah, and there were just two conditions:
It mustn't be four-wheel drive
and it mustn't be built, in any way, to go off road.
The meeting point was the border post between Zimbabwe and Botswana.
And, for once, I was the first to arrive.
Now, as you'd expect, I've done this properly.
What I've got is a 1985 Mercedes-Benz 230E, a car that Africa absolutely adores
because it's comfortable, it's rugged, it's dependable and, frankly,
if the other two have brought anything other than one of these along, they're idiots.
The first idiot arrived.
- Can you open the door? The handle's broken. - It is a Lancia Beta.
Coupé, 1981.
The only Lancia of any sort in the whole of Botswana. It's done 29,000 miles.
Mm. One owner, is it?
It was a little old lady.
And boy had she ragged it.
Yeah, that's normal, isn't it? That fizzing.
That's er... Yeah.
What's the piece of cardboard for? Is that for mopping up moisture?
- No that's because the battery... - Oh, it shorts on the bonnet.
- Shorts on the bonnet a bit. - Right. You've done well.
So now what? Do you want a lift?
We left the Lancia to cool down because Hammond was arriving.
- What the hell is that? - I don't know.
- Could it be a Moskvitch? Ju... Opel! - Opel!
And on the front it says Kadett.
Yeah!
What the hell have you done, man?
It's an Opel Kadett from 1963.
- So that's the same age as you. - Same age as me.
Yes, but it's much better nick than you are.
It was 1200 pounds. I had much change with which to buy many beads.
How much more simple can you get? It's got two moving parts
and it's been here for 44 years.
- I love the speedo. - I do like a horizontal speedo.
I really do.
- Where's the engine? Hold on. - It's there.
It's tiny!
- Do you wanna know about the power? - Yes, I do.
- 40. - 40?
- 40 horsepower? - Well, they did do a sport version
with 48 but I didn't want anything too lairy.
- You've both been idiots. - No!
Brilliantly interesting, brilliantly stylish
- but stupid. - Why's mine stupid?
What is yours? Where is yours?
Whoa!
A Lancia? You have been a bit thick.
With the cars at the start line it was time for our challenge.
"The people of Surrey think they need four-wheel drive cars
"because they live up a lane which sometimes has leaves on it.
"You will now attempt to prove them wrong by driving your two-wheel drive cars
- "from here on Botswana's eastern border with Zimbabwe..." - Just there.
"...1000 miles to its western border with Namibia.
"That's right across the spine of Africa."
I'm confident.
I wasn't.
We hadn't even started and the Lancia was playing up.
James chose not to wait.
He may be mechanically confident
but he has just turned right which is Zimbabwe.
Which is where, I should point out, the BBC is not allowed.
Oh, hello!
"Sorry, sorry. I'm going now."
The Lancia wheezed into life and Hammond and I set off in pursuit.
If you think of the cars that this inspired.
It was latterly built in Russia where it became the Moskvitch, which was rubbish.
And, of course, indirectly, the Vauxhall Astra.
Quite a lot of reasonably average cars owe themselves to this.
I don't know if you know but Africa is really quite large.
And when you're out in a very remote part you need a car like this,
that can be mended with a brick and a piece of string.
What you have to remember
is that three of the most rugged and successful rally cars ever made were Lancias -
the Stratos, the 037 and the Delta Integrale.
Lancia know how to make a rally car.
Unfortunately, on the day my Beta Coupé was made they obviously forgot everything.
The gear box is broken, the steering's broken, the window's broken.
In fact, we all had problems.
Everything works, except this knob, which controls the blower.
I've got to have the windows open because there's quite a strong smell of petrol.
And that mirror over there which is actually slightly stuck.
Hazard warning lights, the clock, the fan, the handbrake, all of the dials.
The brakes are terrible because they only work on that wheel.
They work very well on that wheel, but only on that wheel.
And that instrument's a bit wobbly.
Apart from that everything that's actually important to the car works perfectly.
Apart from the handbrake, which I can pull like this as we go along.
Nevertheless, because we were on tarmac roads...
we decided to give our cars a shakedown
Building up speed now...
When it was made this car had 116 horsepower
Top speed, 115 mph
Here we go!
Near 100...
km/h...more...
Right, i'm gonna overtake the truck, here I go...
He's pulled out of his slipstream!
Oh, it's really coming up...105...
- Still truck... - 105...
Still truck...
105...
3.000 rpm, 3.500...pulls cleanly...
Hang on a minute...
It's got no fifth gear...
Somebody's put the knob from a 5 gear model...on it
This is just the happiest car in the world.
I should call it Oliver, not that we'd ever name a car on Top Gear.
I wish I hadn't said that.
It's now five past ten in the morning and it's starting to get quite hot.
I've got an idea.
Oh yeah, that's better.
Don't know what that is.
A horn!
Oh, Oliver! You've got a cold. Listen.
We were having fun but then we discovered we were traveling with Bill Oddie.
- Why have you got a pen? - You tick them off when you've seen them.
Hornbill, Southern Yellow-billed.
...to even look at your car. It's massive!
Don't knock Oliver... Don't knock my car. That's a fine... he's a fine...
- What did you call it then? - Oliver's a friend of mine...
- He's given it a name. - He's given his car a name.
So far, the journey had been a doddle.
But then the tarmac just sort of...stopped.
Oh, this is bad.
I can see from here just how hard
the suspension on Jeremy's Lancia is having to work. It's just a blur.
Come on, Oliver. Please!
The later you book a lift in the Mercedes, the more expensive it gets. It's a bit like an airline.
Oh God! Oh!
I've broken it.
Engine isn't working. It's cut out.
Oh dear.
- He's done literally one kilometer of this. - I know what's wrong with it.
The bonnet won't open.
- It's the bonnet catch, it's... - Shut up!
Hammond was tetchy because he knew the price of failure.
Anyone who's car broke down would have to complete the journey in a Beetle.
It is collectively our least favorite car in the world.
- Ooh, yes. - It is the punishment.
Please!
Oh! Hang on! Hang on!
Ooh!
Come on, Oliver!
What did you say?
I said, "Oli... Oli... I love ya!"
- Oh my God. - What now?
My car's on fire, but in a very specific place.
Wow! Look at that. It was a magnifying glass?
- There's a laser beam coming through it. - It's like you dropped acid on it.
Oh, his piece of cardboard's gone.
So it sets itself on fire.
If you don't have a piece of cardboard.
We drove deeper and deeper into the bush.
Lancia, yeah!
What is that?
Looks like the sea.
Eventually the road disappeared altogether.
People of Surrey, I hope you're watching this.
We are...
...driving a Lancia Beta Coupé,
well, just in the middle of...
whatever you call this.
The good news was we'd successfully reached our campsite for the night.
The bad news came in the shape of another challenge.
"Stretching before you is the Makgadikgadi.
"These are the biggest salt flats in the world,
"almost completely lifeless and as wide as Portugal.
"No car has ever driven across them.
"If you run out of water you will die.
"If your car breaks down and you can't be rescued you will die.
"If you run out of food you will die.
"It's like driving on a creme brulée.
"There's a primeval ooze covered with a thin layer of salty crust.
"If you have thin tires you will break through that crust, get stuck and you will die."
So it advises to fit fat tires and remove as much weight as possible before setting off.
- Well, how hard can it be? - Don't say that!
In camp, the weight-shedding began.
Ready?
That doesn't work.
Thanks awfully.
- Wow, feel how much this seat weighs. - Like your work.
Ah!
Fuel filler, I'll need that maybe.
I don't want to take the hub caps off really cos they protect the hubs.
- Can I point something out? - What?
Hammond's walking round his car muttering about how he needs all of it.
I know exactly what he's doing.
He's formed an emotional attachment, hasn't he?
It'd be like saying to him, "Could you cut bits off your wife?"
What are you doing?
I was gonna take the radiator grill off, on the bases that it's just an ornament
- Can I help? - Please, do
- Do you want your windows out? - No, no, no, they're fine, no, the windows...
But this is old glass!
Very thin glass
Very thin
God they come off easily!
- James? - Yes?
- Using nothing but a hammer... - Yes...
- Here's your beer - Thank you, mate
- Have we lost enought weight now? - You haven't lost an ounce!
I lost the spare wheel...and something else
Now, look at mine
I'm gonna need some guide ropes to stop it floating away like a big baloon!
So, tomorrow we die?
No, i think it's like all the things, exaggerated
We'll be fine, honestly...we're gonna be fine
We've done enought
The next morning, on the edge of the salt pans,
we thought we'd come under attack from a Bond villain.
But it turned out to be the vice president of Botswana.
- That is a f****** cool ride. - Yeah, it is.
Better than an official Rover 75 and a couple of policemen on motorbikes.
He was amazed to hear what was being planned.
I've just never known anybody to go across in a car.
This'll be the first time, I think.
- There they are. - Oh, really?
- Yes.
- That should be interesting. - You were smiling, you've just stopped.
Buoyed by the vice president's optimism, we set off.
Nothing really prepares you for the sheer size of these.
I think, in a way, that it's more frightening than the Pole. There's absolutely nothing.
You can see the curvature of the Earth.
As we ploughed on, the little Opel was going well.
Oliver is just skipping. Boo!
This car was born to do this!
Sadly, though, despite the weight-shedding, my Lancia was not doing so well.
Judging by the way the tires are kind of digging in as I'm driving along,
I think a little bit more has to come out.
Still, as you can see from the tires' grooves, I was doing better than the Merc.
I'm looking at James' rear wheel and he is digging in a long way.
I tried to help him along.
Really helpful.
Well, there's always the Beetle, James.
It's waiting for you.
What are you gonna do? It's sinking.
- We've done... How far's that? A mile? - If that.
My Lancia waded in again.
Just a nudge.
- That's a crash - There's a thing.
Unfortunately, because it was an automatic, it was useless.
So, we told Richard to try.
But he didn't want to hurt Oliver.
This was hopeless, so we had to rope in the camera crew.
Three! Two! One! Hoy!
Because the ooze was so bad, we had to get even more drastic with the weight-shedding.
We toiled away for hours.
Da-da! Oh God!
Well, two of us did.
And then finally we were ready.
Now, this is light. Lancia Beta Coupé Superleggera!
Not a modification!
- This is excellent. - Why don't all cars have no doors?
When I come to power I'm gonna make it a rule,
cos this is just better.
However, the Makgadikgadi was not going to let us off that lightly.
And soon even our super-lightweight cars started to struggle again.
Come on, just... Oh!
Oh, yes.
No, this isn't good.
Oh, no.
Only the Opel remained trouble-free,
which was bad news for me.
Yes! Come on, man!
I'll go forwards, Hammond, then we'll do it again. Hang on.
- How far is it? - Five or six yards and we might be Bobby.
Oh, this is just horrible!
Keep going, keep going, keep going! Keep going!
Yes! Yes!
No!
James, don't go there. You'll get stuck.
That's close.
Come on!
Oh, permission to say cock.
- Can we have everybody? We'll push it off. - We need 100 men or more.
No!
This is hopeless.
People of Surrey, you need four-wheel drive for this bit.
The gunk was so sticky it had completely jammed the Lancia's rear wheels.
I can't describe... You just think it's just mud...
Do you know what it is?
Fish. It's just rotted prehistoric fish.
One, two, three.
Mercifully, the ground eventually hardened and we made good progress.
But then suddenly the horizon was no longer flat.
This is interesting. We're now coming between what look like islands.
And I suppose they are. This was a lake, so they would have been islands.
Amazing. Absolutely amazing.
Where are we? It's called Kubu Island.
We're about... I'm trying to think. ...a third of the way across.
And you've been stuck about a thousand times.
That is smug.
A Baobab tree. I've always wanted to see one of those.
- Hammond, look at this. - Whoa!
It is just about the most astonishing place I've ever been.
God, I'm with you there.
As the sun set, we headed for the campsite.
Day two on the salt pans,
and we'd been told that today our problem would not be mud but dust.
That meant James and I had to rethink our wardrobe solutions.
I've teamed my keffiyeh with a bin liner.
V-necked! The last time I wore one of these I went to see the Clash.
Frankly, I thought it was all a bit much. I mean, how bad could this dust be?
Aargh! My eyes!
Crikey, I can't even see Jezza already.
Oh, no, no, no, no!
Meanwhile, in my unmodified Kadett...
I'm gonna adjust my quarter light a bit.
Just an inch. That's better.
I can feel the hate now.
It's nice.
Me kakai's come off.
Hello?
James and I made it through the dust with our lives considerably shortened.
I've got consumption and TB.
I've got every single 1920s disease.
And then Lord Smug piped up.
I had to close this at one point.
About that much, then it pulls the air out and you get fresh air through. It's nice.
Know what it's like when someone punches you really hard in the face?
I do, actually.
Then the surface got even worse.
It was like we were descending through the seven circles of hell.
Oh no!
I'd assumed it'd be the salts that would kill the notoriously rust-prone Lancia
but it was the rough going.
Even though it had now smoothed out again, the Beta was in a bad way.
- I've gone. - Are you conkered out?
- I've got no power, no drive. - Do you remember what the man said, Jeremy?
Break down and you will... What is it? Have a nice time? No, die.
Well that's loose, that's hot.
It is a good job they canted this engine over by 20 degrees cos that means
it's more inaccessible than it would otherwise have... Oh my God, look at this.
For God's sake.
I gotta say it has been nice, the peace. You know, not having him around.
I've checked the alternator, the spark plugs, the HT leads
and the distributor cap, poked around with the starter solenoid.
There's been faults with all of them, but it still isn't going.
I'm not sure which I favor most here - certain death or that Beetle.
Come off!
For God's sake.
I honestly believe it's had it.
- Is my car on the crab? - No, it's tracking true, mate.
He's worried about tracking and look at it.
We knew that Jeremy would eventually catch us up,
but what would he be driving?
I can see something in the mirrors.
- Please let it be a Beetle. - I do hope it's a Beetle.
Please, please let it be a Beetle! Please let it be a Beetle.
I'm back!
Oh, Jeremy, well done. I'm disapp... Sorry, delighted.
You're not in a Beetle!
Not a Beetle! A fully-functioning Lancia Beta Coupé!
I just wanted the Beetle to pounce on you when you were straying behind.
I'm gutted.
- Shall we just sandwich him, James? - No!
With our convoy back up to strength, we pressed on.
Apart from Jeremy being Bill Oddie occasionally.
- This is where flamingos breed out here. - So that's breeding, is it?
- It's a fossil. - It's not, it only died about two years ago.
- I was talking about you. - It's an ex-flamingo.
- Hey, look! - What now?
I know what created this.
- Ostrich. - Yes!
It's legs are miles apart. That's exactly how it was walking.
You know David Attenborough's about to retire?
Can I just say, you look like a gay cowboy and you look like a gay terrorist.
No, you look like a terrorist with a broken windscreen wiper and your face is ridiculous.
Then Hammond started to pick on my car.
- Why haven't you turned it off? - It's gathering electricity.
So, if you turn it off the battery's not going to start it again.
- Turn it off and start it then. - Yeah, go on. Turn it off and start it.
Let's have some beautiful silence.
- Are you ready? - Yes.
Behold.
- Why did you turn it off? - Because he said it would...
- Good luck. Somebody'll give you a jump start. - It'll be fi... Don't go away.
Goodbye!
Annoyingly, Clarkson got the Lancia going again,
and then we came across some big birds.
Wow!
And then we saw even more wildlife.
There's a cow.
Two cows, three cows.
Yes!
We've done it!
We had crossed the Makgadikgadi.
Trees!
Life!
Mate, did you ever think that you'd do that? I'm genuinely proud of him. I am!
Really, I'm startled that this... It isn't a car any more, whatever it is, has done it,
with its low-profile tires and its low suspension that's broken.
Personally, I'm absolutely delighted
cos I think the Makgadikgadi is one of the most unpleasant places I've ever been.
It's just a big bowl of dust. Hello, mate.
Widow Twankey may have been glad to see the back of the salt pans
but despite this they gave us a startling parting gift.
- That is amazing. - That's the moon?
Yeah, that's the moon. Because of the dust from the pans you get...
- A moonrise. - In orange.
I've got goose bumps.
I know a Philip Larkin poem about the moon.
- Would you like to hear it? - No.
As a new day dawned our cars looked like wrecks.
But their ordeal was far from over.
Yes, we had crossed the salt pans, but we were still only a third of the way across Botswana.
And now, we were about to enter the Kalahari.
The Kalahari.
Everyone who comes to the Kalahari takes away a different memory of it:
The savagery, the simplicity, the vast heat.
Me, I think the bumpiness.
It was as rough as hell,
so we were glad when news came through that we were to stop at the next village.
They seem to recognize a truly classy car.
What could they possibly have in mind for us here?
It was another challenge.
Here it is...
"Your cars have traveled far and suffered much."
Yes, they have.
"So we will now discover how much performance they've lost
"in a competition against the clock on a rally special stage."
Mine can't have lost any performance, it never had any.
- True. - I'm not gonna ruin my Mercedes
just for a few points.
- You're right, you're not. You're not driving it. - Well, who is?
Some say he's seen The Lion King 1,780 times
and that his second best friend is a cape buffalo.
All we know is he's not The Stig, but he is The Stig's African cousin!
Wow!
He's protected the important bits.
Keen to get going, the three of us fired up our engines.
Well, when i say three...
It's absolutely dead, there isn't...
Nothing is functioning, there is no electrical...
- You two, are not being helpful! - No!
- What a stupid thing to say! - What a stupid thing to say!
- Interior light? Headlight? - Nothing, nothing
You know how to mend the ingition system of a 1981 Lancia Bet...?
No...
- It was a long shot - It was a long shot
Annoyingly, a couple of the locals did know what to do
Yes!!
And we drove to African Stig's rally stage which was in a dried-up river bed a few miles away.
With packed spectator stands...
...Oliver went first.
Three! Two! One!
- Go! - Start!
Three miles an hour.
You know when it was new it had 40 horsepower?
- If it's lost one a year it's at minus four. - Minus four by now, yeah.
He's going round the first corner, hold on.
That was a power slide.
Look at that, it does look...
"Ridiculous" is the word you're looking for.
As the Kadett struggled to get up the hill, the spectators left.
It is having a... Come on, joggle it, Stig's cousin. He's enjoying that.
- And one minute, 12 seconds. - Oh yes!
That's a good benchmark for you to try and beat.
Next up was the Panzer tank.
- Most powerful, longest, best tires... - Heaviest, slowest.
What, longest?
- Longest is good for rallying, is it? - It is on this.
So on loose-surface rallies why don't they turn up with intercity trains?
Go!
That's the most ridiculous spectacle I've ever seen in my entire life.
A Mercedes with no bonnet, no front wings, no doors.
In the hands of African Stig though, it was flying.
That is the latest in a long line of pedigree-lightened Mercedes-Benz sports cars.
There's never been a Mercedes rally car.
Oh, yours is flying up the hill, mate. Look at it go.
You wait till you see, the Lancia will dance through there.
- Oh yes. Lovely. - Oh! It's out of control!
That's a big slide!
- One minute, six. - I'll just do my ancient...
I hate you gloating. Let him do it. It's like winning a semi final.
Time now to put James in his place
because the Lancia was on home turf with its rally pedigree.
Stratos, 037...what?
That's not dust, it's on fire!
Shut it down. Can you turn it off?
Look at it all!
Stopwatch still running. 45 seconds.
We'll replace the seal and then when it's cooled down a bit he'll be able to do the lap.
You'll have difficulty though. He's off.
Maybe he's started. Start the stopwatch.
I think he was in a hurry, so he decided not to take your car.
- Hey, Jeremy. - What?
You're right, though. Your engine, it's canted.
Once again, the broken Lancia was fixed
And then Jeremy arrived with some news for all of us
What?
Can't get some more?
It's empty
Those are the fuel...
The problem was that Richard's car and mine run on leaded fuel...
which was incredibly hard to find
And it was no use turning to the film crew for help
Diesel, diesel, diesel and two stroke. Diesel...
Guys, it's diesel and two stroke
The town of Maun was about 60 miles away...
And, with little fuel, we had to go there as the crow flies
Now we really would see how they cope off-road
We've got to try to keep the distance down to save what fuel we've got
All we're looking for is a track
Indicating that, if other people passed this way, they would be heading to a town
That's how broken my car is, i do that in "park"
This thorns are incredible!
Oh, look at that! They look cocktail sticks growing out of them!
Take cover!
Once again, the 44 year old Opel absolutely shone
Come on, little fella!
Yeah!
With our precious fuel burning away, we carved down the straightest path possible
Guys, you know what we are driving through?
Plants
No, this is a wee, it grows like this and it's hallucinogenic
"Sorry, what did you said?"
If any car was going to get stuck, we would have put money on the Lancia
But no...
Hey, mate! Sorry...
Horn doesn't work
Clearly, I had to get myself out
I'm going to make a rudimentary temporary road for my back wheel
Thank you!
Eventually, we found a smoother track...
Wow!
And I did a detailed analysis of the Lancia's condition
Sitwrap...
It's all broken
As darkness fell...
we found the road to Maun, but by this stage even Oliver was suffering
I can't use my lights
Alternator's packed and full of dirt and dust
If i put lights on I can have the lights but not the engine, because it all dies
So, i've actually got Jonathan, who uses a camera for us, in here, with me...
Lighting me when I talk to you, with a torch...
Which he then uses to light the road ahead...
When i'm not talking to you
Empty
Finally, we rolled into Maun.
Which year was it made?
1981, it's just driven all the way from Zimbabwe to here...
Without going on the road
- Like this? - Yeah...
- May! - Get out of the way of the pump!
I should move it for you. If you ask politely, I'll move it.
Yeah, that's his light
They're grown-up, so honestly, they do this a lot
We were now just over half way...
And, amazingly, our cars were still running
All of them...
The next day, in the center of Maun, we got our next challenge.
- This is it. - Ah, the glittering golden envelope.
"You will drive your cars to Namibia through the Okavango Delta."
That's the really big wildlife place.
"In the Okavango you will encounter many deadly animals
"including lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas,
"wild dogs, hippos, black rhino and crocodile,
"bird snakes, shield-nose snakes, puff adders,
"boomslang, cape cobras, banded cobras,
"black mambas, black widows and thick-tailed scorpions."
- What about the honey badger? - The what?
That's the least scary-sounding animal in the world.
A honey badger does not kill you to eat you,
it tears off... your testicles.
- It does not! - Why's it called a honey badger?
- Cos that's what's made it angry. - Why isn't it called the badger of death?
In order to protect ourselves from the lions and the honey badgers,
Jeremy and I would have to rebuild our cars.
But because we'd left all the bits on the other side of the salt pans,
we had to use whatever we could find.
Could a lion eat this? Grrr!
Who do I see about the corrugated metal?
Suppose I better practice, at least, my lion drill.
Oh no! There's a lion coming! Ah! What shall I...
That. Oliver will protect me.
Because I had nothing to do, i decided to irritate Jeremy.
I've got to get some tarpaulin there
Tarpaulin?
Tarpaulin will defeat...
- A honey badger - Oh, it's well known!
Tarpaulin for its...almost militarily protective capabilities.
That's why you often see people going into war zones drenched in tarpaulin.
Could you put a new door on a car?
Come to have a look, i'll show you what i mean
It's not sophisticated metal work, this, but...
I would like a tarpaulin roof for a Lancia Beta Coupe, 1981.
We can, we can make anything, yes.
Do you have any lion-proof tarpaulin?
So, it's going to be like this thick...
Yeah...
One and a half meters by...
- Say one and a half meters - If you think of a lion door...
- It would be like about that big - Could you ignore him and make me that?
Because Mercedes were very popular in Africa,
James soon found a spare door and boot lid for his car.
And while he was looking for more bits, I hatched a plan.
Look what I've got.
- That's a cow's head. - Yeah.
Now, this will attract flies which will make his life unpleasant.
- Yes. - It will also attract lions, tigers...
He effectively becomes a burger van driving through.
And to make sure the lions didn't miss...
- Oh, yeah! That's a whopper! - That's a good piece.
Oh, yeah, under the seat.
- And the smell... - Oh! The smell will be beautiful.
We also attached a cowbell to the underside of his car.
But while we were doing this, he was making merry with the paint.
That afternoon we left Maun and headed north to the Okavango Delta.
Right. My car now has been readied. As you can see, I have a wooden door here.
It's a gull-wing, so I can get in and out, obviously.
God, this is like being in an allotment shed.
On a very windy day.
On the left I have all the cans that were in the car for the last few days,
they've been arranged. And the "piece de résistance"...
Badgers, go away.
I am the road warrior.
Mad Jeremy.
It's a police car.
Can anybody else smell burning or is it my car?
Is it like a barbecue smell?
As we neared the Okavango, the roads became rougher and rougher
This is where the big Benz comes into its own, really...
Because it's got good ground clearance, nothing...
Damn!
This is enought to shake the skulls through your bonnet
And nobody in the all of human history has ever said that before!
So, just to summarize, viewers...
As we went through the gates and into the game reserve, the road changed again.
For the worse.
This is new. Very soft sand.
To stop our cars bogging down we had to drive as fast as possible.
We had ourselves another rally stage.
Amazingly, even Jeremy had his work cut out keeping up with the Opel.
Hammond's car just looks so composed.
I'm developing this irrational hatred of him and it.
Ho-ho! This is such a good game!
Eventually he was slowed down by a bridge... over the river Kwai.
The rally stage had taken its toll on one of the cars. Take a guess which one.
I'm in a car which, as you can probably hear, has got a throttle that's jammed wide open
and I can't hold it on the brakes.
Hammond, move! You're gonna have to go fast or I'll hit you.
What?
- Oh, God! - Thanks! Well, help yourself to my brakes!
- Why not? - I've lost a skull.
Monkeys.
I'm sorry, I can't...
Whoa!
Just hear the throttle. That's tick-over. Look, my leg's not on it.
Having bodged my throttle, we headed deeper into the Okavango.
Front, twelve o'clock... One o'clock.
This is where wildlife cameramen
come to make a name for themselves with David Attenborough.
But, unfortunately, our film crew are best really with cars.
A giraffe on the right.
There. The big thing.
If we ever do a program called The Back End Of An Animal, these are the boys to hire.
This week on Too Late To Look...
Baboon on the left with animals, with a baby on its back.
To give our crew a chance we stopped,
and discovered that we weren't much good at animals either.
- Wow! Look! Look! - Where?
- A hippo's head. - It's probably a whole hippo.
The rest of him's under the water.
What does a hippo do just before it's about to attack?
Opens its mouth.
It can open its jaw... there's a thing it can do.
Oh, look! Aw! Look at that.
They stop for a drink, using their noses to shovel water into their mouths.
Jeremy, that's a rubbish commentary.
James took over.
That one's lifting its paw up a bit like a dog does.
- Paw! - Hoof, foot, whatever you call it.
- Hoof? - What is it on an elephant?
It's amazing.
There's a man over there with the best combover I have ever seen in my life.
That is...
He's got four partings as a result of that, can you see?
Why don't... "You're bald, live with it."
Oops, he caught me looking at him.
- I was looking through binoculars. - I was looking at the elephants, really, I was.
Look at that sun now, boys.
Elephants, rally special stage,
- best combover I've ever seen. - Everything's here.
We camped by the river and while James serviced his car I hatched a plan.
- Jeremy. Jeremy. Jeremy! - What?
Quick, come here. Come here.
It's the cow's head.
It wasn't working in the boot but I've had a better idea.
- What? - Tent.
- His tent? - Yeah.
Love your thinking.
It's the second one from the right. You find it. That's it.
Put it under his bed.
- Shh! - What?
- What was that? - That was a hippo.
What?
Clarkson...
There's a very big hippo.
Oh my God, look at that.
Hippos spend all day in the water and then they come out at night because...
I can't remember why.
Well, thank you. That's useful.
What's that?
Oh, brilliant!
Look, do you wanna go out there with a hippopotamus?
Or do you want to stay in here with a horse's head?
- That's not a question that's ever been asked. - It's not a horse either, it's a cow!
Erm, hang on. That's my bag in James'... This is my tent!
Oh man! Get it out!
Our starting point at the Zimbabwe border felt like it was in another time zone.
But still there were many miles of delta to cover,
and our cars were in a really bad way.
The bush mechanic we have on the team
took two cubic feet of sand out of my carburetor last night
and asked if I wouldn't mind driving a little bit more slowly today.
James' cowbell!
Our ordinary, second-hand road cars were getting more and more out of their depth.
This is proper off-roading now.
Men in camouflage trousers in Wales who like murdering people at weekends
would say this was tough-going.
It was a whole...
Oh!
- What is it? It's like iron. - It's a tree root.
I think I've bent my steering rack a bit.
Wow!
Wow, there is an elephant right there.
Got my door down.
Cos that would stop an elephant.
Soon our route was blocked by a river
and what you're supposed to do is wade in to check the depth.
Right...
Jeremy make us drive on until he got bored
- Here. - No.
- What? - Look...
I agree with him for once, actually, because...
That reed stuff must mean that is shallow
It's shallow where the reeds are, you fool
- We just drive were the reeds are - Well, yes, but you drive through the water to get there!
We can't keep going, we've done 30 miles
No, i'm frustrated, but you can't just drive into a river because you're bored
I do a fair bit of off-roading and I know enough
That's not the place to go across, you're wrong
I'm going throught here, are you gonna carry on?
- Yes, I will carry on if you... - Ok, we'll cross there...
Ok? Keep your radio on
Allright, I'm going.
He won't do it unless he's got 4WD
- Ok, now...? - Fanbelt's off
Fanbelt's off is a good idea
Because it'll just splash water into the circuit.
James went first and I said I'd watch for crocodiles.
Oh, I say there's a ground-hornbill over there.
It's getting deeper!
- Ooh! Hang on a minute! - Permission to say cock.
It's coming in!
Thunderbird One to the rescue!
"Come on, I'm sinking by the bows".
Coming.
- Aargh! No! I can't help you! - Come on!
- James, I'm in a low-slung sports car! - I'm going down!
- That's good. Yes! - I've got water coming into my car!
Oh, I've got a wet bottom!
We're through!
Both our cars were flooded but our guides weren't bothered at all.
People of Surrey, if this happens to you, you get water in the foot well
and you need to drain it out, you need a hole,
Well, the people of Botswana have a tip for you.
Meanwhile, using patience, I'd found a proper crossing point.
There is a technique to fording rivers, even on a proper ford like this.
You've gotta keep enough speed up so you push a bow wave like that
then you use whatever power you've got in the engine. Come on, come on, come on.
Oh my G...! No!
Oh God!
He stalled! He's going down!
I can't open the door!
Oh God!
Please! Come out!
Come on! Float! Float!
Float!
Oliver!!!
Hammond, how's it going?
Well, I got a bit of water in him.
We did as well, but it doesn't matter cos we used the rifles,
we shot the cars and the water's all drained out. It's brilliant.
Good.
I might need the rifle.
As a local tourist truck pulled me out, the laughing hyenas arrived.
May gave his diagnosis.
Starting from the top, the battery's probably pretty knackered
- and then the carburetor will be flooded. - Mm, very.
Then working down, the distributor cap, that'll be full of water.
The engine itself, if water went into the cylinders you might have compressed it.
- The oil will be ruined... - I know all this. I can fix him.
- You are going to try and mend this? - If you'd leave me to it, yeah.
So we did.
Oh, that's harsh. That is quite harsh but go on.
Oh, you'll like this one.
♪ It's sad
♪ So sad
♪ It's a sad, sad situation...
Unfortunately, you can only give a man so much sympathy,
so James and I went ahead to make camp.
Hammond knew that in the morning, if his beloved Oliver wasn't fixed,
he'd have to leave him behind.
So he got our bush mechanic to bring the generator down...
and worked on through the night.
Morning came, and still no Hammond.
I'm knackered today.
I mean, I'm feeling quite like an explorer.
- Is that Hammond? - Is it a Beetle, more to the point?
No way!
- No way. - Oh yeah! Yeah, he's back.
Ah!
And here's the best thing. Remember the horn which was rubbish?
It's excellent.
Is that technically possible?
Probably not.
47 years, I've never been speechless.
With all the cars defying all the odds,
we began our final push to the border.
My car is working perfectly, as usual.
I've got no brakes, the pedal goes straight to the floor
and I have to declutch to stop so I just tread on my own foot, so I'm using the handbrake.
Hal The Lancia could beat that.
Every time I brake it spears off to the right and I'm unable to steer left to correct that.
This has now gone from being a nuisance to being downright dangerous.
We soon reached the end of the Okavango,
so we pulled over to remove the animal protection.
And then, guess what?
The Lancia simply would not get going again.
It now won't start because the starter solenoid's chosen this moment to pack up,
but when it was running it wouldn't move off in any of the gears.
It was just that last 60K,
it had that feel of a car that was dying.
Richard actually sympathized because he'd been there.
As for James?
Beetle!
I'm not gonna give up. I'll push it.
Is this a good time to acknowledge that mine is the only one
- that has worked consistently? - No.
This is worrying. I need to be home by Saturday.
I've been invited to a Beetle drive.
The entire crew was working on the stricken Beta.
Until we were rewarded with the most glorious sound in the world.
Life.
It lives! It lives!
I got a whole hundred yards.
Oh, not stuck!
My idle speed's not good.
Bye, everybody! I can't stop!
Please! Please!
Soon, we hit the tarmac and we started to taste the hope.
Just 20 miles, you can do that, you've crossed Botswana.
Now I'm stuck in second but second will do.
Obviously, mine would keep going to the other side of the whole continent but, you know.
Come on, ten miles, please!
Then something really surprising happened.
Oh no, not now.
Please!
Because the Lancia had been such a problem child everyone was fed up with it.
Only two of the crew stayed behind to help.
Carburetor's gone. Even if we can get that fixed, the starter motor is gone.
We've put it into gear, it goes into third. That stalls the engine and you're back to square one.
The border was just five miles away.
There you go, this is an object lesson for the owners of old cars everywhere.
- "You can drive'em round the world". - Yeah, it's really relaxing.
Come on.
Border!
1,596 kilometers. That's near as dammit a thousand miles, I've still got half a car left
and very bad hair.
I don't believe that!
Sorry!
I've got no brakes.
I've... Yeah.
It's there.
We've done it!
All we had to do now was wait.
Wait to see which car Jeremy arrived in.
- Is that an engine? - That's a car.
Unmistakable clatter of an air-cooled engine.
It's gonna be the Beetle.
And it was.
But I wasn't driving it.
I'm almost pleased, yes!
Oh, that's excellent.
Watch it! Brakes don't work! Sorry, there's no brakes.
- Congratulations. - That's astonishing!
I think, realistically, we have to say the Lancia's won it.
- Why? By what possible measure? - Erm...No.
- It's the most surprising. - It's the worst.
Well, you don't buy a second-hand car to be surprised that it still works.
- It had to be rebuilt once a day. - But... You're right. It's rubbish.
- The Mercedes is the best car. - What?
- What have I had to do? I've had to... - Take the entire body off!
It's a showroom model, James.
I admit that it's not entirely original but in mechanical terms it was perfect.
You cannot break that...
I think, honestly, we have to be magnanimous here
because only one of the cars has actually made it unmodified.
So that brings us on to a Top Gear top tip.
If, people of Surrey, you want to replace your BMW X5 with something that's brilliant off-road...
- Simple. ...simple, inexpensive.
- Easy to maintain, surprisingly comfortable. - Absolutely.
Then you've got to get yourself a Volkswagen Beetle.
- A what? - It's true!
- No, he's right. - It's true!
The Beetl...you've replaced all the electrics in that...
Corrected English version by mcdrifter.blogspot.com