Top Gear S19E02 Western USA Road Trip
Corrections by Wally73
Tonight, I point at a thing...
..Richard walks through a shop
and James has some bananas.
Hello! Hello, everybody. Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Now, every so often we like to remind ourselves that this is
a motoring show.
So, we get three really nice cars and go for a long drive.
And what we do is, we take it in turns to choose the location.
So, if it's my turn, we usually end up in France,
if it is James's turn we usually end up in...
1953.
Tonight, though, it was Hammond's turn.
So guess what?
Our meeting point was the Valley of Fire in Nevada.
And what you see here is the car I'll be using.
This is a Lexus LFA.
It's not the most powerful car in the world, it's not the fastest,
it's not the best looking and it certainly isn't the cheapest.
Plus, the Lexus badge does come with a whiff of masonry.
But I drove one of these in England last year
and I emerged from the experience thinking, "That might very well be
"the best car I've ever driven."
And that's why we're here.
To find out.
At this point, the stillness of the desert
was shattered by the sound of an approaching James May,
who was at the wheel of the new Aston Martin Vanquish.
That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
It's not bad, is it?
This is a DBS replacement,
but also a bit inspired by the 177, million pound thing.
And look at the upholstery!
I know, the upholstery is outrageous.
That's the best looking Aston there's ever been, actually.
Best one they've done.
That, though, cos I've never seen one in a good colour like that,
that is pretty fantastic. No, but yours is better.
And the great thing is, I'm in the better car
and I'm just going to follow you around going, "That is beautiful."
'After a bit more mutual mastication,
'we started to wonder what Billy Bob Hammond might bring.'
Will it be something subtle, small, European?
No, my money was on something rather large,
brash and maybe even American.
'And blow me down, I was right.'
So... The new Viper.
You? Yeah.
I know it looks exactly like the old one, but that is the new Viper.
Yay. Subtle.
Before you two start, let me just tell you, that 8.4 litre V10,
that's the largest engine ever fitted to any production car
since the war. And looking around here,
let's not forget, this car is the fastest,
with the highest top speed, it's the fastest to 60,
the most powerful, 640bhp,
it's got the most torque and the biggest engine.
I'm sorry, Hammond. They haven't styled it.
This has been in a wind tunnel to look like this!
If that's been in a wind tunnel,
they parked it in there sideways for all the good it's done.
It's been in a wind tunnel. Look at the panel gap.
I'll stand behind you, have a look at it.
Let me see if I can see how many fingers you hold up in that panel gap.
There has to be a gap between the panels or
there'd be one piece! Let's have a look at yours.
That looks ridiculous. It's a Lexus. It's just a nerd-fest. It's a Lexus.
It's for rich golfers, is what it is. I admit, the Lexus...
If you want to talk about panel gap, there's a whopper straightaway.
It's a cooling system! Is it heck, it doesn't fit.
I'm surprised at you cos this is a bunch of retro nonsense, really.
No, I'm sorry, I won't have that.
It's very pretty, yes, but it's harking...
It's harking back to the past
and a car with an engine from the 1930s isn't?
This is a nerd-fest, that's for old fools, that is a proper,
honest Gran T... 8.4 litre V10. You don't need it to be that big!
Hang on a second. Who owns Chrysler now, the people that made this?
Fiat. What else do they make?
Ferrari. There you go.
But, Hammond, All-Bran is made by the same people who make Frosties.
It doesn't mean they're comparable! That's a stupid...
It's not! Right, look.
I knew I would get some flak... Shush. Shush.
Instead of just standing here arguing... Yes.
..why don't we go for a drive?
That's a better idea. Open the taps.
'Straight away, though, there was a problem.'
Not again. Hammond, why do you like it in America so much?
Every nice piece of road has an 8mph speed limit on it.
I don't know, don't ask me, it's not my fault.
Yes, it is.
I mean, what are we going to hit?
What are we going to hit here? There's nothing.
No wildlife, no people.
This is stupid. It's stupid!
'Eventually, though, the 35mph hour limit ended,
'and thanks to some trickery in the edit,
'we were able to take our cars up to a dizzying 55mph.'
There it goes.
This isn't just an engine, it's a force of nature!
Let's see what a proper V12 feels like.
Nice is the answer.
The engine in this is so exquisite
that it revs from idle to 9,000rpm in 0.6 of a second.
In fact, it revs so fast
they couldn't fit a conventional rev counter.
It had to be electronic, because a normal one simply can't keep up.
Right, let's sort something out right from the start.
James's Aston Martin costs £190,000.
Jeremy's Celica, £340,000.
This - £75,000 or thereabouts.
That is a huge difference!
It does all the fancy stuff, too, it's got all the fancy materials,
carbon fibre, aluminium, magnesium - they're all in here.
'But when it comes to technology,
'neither of their cars is a match for the howling LFA.'
It took five years of sweat, toil and cash to design this car
and then just before they put it on sale, someone said,
"You know, I think it would be better if the body was made from
"carbon fibre rather than aluminium."
And they began all over again.
How much would that cost?!
All I do know is, they sell them for £340,000
and they lose money on every single one that leaves the dealership.
'By the time Jeremy had stopped droning on about his Celica,
'we were on a motorway
'and I got the distinct impression I was playing gooseberry.'
I'd like to say that, from the back, particularly in that colour,
and in fact this light, the LFA looks absolutely epic.
I mean, seriously.
Ooh, that makes a lovely sound.
It makes a very nice noise, your Aston Martin.
God, why don't you two just get a room?
"Your car looks nice!" "Your car sounds lovely." Ooh!
'But they didn't get a room.
'Instead, they stopped to look at a silly aeroplane.'
James? Yeah, yeah. B-2? Yeah.
That's amazing, isn't it?
That is a B-2 stealth bomber coming into land at...
Actually, he's turning to come over us. Yeah.
We're not supposed to be able to see it, are we?
I don't think it works!
'As the sun began to set, we were back on the road,
'heading for the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
'Here, you can drive a NASCAR round the oval,
'or you can learn the racetrack on a Ferrari simulator
'before doing it for real in an actual Ferrari car.
'But Jeremy decided we should go to the drag strip.'
God, that's loud!
Argh!
'We couldn't understand why, because it just seemed to be
'a lot of very noisy modified cars, which we all hate.'
Look, there's another one come in dressed as a policeman.
No, they really are police. What, genuinely? They really... I promise.
There they are, police sheriff and the fire department.
They invite kids down to race against them
to stop the kids racing on the streets.
So they race the actual police? That was a police Mustang.
They've modded, the police have modded it and then say to kids...
"What you got?" "Can you beat us?" They actually call it Beat The Meat.
No, it's probably Beat The Heat, cos heat means... Yeah, I meant that.
'To prove that modified cars are idiotic,
'Jeremy decided to take on the local sheriff.'
Yes, look, I'm up against some crummy pickup truck.
This is going to just be...
..well, deeply embarrassing for him.
That's there?!
'After this humiliation,
'I took on the state trooper in another pickup truck.'
OK, now, come on, Richard, concentrate.
Where's he gone?
'Having watched the fire department's motorcycle demolish a Honda NSX...'
'..James wisely decided to take on a youth
'in a clapped-out Mitsubishi Evo.'
Yes, for England!
I'm going to do it in D and Sport, I'm going to use Launch Control.
Try not to look smug, James. Try not to look smug. Practise your face.
Hang on a second.
All-wheel drive beats rear-wheel drive.
God, he just sodded off.
Woo! >
Now, come on.
'Having spent the entire evening losing to absolutely everything...'
Pick on a weak one!
No!
'..we decided we didn't like drag racing
'and went into Las Vegas to do strip billiards instead.'
Humiliating.
I can't believe, I still can't believe that I was beaten
by some bloke who had spent 1,500 quid modifying an ancient Mitsubishi.
No, but the reason we hate modified cars is cos we know,
if he tried to do it again, his engine would go "BANG!
"Clatter, clatter, clatter," and that would be end of that. True.
I'll tell you what I think's funny,
imagine the British police trying to do Beat the Meat.
Heat! Heat!
"Right, I've tuned up the Astra Diesel.
"I might get 120 out of it down the straight now,
"who wants to take me on?" What a spectacle.
But anyway, the most important thing is to reveal now which of the cars,
our cars, was the fastest and it was mine.
Er, yours was the most expensive.
It was the fastest.
Listen, on paper the Viper is the fastest.
Yes, on paper, but, Hammond, on tarmac...
..mine was the... It was, it just was. User area...
Anyway, we'll pick that up later on but now we're going to do the news.
Yes, we are. I've had another theory. Good.
God. No, you love my theories.
OK, this one, you know Jessops and HMV and Woolworths and Comet,
they all closed down recently? Yeah, Jeremy, this is a car show.
Yes, yes, bear with me, OK?
And everyone is asking,
"Why are people shopping in retail and out-of-town centres
"and town centres are just becoming boarded-up shops
"and women in short skirts vomiting and catching herpes?" Right?
There's a very good reason for this.
It's cos when you go to an out-of-town retail centre place,
you can park your car.
When you go into a town centre, you can't.
Right, so what are you suggesting?
It's easy to fix Britain's town centres.
Rip up every double yellow line and sack every single traffic warden.
The problem is solved. Why wouldn't you do that?
Everybody's running around going,
"Town centres are dying, what should we do? It's easy!"
But if you allow people to park anywhere in the town centre,
it'll become impossible to get in or out. Rubbish! It's true.
So you think parking restrictions are just out of spite?
Well, what else are they for?
They go, "Hey, we did really well, we got a £12 revenue today
"from our parking restrictions." Meanwhile, every shop is shut.
We need to have a more French attitude to parking.
Cos the rule in France is,
if there is a space that a car will go in, you put your car in it.
Even if it's on a mini roundabout, that is the rule.
James, why aren't we running the country?
Why are we presenting this programme with Noel Coward, more to the point?
You were Mr Toad last week, you really are moving around.
Right, we've sorted parking. Good. You haven't!
Now, the next problem we face and this is a big one...
You know when James is telling you something
and you start to feel drowsy? God.
Yes, it's like you've had a whole bottle of red,
five portions of shepherd's pie in front of a fire.
Yeah, and it's embarrassing. It is embarrassing.
He's in the middle of a story and you nod off. It's awkward.
It is awkward. However, it's all going to be solved with this. £8.99.
You clip it on your ear, OK?
Right. Sitting still.
James. Explain torque. Torque?
Torque is fantastically simple, Jeremy, it's just a force at a distance,
that's why it's in pound-feet, for example, or newton metres.
It's waking me up as well, what's the point of that?
I can hear him now. It is, I'd rather be asleep with his lectures.
No, they also say it can be used for drivers.
So when you're driving you can have it on your ear
and if you nod off, it'll wake you up.
But, and you'll love this bit,
it says in the blurb it could be used by airline pilots. What?!
Really? That's some comfort, isn't it? It's reassuring, I think.
Mid Atlantic, thinking, "It's OK because the fate of me
"and all these other souls on board this jumbo jet
"lie in the hands of a £7.99..." 8.99!
".. £8.99 Chinese-made ear beep."
I don't actually know how much a Boeing 747 costs,
but I'm pretty sure the price isn't something 99.
But there's no component of it that's something 99.
Can you imagine if they said, "An announcement now from the flight deck..."
Argh! Wake up!
Wake up! It is a stupid idea.
It is a stupid idea.
Now, while I was driving down here I saw one of the new Jaguar F-types.
Have you heard about this? The new Jag small sports car.
Got a picture here. It is a beautiful looking thing. Yes.
And actually, it's even better looking from the back.
I mean, that is a sensational looking thing.
But I'll tell you what surprised me about it,
is I thought it was going to cost 40,000,
the same as a Porsche Boxster or a Mercedes SLK.
It's going to cost between 60 and 80,000, and even on the top models
you pay extra for heated seats and keyless entry and so on.
I'll tell you what worries me about that.
I bet they have set that up more for handling and less for comfort.
Mm. Which will be a mistake.
God, it's for younger people. That's the...
It isn't! It is. It isn't!
Younger people spend 150 quid on their cars, not 80 grand.
The only person who can spend 80 grand on a car is in their 50s.
That car, Hammond, it is... Yeah, well, us, but it is made for people,
exclusively for people, who make a noise when they sit down.
You go to a Jag dealership to buy that and they'll say,
"Mr May, take a seat." And you go, "Thank you.
"Ahhhh. Yes!"
Sold! God... That car is for people who watch TV OR text.
Not both at the same time.
You do realise you two are now officially the oldest
people in the world!
Hammond, we can't all be 36 forever, mate.
I like it, I'm sticking with it. Now, news from Citroen.
They've developed a car that runs on compressed air.
No, I've been reading about this
and I have literally no idea how it works.
I saw you reading about this earlier on today and you know
when somebody's eyes glaze?
His looked like they'd been painted on.
It's undecipherable. And you could see the words ricocheting off. Ping!
They wouldn't go in, I can't work it out. I can't work it out.
It's simple. It's a bit like...
Explain it to me then, James.
It's like a hybrid, like a Toyota,
but instead of generating electricity under-braking when going downhill,
it compresses air, which then...
It wakes me as well!
How does... No, this is what I don't understand.
Why don't they just put, you know those scuba divers tanks
on the back and then they shoot air out and it'll make it go along?
Because that wouldn't work. It would!
What about fire extinguishers?
You put two fire extinguishers on the boot lid,
when you set them off it would make the car move forward.
Technically it would, but it's extremely wasteful.
To go round our track, you'd need a fire extinguisher the size of Hazelmere.
No, no, no.
No, because fire extinguishers are full of carbon dioxide. Yes.
Well, engines produce carbon dioxide
so you'd endlessly refill the fire extinguisher.
You can't use carbon dioxide from cars to power cars.
Isaac Newton said it would work. I'm going to prove it.
What goes on...? Give me this... Right. What goes on in his head?
Move back. Move back, move back.
Back!
Because seriously, I'm going to rocket across the studio floor.
Are we ready, everybody?
Here we go.
Why's it doing this?
Why is it doing that?
Newton said the opposite of any reaction... No.
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, yes. Rubbish!
Every action makes you spin round in a lazy circle.
Clever or not, you can't expect him to have foreseen a gigantic,
idiotic ape in an office chair with a fire extinguisher, can you?
Shall we move on? Yes!
Because tonight we are involved in an epic drive across the western United States in a Lexus LFA,
an Aston Martin Vanquish and the mighty Viper.
Yes, and when we left the action earlier we were with
the Las Vegas Police Department, taking part in some drag racing.
The idea being that if you race on the track, you won't feel inclined
to race between the traffic lights out on the streets.
So, had it worked?
Ahhhh!
You know we're supposed to have got this out of our system, don't you?
We've been on the awareness course.
'A long journey lay ahead. So, we decided to annoy Jeremy.'
Just to let you know, my iPod's working really well in the car,
how about yours?
No, I don't have an iPod connector in here.
I suppose, yeah,
it'd be a bit much to ask for that on a £340,000 car, wouldn't it
I would imagine it would be there, my simple hick car has got...
You can Bluetooth your iPhone to it.
Jeremy, is there anything else you haven't got that any reasonable,
modern car should have?
Er, not really.
Don't say cup-holders.
Have you got a cup-holder?
No, I haven't got a cup-holder.
What a tragic oversight.
I think Lexus were concentrating
so hard on building the perfect car, they forgot that occasionally
you might need to go somewhere in it and need a cup-holder
and an iPod connector and a seat belt that does up more easily
than this one, which doesn't do up easily at all if you're a bit...
fat.
I've got a meter that tells me
how much torque my engine is producing at any given moment.
Have you got one of those?
I absolutely haven't got one of those and I'm very, very pleased about it.
God, Hammond,
the back of your car lights up with a stupid viper when you break.
That's the stupidest thing I've ever seen!
That isn't just a viper, that is a Stryker,
it's the emblem of this car.
I'm going to crash into you trying to get a closer look
at your novelty item.
'As we cruised at a steady 55 towards California,
'Jeremy discovered yet another problem with the Lexus.'
Would you mind awfully if we stopped for petrol? I need some.
I've got more than half a tank.
So have I.
It is quite a small tank.
'In a town famous for having the tallest thermometer in the world,
'I spent three pounds filling the Zippo in the Lexus
'and then bought Hammond some fuel for his car.'
May?
Yeah? This is the right fuel for a Viper, isn't it?
Looks like it. Funny
- Well, we can't get it in the tank. - Funny
You know what you've done?
You haven't got unleaded wood, that's why it won't go in the slot.
Is it charcoal we need? Yeah. I'm sorry, mate.
Never mind. Thank you. I'll go and change it for some charcoal.
'While I did that, Hammond kindly solved the LFA's cup-holder problem.'
They haven't put sugar in it!
'After the pit stop, the producers told us
'to report to a racetrack called Willow Springs.'
Er, right. I'm going to try a sat nav test. Here we go. Use my mouse.
You actually get a mouse in one of these. Destination, click.
Apparently it's calling someone.
'Lexus Inform.' It is.
'This is Anita. Where would you like to go today?'
Er, Willow Springs Raceway.
'Just a moment and I can help you with that.'
No... 'Let me just get that plugged in for you.'
And then can you make that come onto my screen in the car?
'Absolutely, I'm going to download it to your navigation for you
'instead of you putting it in yourself.
'Is there anything else I can help with?'
Er, no, I'm so staggered. That's amazing, thank you very much.
'You're welcome.
'Definitely call us 24/7 as many times as you need
'and we will help you out, OK?'
'In fact, I called her back immediately.
'And she suggested we stop off at a nearby tourist attraction.'
What they've done here is, you will note,
is fitted grooves at intervals along the road. Right.
So, as you drive over them, your tyres make a noise.
They play a note.
Really? This road is musical.
Is it? It's musical.
Really? It plays a tune as you drive...
'As James has a music degree, we sent him out to test it.'
Here we go.
Is that a tune?
I think that was supposed to be the William Tell Overture.
Jeremy then had another idea.
Richard Hammond and I will now perform a duet.
If I reverse, will it play a message from the devil?
This often happens in rock and roll.
What a numpty.
To make the tune go backwards, you can still drive the car forwards.
Yeah... Never mind.
Yes.
It's telling me Paul McCartney's dead
because he wasn't wearing any shoes or socks.
'Having decided the musical road might be a bit annoying
'if you live near it, we continued onwards and eventually arrived
'at Willow Springs.
'We were keen to take on this amazing race complex
'in the high desert of California.
'But the producers had other ideas.'
Thank you.
"You will be familiar with a game called laser quest."
That's that one... It's like paintballing but with lasers.
You have a jacket that's got laser receptors on it
and it registers when you've been hit. Yes, I know that. What?
"You will now play aerial laser quest."
How does that...? Well, hang on.
"Your cars have been fitted with laser receptors.
"You will drive five laps of the track
"while two fighter planes, fitted with laser guns, shoot at you.
"The winner will be the one who is least shot."
Fighter planes with laser guns? What planes? Are they model planes?
Are they remote control?
'They weren't.
'In fact, they were Italian Marchettis.
'Fast, agile, armed and flown today by two hotshot dog fighters.'
Orbiting to the north...
'With our laser sensors activated, we set off at 30-second intervals.'
Tally ho, tally ho, chaps.
Stand clear, I'm going to go for the Aston on the straight.
They're after him already. Kill him! Kill him!
I missed.
Let's just try sheer speed for a bit.
Bit of braking might fox him there.
No!
Captain Slow.
You're going to need to do better than that, my friend.
Big speed coming up, 140!
That's nothing to those planes, they could just reel me.
OK. We're going to go for the Lexus.
Trying to shoot this car from a plane like that, I'm sorry,
it's like trying to swat a fly with a drinking straw.
Not going to happen.
No!
Bingo! Lex is dead.
I'm hit again!
They're just shooting at me because my car's Japanese!
It's racism. Sorry, Jeremy.
'There was only one thing for it.'
'Lexus Inform, this is Cheryl, where would you like to go today?'
I'm being attacked by fighter planes!
'I'm sorry, can you repeat that?' Yes, I'm being attacked.
There are fighter planes and I'm trying to get away from them.
Do you have any suggestions?
'She didn't. And as a result, the game became a turkey shoot.'
What?!
No!
Argh!
Lexus dead. Hamster is dead.
Bingo, Viper's dead.
There's Viper.
No, no, no, another hit for me!
My God, they got Ginger.
Smoke!
They're going in for the kill, I can see him zooming down.
'To be honest, we weren't enjoying the relentless slaughter.'
Under attack, under attack.
'But we were at least loving our cars.'
The guts of this car are what make it unbelievable on track.
Just hauls ass.
Jinking, jinking.
And brake!
That just feels tremendous.
The word immediate was invented for the throttle response on this car.
And the steering. And the gearbox. And every single thing about it.
Ha-ha! Look at that.
'But though our cars were good, the planes were better.'
My God, how did he get me there?
'So, 26 laps into the 5-lap event, we decided to get cunning.'
You see? Ha-ha, where am I now then, plane? You can't see me.
Invisi... He's got me. Bugger!
What I've done is, I've hidden near the hills, behind a bucket.
See, this is the ingenuity that marks me aside.
What?!
Cunning wasn't working, so we did what we do best - panic.
Hammond, you're going the wrong way. You're going the wrong way!
Who's going the wrong way?
I'm going the wrong way!
No!
What?!
A bonus.
No!
'Fading light eventually brought the massacre to an end.'
There's a lot of bullet holes on those cars down there.
I liked that day. That was a lot of fun.
I really did.
Can I just say, have you ever, in your entire lives,
seen aircraft flying lower or faster than that? No. To be honest, no.
I haven't. It's amazing. They were just six feet off the deck.
Can I just bring us towards the meat of the thing here?
Which is, I can now reveal, I was hit 23 times.
A-ha! 17 times.
Come on then. What? How many times where you hit?
I can't remember. Yes, you can. Come on.
How many? 48.
48?! So you lost...
It was racism. Really? Racism?
Either way, you lost. The pilots told me as well that, James,
you only won because every time they went into a strafing dive
to hit us, they had to anticipate where the car would be.
And every time your car was considerably further back
than they'd expected it to be.
True. They said they couldn't hit you because you were driving too slowly. Really? They did.
Well, as I've said many times before, gentlemen,
he who is last shall be first, and so it turns out.
So the Baby Jesus had a point?
Anyway, it is now time to put a star in our reasonably priced car.
My guest tonight is a member of a popular ensemble where all
the members find each other very irritating.
Imagine that Quite.
Ladies and gentlemen, from Fleetwood Mac, it is the man himself,
Mick Fleetwood.
Holy moly!
You're here! How are you? Mick Fleetwood has come to Top Gear.
We sit? Yes, have a seat, please.
Lord have mercy. I've gone nervous. My God.
Only Roger Daltrey sat on that side of the sofa.
It's obviously a rock thing. No, that's lovely too. You choose.
Or I can be just big.
It's nice to have someone who is the right height. There you go.
We'll get on to your amazing car history in a minute
but if I may, I want to talk about Rumours
cos this is one of my absolute all-time favourite albums.
How many have been sold over the years? Billions. No...
A lot. Getting on for 50 million copies or so, yeah.
50 million copies?! I think, for me,
the most amazing thing about Rumours is that it got made at all.
Because I think I'm right in saying, I mean,
people think of The Who and Keith Moon in particular
and Led Zeppelin and what have you, there was some excess there.
But when it came to excess, Fleetwood Mac were really,
as far as I can work out, in a class of their own.
Don't get me wrong, we were definitely in the top ten,
I would say, if not more.
But I think the romance of that
and the drama of that became out of control,
mainly because we were stupid enough,
and somewhat irresponsible, to be too open about our dirty laundry.
You were talking in public.
But it wasn't just the drugs either. It was, as far as I can work out,
the band was just made up of people who were fighting at that time. Yes.
We've got a photograph here of the band.
So there's you, in the middle, OK, the drummer.
And then we've got an American couple who really didn't get on,
they were falling out during the recording.
And a British couple. Yes. Who were going through the same problems.
Now, the songs that they were writing about each other
were genuinely about each other.
So, Stevie wrote Dreams, which was about her boyfriend Lindsey. Yeah.
And then he wrote You Can Go Your Own Way. Yes.
I know where you're going with this. I think it's phenomenal.
The worst one was, was it Christine wrote the song of John, her husband?
Er, yes. She did You Make Loving Fun and he must have thought,
"Lovely song," but she was writing about the lighting engineer she was having an affair with.
This is true.
Are you starting to feel even vaguely sorry for me?
It was unbelievably awkward in the studio
because Lindsey would save the vocals until all the recording
was done because he knew Dan well.
If he starts singing all the lines you're talking about
with Stevie standing there, she'd walk out.
But the worst thing is... Quite clever.
It is, for getting the album down,
but then if you have to take it on tour, poor old Stevie, all of them,
have to perform these songs about,
"I've got a small penis and I'm better off..." Yes.
Because I'm just thinking,
if we ever put a band together on Top Gear, I could write a song
called I Am A Crashing Bore and then get James May to perform it.
Awww.
Then James could write one, I'm An Irritating Little Brummie,
and for 40 years Hammond would have to go along,
"I really don't like doing this." Because that's what Rumours is.
No doubt.
That experience in the studio was so horrendous, emotionally,
and the music was great and we all aspired to... We didn't ever think
of walking out because we were so into what we were doing.
Became the glue that if we got through that,
we can get through 12 years of high, high-powered,
which is probably 12-15 years, we didn't stop doing anything.
Literally on the road, in the studio...
Cos you are still all together. We are, yeah. We must get onto cars.
We must get onto cars.
You live on the Pacific island of Maui. I do. Yeah. OK.
You are a rock god, an incredibly successful musician.
And you drive a...
My most cherished car is an Austin 7.
And we... This is... We're not...
This is a picture of you with it that we have here. Yeah.
How did you come by that?
Many, many, many years ago, I probably was like 19.
A friend of mine had a flat in Earls Court.
I get off the tube and there was this little car,
I kept walking by it, month after month after month,
and I fell in love with the car.
And one time I left a note on the car, said,
"If ever you fancy selling this,
"I would love to give this car a home."
And then about 18 months later we happened to be starting to do fairly well.
My mum, which was the phone number I had left,
got a phone call from the guy, who said,
"I'm moving and I want a home for my little car." And I bought it.
And you've still got it now? Yeah.
But I presume that all the way through these late '70s
and '80s, obviously, you were in a limo, so where was that?
Well, that was part of those years
when you're not quite sure what happened.
And I went with the band to the United States,
which was probably 15 or 16 years.
Eric Clapton was then my brother-in-law.
I said, would you look after - it was called Lettuce Leaf. The car was?
By my children, it was Lettuce Leaf, so it was always Lettuce Leaf.
He said, sure, we'll put it in the barn, and that was it.
And years later, I got a call from Eric's manager saying,
"Can we get rid of it?"
And I didn't realise it had been in his orchard for 15 years
and was full of birds' nests, had been out in the open.
It survived and they had it rebuilt,
and the next time I saw it was in Maui, where I live,
and us car people, stupid sloppy dates that we tend to be,
I sort of broke down when I met her at the dock.
She was just there,
in Maui, and I went, "How cool is that?" I love all that.
That's exactly what cars are. To me, how fast they go
is sort of not relevant, it's how you... Absolutely.
I got married to my first wife in that car, and that was my only car.
Now, presumably, you can't drive Lettuce Leaf all the time,
so what...? I have a 2004 twin turbo Porsche that I like a lot.
And I had it all tarted up. That's my main car.
Can you get it going in Maui?
It's only an island, so there's only three roads, really.
But there is one that goes right through sugarcane fields
and you can get up to about 130, 140 miles an hour in certain places,
which I confess that I do. You just have, actually.
You just did do that. And that's in the Porsche.
Have you actually ever done any racing?
Only in the old days, the wicked '80s and early '90s.
Anybody and everybody was doing it.
It was an excuse for another party or something,
and we were all... Half of us were stoned, most of the time.
So what was it like out there today?
Better than last week, when it was snowing.
Well, I wasn't stoned, so that's good.
Who would like to see Mick's lap?
Yeah!
Come on, mate. Lord. Let's have a look. God.
Right. Now, you're a drummer,
and I always associate drummers with being coordinated.
Don't stop, come on, come on.
Remember the damn song, you played it for 40 years.
.."Thinking about tomorrow"! First corner.
But you think drummers are going to be able to get their hands
and their feet... This was not me, right? Yep, it sure is. Into the mud.
That's pretty tidy. Come on, don't pussyfoot it.
You don't want to go too fast through there,
you'll just spin wide. That looks quite tidy as well.
Glad I had those brown underpants on, I can tell you that much.
What a beautiful looking day out there it is today.
It's going to go wrong any second, right? No, look at that! Bang on.
And up now towards the follow-through.
Full power. Full power, yes, yes, yes, yes. Power it. Power!
Come on!
Cut it, cut it. Yes. This is the tricky one. And that is nicely cut.
And into Gambon...
And no big dramas there, and across the line!
Now, that looked tidy. But was it fast?
Whereabouts do you think you've come? I dread to think. No idea?
I hope I'm not in the last 10. You're not.
Because, Mick Fleetwood, you did it in 1...
..45.4. And that...
..puts you...
..between a wizard and bassist in Blur.
Now, wait a minute. I always try to look for some good news there.
How old are you? If that's not... I'm 65. Yeah, 65.
So, you are, without any question or shadow of doubt,
the fastest pensioner we've ever had.
I've been looking forward to you coming down ever since
we knew this series was coming back,
and it's just for me been an enormous pleasure.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mick Fleetwood!
Tonight we're driving across America in three GT cars - the Lexus LFA,
the Aston Martin Vanquish, and the SRT Viper.
So far, we have established that none of them
is a match for a GP modified Mitsubishi
and that all three have been beaten by fighter planes.
So, nothing of any practical value whatsoever.
But maybe that will change in Los Angeles.
'For a genuine, real-world test, Hammond decided
'we should head for one of the city's famous storm drains.'
Tell you what,
I bet I can leave longer elevenses in this then you can in yours.
What, you mean black marks on the road from wheel spinning?
Yes, wheel spinning starts, leave elevenses.
I can do a longer elevenses than you. No, you can't.
I'll be the adjudicator. You can be the adjudicator
because I'm going to demonstrate something to you now.
Three, two, one and go.
I'd say that was a dead heat. Yeah.
'So, Hammond suggested we should see who could do the best doughnuts.'
Skid!
Doing a big skid now.
'Many Hollywood scenes have been filmed here over the years,
'but none has ever looked or sounded quite as bovine as this.
'And none has ever caused quite so much damage.'
Suggestions? I mean, running away, obviously. That's where I was going.
Running away, really. How far should we run away? Quite a long way.
And how soon? Now.
I can't get my seatbelt on.
Get in!
Running.
Running away.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
'Lexus, this is Sonia, where would you like to go today?'
Yes, hello, I've accidentally painted a gentleman's sausage
on a storm drain.
My. I need to run away.
'The lovely lady suggested Palm Springs, which was 110 miles away.
'So we settled down and thought a little bit about our cars.'
Let's have a quick recap.
This Aston has the most charismatic engine,
it's the most tasteful and it was the least shot.
Ask yourself, honestly, from watching this programme,
which of these cars you take if you were to drive across America,
across Europe, across Siberia.
It doesn't matter. It's this one.
I said at the beginning of this trip that I had a feeling
I might fall for the Viper, and I have. It's won me over completely.
It doesn't have the aluminium accents inside of the Aston,
or the computers of the Lexus,
but it's done everything we've asked of it on this journey,
and it's done everything with its own particular style, its own attitude.
And let's not forget, at a fraction of the price of the other two,
this is the plucky underdog here.
If somebody were to offer me a choice of any car that had
ever been made, ever, I would take a dark blue LFA.
That's how much I love this thing. I mean, yes, there are faults.
The petrol tank is too small, the seatbelt is idiotic, and, joking
aside, I would like a cup holder, but the rest of it is so exquisite.
I'm going to say it. It's the best car I've ever driven.
It really is.
'With all that sorted out,
'we opened the taps and headed into Palm Springs.'
Men bouncing a ball like a netball. Like small girls.
The man is going to catch the ball and then throw it.
And they score so many goals, nobody reacts when they get a goal.
Because it happens every 35 seconds.
You can't really tackle someone, can you?
Erm... Can they not take the ball...? Gentlemen, gentlemen.
Haven't we finished?
"We think you should run away more.
"Tomorrow morning, at precisely 8 o'clock,
"you will race to the border."
What border?
You're not going to like this.
"The last to arrive will cross into Mexico...
"..and spend a few days road testing the Mastretta sports car
"for a forthcoming item on the show."
The Mastretta is the one that started a bit of trouble for us.
When we spoke about it on the news on the show,
the Mexicans took an exception to some of the things we said.
They hate us in Mexico. Don't want to go to Mexico. No, they hate us.
'We told Hammond we'd get an early night.
'But we didn't.'
Right, James and I have had a bit of a discussion,
and we've decided that since it was Hammond that caused all
the problems, Hammond should lose this.
So what have you got in mind, James?
Well, what I've got in mind, Jeremy,
or rather in my pocket, is a couple of bananas.
Because I've seen this in a film,
I thought we could put a banana in the tailpipe.
A banana in the tailpipe. Let's do it.
What this does is prevent the car from exhausting
and the back pressure builds up in the engine, and then it stops.
'Annoyingly, the Viper's exhaust was so big
'we had to substitute the bananas with a selection of other fruits.
'And then Clarkson had another idea.'
If we pop his seat all the way back, yes?
It also has electric pedals, this thing, yes?
So if we make the pedals go all the way forwards,
the seat all the way back, and then take the fuse out... Yes!
'Having stolen the fuses for the seat and the pedals,
'we then disconnected two of the V10's HT leads.'
He's got a V8 motor, he's got... No pedal movement.
No pedal movement, seat's fully back. That'll do.
'At precisely 8:07 the following morning, the race began.'
Get back! Get back!
The Lexus. The Viper! The Lexus, the Lexus. It's there!
That's mine, that's mine.
Funny! I can't... What are you...?
No!
This seatbelt is going to be the death of me.
Nice Thank you! Nice.
Just for the record, and in case this goes terribly wrong,
I said I didn't like Mexican food, and what I meant was,
I don't like refried beans and cheese.
That's all. It's all Hammond's fault.
- Funny, funny, also funny. - Thank you
Right, we live in a cartoon, really
That's not right.
The problem is that Richard Hammond may be stupid
and a rampant racist, but he is quite practical.
He'll have that car put back together again in about five
minutes - it would take me a year.
It's an HT lead off.
One...two.
Right. I will kill them.
I'm going to kill them.
If the Mexicans don't, I shall.
'As Hammond began his hate-fuelled charge,
'Jeremy and I were bogged down in downtown Palm Springs.'
So, we've got a retirement community, the rozzers up ahead,
there's nothing I can do. 40 miles an hour.
I lost, I don't know, 10 minutes. Maybe more.
Jeremy's got to stop for fuel.
He'll never get that done in under five minutes.
I have to hope James gets lost or dawdles.
What's really unfair about this race is that
I wasn't particularly rude about Mexicans, I just made a small joke
about the Mexican ambassador in London.
And I've been to see him, I've apologised,
drunk quite a lot of his tequila, and all is well.
But the Mexicans don't know that.
'Once clear of Palm Springs, we faced a choice.
'Take the road to the east of the Salton Sea, which was longer
'but should be quiet, or go on the freeway and pray it wasn't too busy.
'I went for the freeway.'
Take me to victory, Aston Martin.
'Whilst, stupidly, Jeremy went for the longer route.'
106 miles to the border and my range is...
..104.
Ohhhh.
So now I've got a choice.
Do I drive slowly and increase the range, or drive fast and fill up?
That one.
I'm having him.
Jeremy can't be going this fast on that mountain road, surely.
'Sorry, James, it wasn't a mountain road, which meant that once
'more, thanks to editing trickery, I could get up to 55 miles an hour.'
I'm in an American road movie now.
'Feeling pleased with my choice of route, I called Mr Angry.'
Hammond. You utter, utter bastard. Where are you?
I'm on the east side, on the most amazing road I've ever found.
God. Have you seen James?
No, I'm on the other road, the other side of the water.
So he should be ahead of me
if he's gone this way, or... James is on your side of the lake.
So he must be on this road then. Right, I'm going to reel him in.
In fact, at this point, we all had the hammer down.
51 miles to go. 30 miles of range.
Come on, Aston. Where the hell is Hammond? Is he catching me?
Right, 60 miles. And no sign of James.
I'm just praying to see a speck of blue up ahead.
I've got to be in front of Jeremy, there's no way he can do it.
He's got to stop for fuel.
♪ Stand by your man... ♪
I don't know what that is, but that's all it's having.
'To find out what damage the fuel stop had done, I called May.'
Clarkson. May, where are you?
I have got to the bottom of the lake
and I'm just coming into the small town...
No, I think you're ahead of me. Has Hammond caught you up?
Hammond is behind me, but only by a few miles.
Argh! That means he's probably ahead of me.
'But the race wasn't done yet.
'Because at the bottom of the lake there were three routes to
'the finish line in the border town of Calexico.
'And none of us had any idea which would be the fastest.'
Jeremy will go on the 111. He has to,
because he's come from that side, he will get to that one first.
I get to the 86 first, but is it quicker? I just don't know. God.
What would Hammond do?
Right, this road takes me straight through Calexico to the border.
I think this is the quickest.
I think James has gone a different route,
this is where I'm going to take him.
Please, God, don't let me be last.
A big drive-through dentist there, hopefully Hammond will stop at that.
Four miles, come on, come on, come on, come on.
Coming into town now. This all looks decidedly Mexican now.
Which is to say brilliant, very nice.
God.
Traffic lights.
God, and the rozzers are behind me.
Fifth Street, yes. Does it go to Mexico?
Where is the border crossing?
Can't get lost right now. Mess it all up at the end.
Border, border, border.
You beauty!
May or Hammond, which one is going to be eaten?
'The answer came seconds later.'
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
I don't care if you won - is it just you here? Yep.
Ho-ho!
God, no. No.
Buenos dias!
Is that Mexico there? That's the border there.
Look, it's very simple. Goodbye. Bye, thank you so much.
You're in the United States of America, land of the free.
There's a big fence, the other side of it, everybody hates you.
Bye! Bye.
It's a bit like sending Paddington Bear into a mincing machine,
there is an element of... He looks quite tragic.
With that, back to the studio.
I think we can probably handle a conclusion on our own.
Because the Aston Martin and the Lexus were... Tremendous.
They really were, weren't they?
And the Viper was... Awful. Awful, absolutely.
So there we are.
Now, we will be bringing you a review of the Mexican Mastretta
sports car in a couple of weeks, unless of course in the meantime
somebody finds a suspiciously white tooth in their taco.
In which case, we will be showing you a touching tribute to
the late broadcaster Richard Hammond.
So, on that potential bombshell, it's now time to end.
Thank you so much for watching, good night.
Corrections by Wally73 