CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Thank you very much!
Hello and welcome. Thank you.
Now, we start tonight with a question we' ve borrowed from Radio 4. Can a car ever be art?
Most experts on the subject say no, but then most experts haven't
clapped eyes on Alfa Romeo's latest creation.
It's called the 8C and I think it's quite simply the best-looking car ever made.
It's not dramatic.
It's not ground-breaking.
From some angles, it's not even desperately pretty.
As Francis Bacon once said, there is no beauty that hath not some strangeness about its proportions.
And he's right, whoever he is.
Look at Keira Knightley, she's just an ironing board with a face,and she works.
So does this.
With its long nose and short tail, it's as classically correct as a Ferrari Daytona,
or a Georgian's house.
You probably expect the noise it makes to be classical too,
like a cello being played by an angel in a pillow of honey. No.
ENGINE REVS
Sadly, only 500 8Cs have been made, so it's very unlikely you'll ever see one.
But if one passes within 20 miles, trust me, you'll hear it.
ENGINE REVS
Some cars have tuned exhausts,
so the noise they make is as fake as a hooker's smile.
But this sounds real. This sounds fantastic.
Listen to it on the overrun...
ENGINE ROARS
Ha-ha!
So, it looks gorgeous and it sounds amazing.
And on top of that, it's an Alfa Romeo.
If I can liken the whole global car industry to the human body, Toyota is the brain,
Aston Martin is the face, Cadillac is the stomach.
And Alfa Romeo, as we discovered last week, that's the heart and soul.
So, what is it, then, this £110,000 car?
Well, at the front, there's a 450 horse power 4.7 litre version of Maserati's V8.
The gearbox, in true Alpha tradition, is at the back.
The Ferrari seats are carbon fibre.
Most of the car, in fact, is carbon fibre, so it weighs less than a Mitsubishi Evo.
You might imagine, then, that it's very fast.
They say it'll get from 0-60 in 4.2 seconds and that its top speed...
ENGINE ROARS
..is 182
I think they could have made it faster than that.
But then it would have been faster than a Ferrari, and in Italy, that's a bit of a social no-no.
That would be like vomiting on the Pope. Sorry.
What about the handling?
It should be good. The weight distribution is bang on, there's a low centre of gravity...
it's even got a limited slip diff.
Add all this together and the overall result is...terrible.
TYRES SCREECH
The steering feel's wooden. And the suspension... It feels like it's made from old tea bags.
Here's some sacrilege. It feels like a Mustang.
There's the flappy puddle gearbox.
I don't like any of them, but this one really is a bit ESN.
And the worse thing?
You're driving along and your foot gets jammed underneath the brake pedal.
TYRES SCREECH
I don't really care about any of these things, because
buying this car for its dynamic abilities is like buying a porn film for its plot.
I don't care, either, that it has a ridiculous boot.
Or that it has no back seats, or that the steering wheel's in the wrong place.
I wouldn't care if the seats had spikes in them and the sat nav had Tourette's.
I don't even care about the price.
I mean, somebody recently paid £17.2 million for this fat woman on a sofa.
And which would you rather?
153 of those, or an enormous cleaning lady?
A man from the Tate Gallery told me the other day that a car can never
be art because, for something to be art, it can have no purpose other than itself, no function.
Well, look at this. It doesn't drive very well, it's not been built with much care,
and it is hopelessly impractical.
What Alfa has built, then, is not a car, it's a centrefold.
What Alfa has built is 14 feet of art.
ENGINE ROARS
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Look at that, James!
I have to admit, you're right.
It does work better as a poster. It's like the Lamborghini Countach. This should be
supplied with four pieces of blu-tak on it so you can stick it to the wall.
Anyway, we must now find out how fast it goes round our track.
And that, of course, means handing it over to our racing driver.
Some say his droppings have been found as far north as York,
and he has a full-sized tattoo of his face on his face.
All we know is he's called The Stig.
And he's off. Global warming means it's superwet out there today.
The poster's going to get very soggy.
Very gingerly into the first corner.
Back-end, is that lurching a bit? Looks like it is.
But the Stig's got it under control.
# I can see that you're waving goodbye... #
The Stig's still still loving Daniel.
Surprised the Daily Mail haven't picked up on that.
Very sideways coming out of Chicago. Coming up to Hammerhead now.
This could be quite understeery in this weather.
Nope. The Stig has used a hoof full of throttle to cure that.
Look at that driving... impressive stuff!
# It looks like Daniel... #
Now the follow-through.
Can he open it up here?
On this lake where the track used to be... There's the tyres.
Finally he gets there.
And opening it up now on the main straight towards the two corners left.
Very twitchy. Stig earning his raw pork treats today.
He's going through, all over the shop. And across the line!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Bit of a clue here how well it did.
If we look here,
in similar conditions, the Mercedes SL55 did a 133.2 The Alfa - 138.2.
That's one of the slowest cars we've ever put round there.
But think of it this way, as posters go, it is is quicker than that tennis girl scratching her arse.
Right, the news. Now, we were sent a picture this week of
a biker caught in Holland, I think it was, doing 137kmh.
Well, here's the picture.
It kind of tells its own story. There's one key thing there. He's not on it.
Interestingly, he wasn't prosecuted because he claimed he wasn't riding the bike at the time of the offence.
What did he claim? Probably said he was washing it and it fell over.
And it slipped and accelerated and kept building speed.
There's a Top Gear top tip here.
If you're driving along, see a speed camera, no chance of slowing down, leap out.
Don't do that if you're a coach driver!
No. Now, as you know, we get quite a few letters of complaint on Top Gear.
A lot are from communists and hippies, so we ignore them.
LAUGHTER
Anyway, last week, we thought nobody would be watching
because that epic tennis match was on, which we were all watching!
It turns out one person was watching Top Gear, and boy, is he an eagle-eyed chap.
Eagle-eyed chap isn't what you said when his letter arrived! I called him something fruitier.
He says he was watching the show when I was driving an Alfa Romeo along the road.
He says, and he's complained to the police, that I clipped a double white line.
Well, here's the footage.
That bloke should have been at Wimbledon with those crossing the white line spotting skills.
It appears I'm banged to rights and
I think apologies where apologies are necessary, I'm very sorry.
I shouldn't have done it. I'm normally fastidious.
But a mistake. Good job I'm not a brain surgeon!
LAUGHTER
Now, are there any mothers here?
Yes. Well, Fiat has decided you need patronising. So, they've come up with
a limited edition version of the Panda. We've got a picture of it.
Why is it for mothers?
It's called the Panda Mammi. I'm not joking.
LAUGHTER
And they've given it an orange interior and a purple exterior to match your varicose veins.
And a really big boot that it's embarrassed about.
And it's air bags are two feet lower down...on a normal model.
What will they do next? A "Fiat recently divorced father"
with a sat nav that only goes to the zoo?
That's a good idea, actually.
I've got a Fiat Panda and a nephew and niece, so they could bring out
the Panda Unsuitable Uncle, which has just got a very sharp kitchen knife left lying around.
I went on the internet this week, and I found this.
GROANS
It is just pure pornography.
Look at it. It's filth!
That is a convertible version of the Alfa Romeo HC that I was driving a few minutes ago.
That is gorgeous, though, isn't it?
Great news! What? The Dacia Sandero, I've got a new picture!
Anyway, I think we've had more signpost sent in this week.
We're having this campaign to get rid of unnecessary signposts.
Imagine if you're driving along, thinking "These roadworks ahead look really complicated.
"I hope they put signs up to simplify it all for me"
Well, they have. There you go.
That's made it a lot easier. What is...?
My particular favourite from the week is this one.
LAUGHTER
As opposed to gradual gunfire!
Here's mine.
Some bloke nailed that to the post, stood back and said, "Yes. I don't see anything wrong with that."
It could be in the other direction. I see what you mean!
Anyway, Boris Johnson, has announced this week that the London congestion charge will not,
as Ken Livingstone suggested, be going up to £25 a day, he's keeping it at eight.
APPLAUSE
Boris has got a round of applause.
However, in the interests of political balance, I do have a complaint about Boris because
he said when he was campaigning that he was going to get rid of the bendy buses.
Well, what's the delay? Hang on, give him a chance. How long's he been in office now?
Two months. Two months? Time me.
Right, we've got a phone. Hang on...
Ready, Go! Is that Reg Varney?
You know those big long buses with elastic in the middle, get them off the road.
Don't send them out ever again. Sell them to the Belgians or someone.
Was that two months?
Eight seconds.
Come on, Boris, hurry up!
That's sorted that one out. Good. Hey, Audi's bought a photocopier.
No!
Yes. Bear with me, it's a really good one.
They put the Q7, the big huge thing they've got, they put that through their new
photocopier at 75% and made this, the Q5, which is a whole new Audi, you see. It's just exactly the same!
It really is.
Seriously, is that a new car? This one is the new one,
about 75% the size of that one. Have your mum and dad got a photocopier?
LAUGHTER
Yes, and it was stuck at 60%! 60!
Yes, all right. Moving on.
I want to talk about the new Ferrari California. Here it is.
And that, I think, is the first Ferrari ever with a front-mounted V8.
You think? You don't want to say that in public.
(IN A NASAL ACCENT) You'll have the Ferrari owners' club coming round your house.
"Mr so-called celebrity so-called May. Surely you remember the B3684/B from 1956?"
Ooh, they're an adenoidal bunch of angry young men.
Mostly angry because they haven't got Ferraris.
"I've got a polo shirt with Ferrari on it."
No, I'm going to say that that is the first Ferrari in the company's history with a front-mounted V8.
That's brave, a brave thing to say. I'm going to say something else brave.
That's not very good looking. You're right. It isn't, is it?
there hasn't been a good looking Ferrari since the 355.
We think they're good looking because they're Ferraris, but they're not. It's like...
Who's that girl in Sex And The City?
Sarah Jessica Parker. We all go, "She must be pretty."
She looks like a boiled horse!
LAUGHTER
Right, that's the end of the news. Wait. Check my flies. You know how eagle-eyed our viewers are.
They're not that eagle-eyed. What?
Not that eagle-eyed.
APPLAUSE
This is a Datsun 120Y.
The company that created it has now brought out a follow-up model.
It's not coming to Britain till next year but the follow-up to this, I couldn't wait.
So last month, I went all the way to Japan to try it there.
This is what I've come to see.
The 193mph Nissan GTR.
It's a very far cry from the old 120Y.
Its engine is made in a hermetically sealed lab to ensure
the components don't microscopically expand while it's being assembled.
Its tyres are filled with pure nitrogen, because normal air is considered too unstable.
No-one has ever made a car this way before.
The world's motoring press is hailing it as the prow of the good ship progress.
A £53,000 turbocharged four-wheel-drive rocket ship which
redefines the way we think about automotive speed.
Plainly, the best way for us to test this incredible car is for one of our Top Gear races.
But to do that, my colleagues would have had to come out here as well.
Here's what we've got in store.
A race starting here, were we are now on the western seaboard,
right across Japan, that's 400 miles, to a mountain here.
At...Noko...
..There. Where there is a statue to the Buddha of road safety.
Yes. We're going to be using the most efficient public-transport network in the world.
And most of the time, we're going to be on the 200mph bullet train.
Very nice, bullet train.
Great. And I'm going to be taking them on in the GTR.
Yes, on roads with a 60mph speed limit.
Where there's a policeman every 200 yards.
And you're going to have to drive through Tokyo, which is the most congested city on earth.
A piece of cake. You've had it.
And so, at precisely 11 minutes past eight in the morning, the race began.
Look at them. They look like ramblers.
We now had 25 minutes to get into town, find the station and catch our first train.
They have so many connections to make,
so many forms of transport to go on, the chances of them making it without a single mistake are nil.
If they do make a mistake, that's it.
Have you seen these manhole covers? No. They're fantastic.
A boy from Birmingham and a man with no sense of direction, in Japan won't win. The end.
Here we go. You don't know what that says! But there's a red dot. That must mean, "You Are Here."
Look, the ice-skating man
with the picnic table.
That's a man on skis playing a harp next to it which probably doesn't mean train station.
I want to adjust the scale on the sat nav.
But it's all in Japanese.
I daren't touch it in case at all just goes off and then I'd be doomed.
Konichiwa. The station?
THEY IMITATE A TRAIN
The thing is, you see, all Japanese cars...
SAT NAV SPEAKS IN JAPANESE
Help!
'To deal with the language problems, we'd all been given
'speaking translator machines and at the station, we fired ours up.'
Ticket...
This isn't going to take long(!)
He knows you want a ticket. It's a ticket office.
Good point. He won't think you're asking for shoes.
MACHINE SPEAKS JAPANESE
Sorry, that's wrong. That was, "Is this seat taken?" How do I go back? It can't be difficult. Sorry.
The road has opened up. Here we go.
Don't try and match the symbols. I know you are.
OK, I've got a 3.8 litre,
twin turbocharged V6 engine, which produces...
Actually, I've got no idea how much horsepower because each one is handmade.
Nissan say it's around 470 brake horsepower but an American magazine
and it was producing 507 horsepower.
Morning. It's like being in a black-and-white film.
Morning.
But the best thing about it is that each gear box is tailored to work with a specific engine.
This one wouldn't work in any other GTR.
Not even NASA do that with the Space Shuttle.
They're not just hanging around. Look, there's a line.
You have to walk through the lines onto the train.
What a brilliant looking train.
OK, here we go. The motorway network.
Now we can be a bullet car!
The Datsun would cross Japan by motorway,
go through the centre of Tokyo,
under Tokyo Bay and up a mountain road to the finish line.
We would take four trains and a bus to the bay, cross it on a ferry,
and then get to the finish on a cable car.
Our route was almost 150 miles longer, but we would have no jams or delays.
87% of normal trains in Japan are on time.
But, for them, being late is anything over a minute behind time.
So that's a late train, if it's a minute.
But in the UK, to be late, it's got to be over ten minutes late.
And if trains are late,
you get a free rail journey.
So if this is late, we don't pay, and we get a pass that explains to your employer why you're late!
He's had it.
There are a lot of speed cameras on the motorways but they put signs up
saying "It's in 300 metres, 200 metres, 100 metres, there it is."
The only trouble is the signs are all in Japanese.
'However, I'd come up with a cunning plan.'
In Japan, a simple photograph of the number plate isn't enough.
They have to also have a photograph of the face to know who was driving.
So what I've done, is I've made this.
It's a Bill Oddie face mask.
So he's going to be sitting in a badger hole somewhere,
and he's going to be collecting points in Japan on his licence.
PHONE RINGS
Hammond. 'Yes?'
'Was your train late?'
'No! Nothing's late. It left to the second'
on time. You've had it. We're going. We're on the way.
MAN SPEAKS JAPANESE
We're being shouted at. Hang on mate, there's a man shouting at me. What?
Mate, I've gotta go, I've gotta go.
I like it when there's an emergency like that in his voice.
You know something's gone wrong in his world.
It might be rude to use the telephone in the train.
'Unable to talk to my rivals, I started to fiddle with the GTR's buttons.'
All the graphics on the system were done by the same company
that does the graphics for the Gran Turismo PlayStation game.
This is amazing.
Engine oil temperature, water temperature, engine oil pressure, boost!
And that one gives me my acceleration and braking in G.
Steering G. There it is.
MACHINE SPEAKS JAPANESE, WOMAN REPLIES
I can't understand the answers. Exactly, it's pointless. That's the problem.
Two fried eggs, that's not what I want.
I do that. Oh yeah, that was...
"Sorry officer, I was trying to get half a G while changing lane."
There we are.
As James and Richard trundle towards Kyoto,
I was hurtling up
Or was I?
I'm definitely in Switzerland.
I've gone wrong. Somehow, I've gone through North Korea, Russia, Poland,
Germany, and I'm in Switzerland. How have I done that?
'The mountains were staggering, but I couldn't look
'because the Japanese had tunnelled through every single one of them.'
Finally, I'm out of the tunnel.
Sunlight! It's gone again.
Two hours into the race
and our train, bang on time,
was already two-thirds of the way to Kyoto.
For Jeremy, however, things weren't going so smoothly.
Hello? 'Get out of the way man.'
Come on! Come on!
What are you doing? You're in a traffic jam?
'Hammond, there's a man driving at 9mph!'
There's no one wonder China's going to overtake you
as the dominant industrial power if you drive at that speed!
BEEPING Hello?
Don't tell me, it's the biggest drama ever to befall a car journey. It actually is.
'Predicting the traffic would wind me up,
'the Top Gear office had provided me with a calming new-age CD -
'The 100 Best Whale Songs.'
WHALE SONG PLAYS
No!
No! No, no! Not roadworks.
'Besides the whale music, the office had also given me a packed lunch.'
Mmm... These are crabs. Can you see that?
Real little crabs, Shell, legs.
Mmm...
'Meanwhile, we had arrived at Kyoto Station where we'd switched to the bullet train.'
BOTH: Let's follow everybody else.
We have got to get a bit of a move on because it's 11:10am and our train goes at 11:32am.
'Getting a move on, though, wasn't easy.'
There's a ticket machine. Tickets!
That's it. Destination three. Right.
Now what?! There's millions of them! I don't know.
I don't know either! I don't know what any of this means.
This... See the little Indian fellow on the top?
This is lemonade, curry flavour.
'Eventually, we had our tickets.
'And then, Richard announced that he was hungry.'
I don't like any of that.
I won't like those.
Certainly won't like that.
That is just a fish, lightly killed and then put in a bag.
The marvellous thing is that Richard Hammond won't be able to enjoy any of this,
because he won't eat anything unless it's come from a burger van on the A38.
"I don't like cheese.
"It's full of bacteria."
Mate, it's all fish. Yeah, it's good for you.
I don't like fish. Well, you've come to the wrong country.
Speed camera!
Is that it? Yah.
Is it supposed to look like that? They call it the duck-billed platypus.
Well, they're not joking, are they? And it is 11:32 on the dot.
SAT NAV SPEAKS IN JAPANESE
Hello, Jezza, we've just boarded the bullet train in Kyoto.
'I still had all of Japan to cross
'in a car which is limited by Japanese law to 112mph.
'They, meanwhile, were now steaming towards Tokyo at 200mph.'
I don't care how clever his Datsun is. We're going faster.
God! The average delay on the one we're on, two years ago - six seconds.
Six seconds?!
They're electric, obviously, the trains.
They actually have a motor in every single carriage rather than just power cars
to keep the weight distribution even to reduce wear on the rails.
There are three names of bullet trains...
I think that's enough facts.
Hey! Hey!
OK, "Plemium." Premium. "Plemium."
All the way up and as quickly as possible. OK.
WOMAN SHOUTS IN JAPANESE
I have seen X Factor winners less cheerful
than all petrol pump attendants are in Japan.
SHE SPEAKS IN JAPANESE
Look at this! Brrr!
How frightening's that?
He can spot your beaver from about a mile away.
Good grief!
Show the viewers. That's where we got on - Kyoto.
And we've been on for minutes and we're there, and we're going to where's Tokyo?
There! So, we've gone there to there in no time at all.
'While the girl gave my GT-R a thousand-smile service, I went to buy some more dead fish.'
SAT NAV: 'HIV...'
I was loving Japan. I was loving the race.
But, weirdly, I was struggling to love the GT-R.
It's not the gizmos that I find depressing, like I do in a Ferrari.
They're wrong in a Ferrari but this is a Nissan.
You expect it to have yaw sensors and G sensors,
It's Japanese. That's right.
I just wish that at road speeds, it would occasionally
put its hand down the front of my trousers and have a little rummage.
It's almost like it finds a dual carriageway in Japan just a bit, sort of, easy.
'Nevertheless, it was still a car,
'which means it would easily beat those two on their Victorian relic.'
Come on, car, I need 5% of your potential to beat these idiots.
'And, boy, did the car respond!'
PHONE RINGS
Hello?
Mate, can you hear me? I'm in Tokyo.
No, you're not. 'Oh, yes, I am!'
'I don't believe you.' Unfortunately, mate, I am in Tokyo.
How the hell have you done that?
'Driving a product of the 21st century,'
not something from the Middle Ages.
He got cut off.
They will be so depressed by that.
It's the bullet train! Honest to God, they have been so cocky
and confident that this time they were going to win, and they're not!
'We were down but not out, because we knew
'he was heading straight into the jaws of Tokyo's legendry traffic jams.'
So, it's time taken in Tokyo now. Yes.
Tokyo is where the battle will be won or lost.
APPLAUSE
Really struggling to like that car.
I don't like the way it looks.
And on the, sort of, dual carriageways,
it's a bit like a digital camera, you know? It's very clever...
But it's got no soul. It's got no excitement.
Anyway, we do have a full track test of this later in the series,
and we'll be picking the film up later on.
Now, it's time to put some stars in our reasonably priced car.
Here's a thing, OK? A lot of people say
that female newsreaders are only chosen for the way they look.
But plainly, that isn't true,
because my guests tonight are a right pair of mingers!
LAUGHTER
Ladies and gentlemen, Fiona Bruce and Kate Silverton! APPLAUSE
Hello. How are you? Good. Not at all mingers! Hello. How are you?
Are you well? Very well, thank you. Have a seat.
Ah! I was looking forward to today.
Good, so were we. Yeah.
You've appeared on Top Gear before. Yes. You pushed me out of a lift. Do you remember?
Yes. And then you said something and I had no idea you were saying it.
A lot of people thought I said you had a nice bottom.
LAUGHTER Are you saying you didn't say it? And you'd be right!
"That Oxford-educated newsreader's wearing cotton."
LAUGHTER Jeremy, stand up, let's have a look at your backside.
It's got a thing on it... Everybody, what do we think? Facing this way!
SOMEONE WOLF-WHISTLES
It needs a bit of work! I've been smacked by a...
It's like being Max Mosley!
LAUGHTER
I've been hearing from The Stig. He says that you
are one of the most talented people we've ever had round the track.
Who are you looking at? Me? Yes, you. And you're one of the most stubborn.
I don't like being told what to do. He said that.
When he said "Turn left," and you turned right and said, "It's the same thing,"...
Yeah. ..On a track, it sort of isn't. He kept bossing me around.
I hate that! I liked it! LAUGHTER
So, you had fun. The only thing I can think of that is more fun than this is reading the news.
Really? It'd be fantastic! I'd love to read the news.
Do you think anyone would believe you? LAUGHTER
You wouldn't be allowed to.
You sit in the studio, warm, read stuff out, lesbians come.
Remember that? Yes. The lesbians chained themselves to the desk.
We've waited for six years for lesbians to chain themselves to things.
Is that your dream? Oh...!
LAUGHTER
We had one guy came in - I don't think you were there then, and he was so cross about something -
probably the way we were presenting or something, that he broke into the BBC
and hurled a printer through a glass partition,
as he tried to make his way into the gallery.
Or your co-presenter lets your chair down mid-link. That happens to me a lot.
We couldn't do that with Hammond. He'd disappear out of view.
You wanted to be a journalist, didn't you, from a young age?
Yeah. Your heroes were...?
I've always been a bit adventurous, so, Ranulph Fiennes was a big hero of mine,
and then I saw the film, Under Fire, about Nicaragua.
I thought of being a war correspondent.
I kind of got slightly satiated when I went to Iraq last year. Did you get shot at?
I got mortared and dived for cover on air. Typical BBC!
Me in the middle of the screen with my two soldiers I was interviewing.
Mortars started dropping. The solders, "Mortar!"
Sophie Rayworth's on the line going, "What are you doing?"
This is still live. She says, "We'll be back with Kate as soon as we can."
LAUGHTER
I'm quite angry about that. It's the job I most wanted to have.
Is it?! Oh, Antiques Roadshow? It is a fantastic job. Why would you want to do it?
I love all the detail and that getting in there.
You can tell it wasn't made in 1643 in Stoke.
But the best thing, the absolute best thing,
is when they come along, "How much do you think it's worth?". "£200."
"No, I'm afraid it's worthless."
Or no! When they say, "If you'd kept it in the original box..." That's...
"It would have been worth £10,000." Sadly... My favourite one I ever saw on the Antiques Roadshow,
someone brought a bowl with a lid on, and she'd Sellotaped the lid down.
When they'd taken it off, it was yellow. "If that had been in its original condition,
"it would have been worth £1,000 but because of something YOU'VE done,
"it's worth about threepence ha'penny." I laughed like a drain for weeks!
LAUGHTER
Now, I want to talk about cars, if I may. Er, Kate...
Early cars. Anything good or embarrassing? I had a lovely early car.
I inherited it from my sister. She paid £75 for it.
I bet it wasn't lovely. It was a Citroen Diane.
I was right.
Red. She painted black dots all over it, so it was a ladybird,
and then I put stickers all over it. To hold it together? Yeah!
LAUGHTER I loved it. I learned everything about the car
because you could mend it with an elastic band.
Can you mend cars? My dad was a London cabbie, and insisted that he wasn't going to have girlie girls.
At least not with me! I'd change tyres in the middle of the forest if we broke down.
Why were you in the middle of a forest when you broke down?
That was always my route home from the pub with all my friends in the car. Epping Forest! Essex girl.
Yeah, I am. It's OK!
LAUGHTER
And your cars, then? I got a Citroen. Which one...? C4 Picasso.
It's great! You didn't buy a Picasso!
It's really good. I love it. It switches the headlights on for you,
you don't have to put the handbrake on, it does it for you.
This is hurting you, Jeremy. My type of driving.
It's a hateful car! It's not. It's brilliant.
It's not! I can't believe how rude you are about my car.
He's so rude about my car. Isn't he rude?
AUDIENCE: Yeah!
Is the Picasso terrible? AUDIENCE: Yes!
LAUGHTER Nooo! Come on!
We must get on to your laps. Oh, God! The weather wasn't good.
The Stig was nice, was he?
Yeah. Very nice, yeah.
He genuinely is impressed with...
I think the follow-through, he said you did it flat out in fourth gear.
What do you mean the follow-through? It's a very fast... LAUGHTER
It's what you do if you go flat out in fourth gear.
In the pouring rain. Well, it was only because I think he must have been kidding.
He said, "Go flat out in fourth!" When I came out, I went, "I did it." He went, "You're kidding."
He wanted to give you the kiss of life if something went wrong!
I have no idea
whose lap is lined up to go first of all.
Shall we have a look, everybody? Let's play the tapes.
Who's that in there? I think it's you, Kate.
'No, it isn't!' BLEEP, that was first gear!
Now I'm in fifth!
Oh my God, that was hopeless.
'We got the gears sorted out.
'Here we are first corner. That's lovely.
'All right?!' This is so much more fun than the school run!
'It is.'
'It looks so slow.'
'Trust me, it isn't. That's very tight through there.' God, I need a boat, not a car.
'Coming up to the hammer head. Are we going outside the line? You want to watch this.
'Eagle-eyed viewers will report you for crossing the white line there.'
Fourth gear. Don't brake into the corner, just go for it! Woo! 'You did it as well!
'That's a follow through.' 'Is it? Oh yeah, I did that quickly.'
'Flat out?' 'Yeah.' 'I'm startled.
'And that's beautiful line through there. You're being modest.'
'That's on the grass.' Oh, God!
'Here we go, into the last corner. That's brilliant. Fantastic!'
APPLAUSE That's very good.
I couldn't change the gears properly! That looked really fast.
That was really fast. Shall we have a look at Kate's now? Yes! Yes, Play the tape. Oh, God!
SKIDDING 'Look at that!'
'Yes.' Oh, my God, I can't believe I'm officially in charge of a car on my own.
'Really?' Like this.
'That's an alarming thing to say!
'Into the first corner.' Weeee-ow!
'Like a mouse!
'Come on!' Foot is right down. BLEEP.
'Sorry!' LAUGHTER
'I don't know what to say(!)
I don't know who I'm apologising to but I'm a newsreader. I shouldn't swear.
'No! Save it for when Gordon Brown comes on the telly next time!
'Right, here we go. That's very smooth through there.
'Slightly less exuberance.' I'm going to go in fourth flat out round the corner.
'This is very brave what's happening here.'
Ooooh! LAUGHTER
Oh, I'm enjoying this! You don't say(!)
'And again, that was very smooth through there.
'Cutting the corner nicely round.
'The tyres squeal in that water!'
APPLAUSE
So, Fiona, I've got yours here. OK. Where do you reckon?
Definitely going to be at the bottom. No, you're not at the bottom. You did it in...
one minute, which means you're not at the bottom. Oh good, yes!
57.4.
That is hugely quick out there.
We could take seven or eight seconds off that because of that.
Well, bung it up then!
I can't bung it up, that's the time you did it in. Unfortunately.
Now, Kate. I think I'm bottom then. You're definitely faster than me.
You reckon? Without a shadow of a doubt.
No! I think it's bottom. One minute, so not bottom. OK.
54.7.
APPLAUSE That is seriously quick.
4.7 is there.
I'm a bit innumerate. If you take seven or eight seconds off that,
you'd be up with the Trevor Eves or Gordon Ramsays. Yeah!
Stig was impressed! You should stick it up there, definitely.
LAUGHTER In a manner of speaking. And on that bombshell...
it's probably time to end! Thank you very much, guys!
Thank YOU! Ladies and gentlemen, Fiona Bruce and Kate Silverton!
Right, tonight we're having a race across Japan.
It's between Jeremy in the new GT-R, which is billed as a sort of spaceship,
but which we think is just a Datsun, and us on brilliant Japanese public transport.
And it is just across Japan, from here across Tokyo,
across Tokyo Bay, and then up a mountain to the finish line, where there's a Buddha to road safety.
Now, when we left the action, Jeremy had just entered Tokyo,
which is the most jammed up city in the world,
and we were on the brilliant Bullet Train doing 200mph...here.
So the car was ahead,
but to maintain that lead, I was going to be relying heavily on my Japanese girlfriend, Amy.
SAT NAV INSTRUCTIONS IN JAPANESE
The trouble with Tokyo is that it is about 50 miles from one side to the other.
SAT NAV INSTRUCTIONS IN JAPANESE
I was braced for the Tuesday afternoon traffic that lay ahead.
If it was really bad, all of Bill Oddie's speeding tickets would have been for nothing.
I thought he'd still be about here. We're still in it.
We were now arriving at Shin-Yokohama Station
on the edge of Tokyo, and the next part of the journey for us was critical.
Jeremy could plough straight through the middle of the city
to get to the bay, but we had to catch two more trains and a bus
to reach the ferry terminal.
We couldn't afford a single slip.
Transfer to...subway.
Right, fork, yes! SAT NAV INSTRUCTIONS IN JAPANESE
Amy and I were now in the middle of Tokyo,
and despite James's claims that we'd be stuck in traffic for a week, the simple fact is this -
There wasn't any.
James, "It'll be all traffic, worst traffic in the world, you won't move." Look at it!
We had less than ten minutes to catch our next connection.
Er... That's the subway. Subway. Tokyo's not a city, it's a racetrack.
BEEPING
Well, that's no good. Do we have to have another ticket? I don't know.
Er... Can we ask? How do we buy?
Where do we get off? Honestly,
I didn't think I was going to win it.
That's obviously the fare, it gets bigger as you go further away.
How much do we need? Bullet train, pah!
Right, I think it was this way.
Right, go! Go, go, go, go!
We were in such a rush we boarded the tube train not knowing if it was going in the right direction.
This is the Yokohama city subway, but does it...go to Yokohama?
Yokohama, number 20...
It's four stops. So if this flashes 23, that's the next stop and we're going in the right direction.
If it says 25, we've got to jump off.
23...
Yes. Yes!
I didn't panic(!)
This is what comes of not having a congestion charge.
We were now at yet another station looking for the train to Kurihama.
Kurihama? Kurihama?
Kurihama?
I was so confident that when I did occasionally get stuck at the lights,
I broke out some of the Japanese toys the office had provided.
TOY GUITAR PLAYS
It's an air guitar!
MOBILE RINGS It's May or Hammond.
Hello. Jeremy. Hammond, how are you? I'm very well,
how are you doing?
I am in Tokyo, and I'm going brilliantly well, I shall look on my sat nav.
'How fast are you going?'
Oh, my God. What? I've just turned the sat...
I've turned the sat nav off.
Why did you do that?
I just wanted to look where I was, cos it comes up on the phone thing when you're on.
Well, I can tell you exactly where you are now you've turned your sat nav off. Lost! Bye!
With all the sat nav's controls in Japanese, I had no clue how to get it back on again.
Oh, this is just...
I'm going to have to...
This was a good moment.
We had successfully caught the last of our four trains and would be at the finish line in two hours.
Meanwhile, Jeremy, for the first time, was in trouble.
No.
Right, there's a plane coming in to land there, that must mean...Narita airport's over there.
TRANSLATOR SPEAKS JAPANESE Sorry, I just asked for the wine list.
That's not right. Amazingly, I found a policeman who spoke English.
'Sort of.' Yes, this tunnel.
This road will lead down, uh...
one, two, three...four signal.
Lights? So four signals?
Four, maybe. Maybe?
As our train waited in the station, I went to try my luck with one of the onboard drinks machines.
MOBILE RINGS Then James rang.
Hello? Yeah, will do. I haven't found a vending machine yet, but as soon as I do, I will.
Yeah, but we're not moving.
Well, not now we're not.
What do you mean we are? No, we're not.
Mate, I'm not on the...
How can I not...?
Gear position, braking, acceleration.
MOBILE RINGS Hello.
James? No, it's not James, it's me... Why would James be ringing you up?
Because there's...
Something peculiar has happened.
We're not on the same train.
What?! Hello.
We're not on the same train.
The train stopped in a station, I was walking along it to try and find some drinks from a machine,
and then James had moved off, he was in the front of the train, it split,
I don't know where yet.
I stopped in the station, then I got off my train to see what had happened, and then my train left.
So if that was the right train, I'm not on it.
If it wasn't the right... One of us is on the right train, one of us isn't.
If it's any consolation, mate, I've just arrived at a dead end.
I've got to ring James now, I'm sorry.
I might just go for a cup of coffee on this basis. Ha-ha-ha!
'I was just now all alone with just a Blair Witch Handycam.'
Hello, viewers.
Jezzer has obviously spoken to Hammond, because Jezzer's just rung me up to gloat.
Erm... Kurihama?
Kurihama, yeah.
OK, moment, please. Come down.
This man got me on the right train, and I called James.
But my train was 15 minutes behind James's, so I'd have less than two minutes to catch the bus.
You're going to have to hold it.
Just run like hell from the bus, because if you miss the bus, we're stuffed.
SAT NAV SPEAKS IN JAPANESE Amy's back! Amy's back!
Amy's back on my screen!
I pushed everything, she's back!
And not before time - being lost had cost me 45 minutes.
The lead I built up had been wiped out.
Show me some of your muscles, car, show me your muscles.
TRANSLATOR SPEAKS JAPANESE
That says, "Do you know my friend?"
I mean, "Can you wait, please?"
'I was now off the train and hoping to God James had held the bus.'
Buses, there should be buses. There's no buses.
I was now heading for the tunnel under the bay in a big hurry,
and for the first time the GT-R was starting to come alive.
When you put your foot down like that, you just get the vaguest whiff
that this car can go round the Nurburgring in 7 minutes 29 seconds.
That's faster than a McLaren Mercedes, it's faster than a 911 Turbo.
MOBILE RINGS Hello? May.
I'm with my old mate Richard Hammond. (Damn it!) Oh, great!
Mate, they're cross cos you're on your mobile.
Hello? We're in trouble now for talking on a phone on the bus.
He wants to talk to you.
Oh... Hi. Do you know what time you're actually getting on that ferry?
25 past, it leaves, we're getting on it at about 22 minutes past.
All of us were now minutes from the bay.
Is that bell bad?
This is really close now.
Still in the bosom of Japanese public transport,
the finish line in 55 minutes.
All we could do was hope Jeremy's life would be less predictable.
It depends... How busy it is.
..on the terrain, whether it's small roads, whether it's busy, whether there's a speed limit,
whether he gets lost.
Small roads? No, not really.
As the immense bridge ended, I knew it would all be down to the final charge up the mountain.
Frankly, what I'm going to need to win this now is a divine wind, and I've got just the thing.
I'm ready! Here we go!
I knew they'd be at the finish line at 4.25 precisely.
Arrival time, 4.31.
That's six minutes after them.
I'm putting the gear box in race, that speeds up the change time.
I'm going to put the suspension in race, that firms it right up.
Then I'm going to put the traction control in race, that lets me have some slip.
Bang on time, the ferry docked, a full mile from the cable car, but we had no intention of walking.
I've no time to slow down for these barriers.
Wimbledon with barriers like that on the end of your arm.
Ahead of me lay the mountain road - GT-R country.
God... Just now it's all coming together, it's all just becoming a GT-R.
'Hello.' Jeremy. Yeah, where are you?
We are disembarking now.
This is so damn close.
I can't work it out, but he is...he is...very close.
I've now got it down to 4.27.
Ready? Yes.
Let's do it. Right.
Uh! Wah! Ah!
Ah!
4.24.
This is the clash of the titans now, and it's going down to the wire again.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
I wish you could feel my heart rate now.
I really wish you could feel what's going on here.
Go!
Hold on! Thank you.
Come on, come on, come on, baby! 'I was now giving it everything.'
So at the top here there is a Buddha
to road safety. Apparently.
Wouldn't it be brilliant if we got there and Jeremy's GT-R was buried in the middle of it?
"Watch this, I'm here..." "Oh, dear." "Bang."
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
This way. Finally, I made it to to the Buddha's car park.
Victory is mine!
But that wasn't the finishing line.
Go where? Where?
Run! Come on, go, go, go! Just leave it, leave it, leave it!
That's not a temple.
We were now converging on the Buddha up two different paths.
Are you sure we haven't overshot it? Come on!
No!
Please, God... don't let them be here.
HE PANTS HEAVILY
They aren't here.
A car just beat the Bullet Train.
That's Buddha! This is the Buddha to road safety!
And this wall was 12th century, erm...so you remember from the lecture I was giving you...
Hi, guys! Oh.
Just interesting...how this is a different century to that.
Yeah. Yeah.
You ran up there as well? Oh, yeah.
Congratulations.
How long have you been here? Really not long.
Genuinely? Honestly?
Three minutes 12 seconds.
That is so close.
Thanks, Buddha. You looked after him.
Disappointed! Wait for it.
TRANSLATOR SPEAKS JAPANESE Which is? That's the Japanese... For? "Oh, cock!"
Now, look,
we do arrange those races so that we know they're going to be close, but even so.
That really was astonishing. Anyway, there's not much else to say now, except thank you, Tokyo,
for being empty and thank you very much for watching.
See you next week, good night!
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE
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