(TRAIN WHISTLE)
(ENGINE DRONING)
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
(CHEERING)
Thank you!
Hello! Hello!
-Thank you. -Hello!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Thanks, everybody, and welcome!
And in today's show...
Richard chooses his favourite waterfall.
I like that big one.
...James waters a stranger's barbecue...
...and I put some dust on a girl.
(APPLAUSE)
All that is to come, but we start with McLaren.
They have replaced the 650 with a new car
which is fast around the corners and faster in a straight line.
Plainly, then, the only one of us three qualified to drive such a thing
is Richard "Whoops, I've Done It Again" Hammond.
(LAUGHTER)
RICHARD: While the outgoing car may have been great to drive,
it was never what you'd call beautiful, or even very exciting to look at,
but its replacement, well that's a different matter.
It's called the 720S, and from any angle
and in every detail, it's simply sensational.
Right down to the engine bay that glows red when you unlock the doors.
(ENGINE ROARING)
Yup, on the head-turn-o-meter
this thing definitely matches the Ferrari 488
and the Lamborghini Huracán.
And then when we move onto the business of speed and power,
it actually beats them.
(ENGINE ROARING)
Nought to 60 takes just 2.8 seconds.
Top speed is 212 miles an hour.
Both those numbers walloping the efforts of the Italians.
Everything is bigger in this car.
Even the price, £208,000.
Oh, wait, that's not a good point, is it? No, that's a... Never mind. Whatever.
The horsepower is... Well, it's ridiculous is what it is.
This four-litre V8 with its twin-turbos produces 710 of them.
To put that into context, the actual mechanical engine in a McLaren P1
without all the hybrid battery boost
produces just 17 horsepower more.
The net result of that is...
(ENGINE REVVING)
...staggering!
Ooh, that is fast.
However, although they've gone nuts with the styling and the engine,
the 720 is still very much a McLaren.
By that, I mean it's been made
by the ultimate tech nerds from the Kingdom of Geeks.
Let me put it this way.
This is, like I say, the replacement
for the McLaren 650S.
If you ask a McLaren technician, so how much of this car is new then,
they will tell you 91%.
Not, "nearly all of it, mate,"
or "about 90%".
91%.
James May applied for a job at McLaren
but they turned him down for being too slapdash.
And this incredible geekery has paid dividends.
For example, one of the reasons the 720 looks so pretty
is because it's the only mid-engine super car
without massive gaping intakes behind the doors.
Instead, McLaren created subtle channels
along the bodywork to feed air into the engine bay.
More nerd stuff. The old car, the 650, had a carbon fibre tub that came up to here.
On the 720, all of this, all of that down the centre, everything, is carbon fibre.
That means these carbon windscreen pillars can be very thin,
which makes it easier to see out, and it's light.
Overall, they've lost about 18 kilograms up here.
That means the centre of gravity is lower, which is good.
Then there's the computer-controlled suspension,
which is even more advanced than the system on the P1.
It makes the ride on this 700-horsepower hardcore supercar
as comfortable as a nice sit down.
The question is, what does all that comfortableness mean for the handling?
Here we go. Track mode... active.
Haw! I like that. I do like that.
Right! Um, well, carry on!
(ENGINE ROARS)
(TYRES SCREECHING)
Oh, my God!
This is breath-taking!
The new chassis control system on this,
based on the work of proper pointy-heads in Cambridge,
it's all about maintaining the biggest possible contact patch
between the tyres and the tarmac.
God! It's the grip! It's staggering!
It feels like a four-wheel drive.
But if you do want things to get a little more lairy,
simply dive into the computers and activate
Variable Drift Control. It lets you select the angle of dangle through your drift
by varying the amount of traction control.
I think we'll go for all of it, lots of drift available.
(TYRES SCREECHING)
Yeah, maybe less than that, I think.
I think I'm gonna have 38%.
38.5. This is a McLaren. Accuracy.
And that seemed to do the trick.
Yes!
Yes! Working! That's it!
I know my setting on a McLaren's Variable Drift Control.
Unleash the beast!
And when you've finished your slide fest...
...you can switch back to comfort mode,
and settle down for a relaxing cruise.
That's the thing that stands out about this car,
it's everything in one. You want speed, you get speed.
You want comfort, you get comfort.
You wanna lose tyre rubber, help yourself.
You want boot space, there's plenty.
But the thing I keep coming back to is those looks.
Because at last, McLaren's technical perfection
has been clothed in a way that does justice
to the fizzing brilliance underneath.
God, I'm falling in love a bit here.
Actually, no, I'll go further, I'm in love. This is utterly brilliant.
(CHEERING)
No, you're wrong. Well, no, I drove that car,
not that one, but I drove a 720 a couple of weeks ago and I didn't love it.
Are you just being obtuse because I did?
No, no, honestly. I didn't like the brake pedal.
-Oh, was it the wrong shape? -The wrong colour?
-No. -Was it in the glove box? Was it the handbrake?
-No. -Was it round and in front of you?
No! Listen! The problem was - imagine a volume knob on a stereo
where the volume doesn't start till you get to six.
So you push and then it all happens.
You wouldn't have noticed it on the track,
but on the road it was almost impossible to drive smoothly.
It drove me mad. Nearly as mad as the seat controls.
What was wrong with those, then?
They were really complicated.
I should explain, by the way, that this is a man
who a couple of days ago summoned a woman from the other side of London
to help him send a tweet.
-Yeah, he did! -No.
-It was a complicated tweet. -No, it wasn't complicated.
-Did you try the seat control? -Can I say, actually, yes.
And I agree with you, there's no sense to it.
There's no sense to all this. You can't recline.
You can't make them do what you want.
Anyway, let's forget the seat controls and let's forget the brake pedal
and let's find out how fast the 720 goes round the Eboladrome.
-With someone who can adjust the seat. -Yes.
Right, let's do this.
JEREMY: And she's off. Short-shifting away from the line to manage the traction
and immediately onto the Isn't.
Total focus there.
A deliberately wide line round the first corner,
working the tyres hard on this cold, tricky track.
Flying down to Your Name Here.
-(ENGINE ROARS) -God, that thing sounds good.
-(TYRES SQUEAL) -Ooh, getting a bit of tyre squeal there.
And then hammer down up the hill and back onto the Isn't.
This is so quick.
A dab of brakes. Down the box to keep the fire lit.
Now up to the slow and technical Old Lady's House.
Avoiding any understeer there.
Interesting, she's got the car in track mode but the dash is in full screen.
Clearly that's what proper drivers prefer.
Even with the air brake up, clearly needs some managing under braking.
Just the last corner to go now.
Slices through there and across the line!
(CHEERING)
It looked good. It looks fast.
Right, let's see where it goes on the leader board.
Here we go, up it goes. Quicker than the GTR.
Ooh! Now, that's quite interesting, isn't it,
because what we've deduced from that is the car you loved
is no faster than the car it has replaced.
Yeah, yeah. That is a bit weird. The only thing I can think of
is the 650 was on Super Trofeo tyres which are super sticky, wasn't it?
And that 720 was on normal road tyres. It makes a difference.
-That is actually quite a good explanation. -Thank you.
Well it's either that or it's no better.
Anyway, shut up, because now it's time for us
to plant a sapling of chat on Conversation Street.
(LIVELY JAZZ)
And it is an unusual Conversation Street this week.
Because it's the end of the year we're doing our awards, OK,
or as we call them, the Nigels.
We start actually with, well, we're calling it
the Nissan Juke Award for the Worst Car of the Year.
Nominations are, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV.
Why is that on the list?
Well, many, many reasons, actually, chief among which
is the way it beeps as you're driving along for no reason.
You just go along and it goes "beep".
-Ah. -Nothing's happened, it's just beeping.
-Maybe it's just bored. -I'd be bored if I was a PHEV, but anyway.
Other nominations include the Mini Countryman
and the Renault Kadjar.
(MURMURING)
And the winner is...
It's the Nissan Juke!
There you go!
-A deserved award. -Oh, yeah, it is.
The judges were particularly impressed with its consistent awfulness.
It was awful when it was first launched seven years ago
and it continues to be awful to this day. Well done, the Nissan Juke.
Do you know what that car is? It's a wacky vicar.
It's more like the sort of vicar that will go,
"I've just been on My Face, and do you know who else was there? Jesus!"
-Yeah. -That's what it is.
Next it is the Hard Ass To Follow Nigel.
This is given to the car with the worst-looking rear end.
The nominations are the Honda Civic Type R.
-Oh, I like that. -No, you're wrong.
That is well wrong. It's just a car they wouldn't stop designing.
Look how many spoilers they put there.
"We'll have one here and one here and one there and there,
and we'll have the one exhaust, two exhausts, three..."
It's a bit like your jacket. They just didn't know when to stop adding bits,
unnecessary, pointless, stupid things to it.
I might be in with a shout.
The next nomination is the Toyota C-HR.
A car styled by nine people who'd fallen out at a wedding.
But the winner of the Hard Ass To Follow Nigel is...
Ooh! It's the Land Rover Discovery!
Look at that!
(APPLAUSE)
I think the problem is the designer Gerry McGovern...
Can we get a picture of him here?
And this is his dog.
-This is where he lives. -It all makes sense.
So it's only natural his car should look like that.
It's just all hunched up. Now we have a special award.
It goes to a car that you like but you know you shouldn't
cos it would be a bit embarrassing.
We're calling it the "You Would But You Know You Shouldn't" Award.
Sarah Palin.
Oh, yeah!
It is the new - next year's one, actually - Corvette ZR1.
RICHARD: That is...
That fits the bill perfectly.
That is exactly right, because you would buy one cos, "Wow!"
And then the next morning you'd wake up and think, "What have I done?"
We're moving on now to the Lack of Continuity Award.
Nobody's gonna beat me on that.
You were nominated for your mid-season haircut, that's true,
but you were beaten by Richard Hammond!
Hold on. Why was he beaten by me?
Well... (CLEARS THROAT)
I would invite you all now to pay careful attention to...
well, actually a clip from the McLaren film that you saw earlier.
This was an early edit, OK. See if you can spot something wrong here.
On the head-turn-o-meter this thing definitely matches
the Ferrari 488 and the Lamborghini Huracán.
And then when we move onto the subject of power and speed it actually beats them.
-A deserving winner. -You switched to a completely different car.
Yeah.
Which brings us on to the next award...
-Oh, no. -Yes, you'll like this.
It's for Accidentally Filling Up the Petrol Tank of a Supercar With Water Award.
Oh, God.
How in the name of all that's holy did you do that?
-Well, it's interesting... -Is it?
It was running low on fuel at the track,
and rather than take it off to a petrol station which is miles away,
I filled it from one of the jerry cans.
-Which was full of water? -Yes.
-And you didn't notice? -No.
-When did you notice? -When the tea started tasting funny, I suppose?
It's, it's...
It was when the engine sort of let go.
How many supercars have you destroyed this year, Hammond?
Two.
Two? How many have you driven?
Two.
Well, anyway, I'd like to present you with your Nigel for Appalling Continuity.
-There you are. -Thank you.
-Richard Hammond. -Thank you very much.
That concludes the awards and that concludes Conversation Street for this week.
Moving on. After every single film we ever show on The Grand Tour
we always get a load of messages from people on social media...
I say "people", I mean teenagers,
saying that they didn't like the film
cos it was too scripted, too faked and too set-up.
Yeah. I've got one of them here.
It's from Monaro Boy 4541
who says, "I hated that thing you did in Morocco
because it was too scripted. Why can't you do stuff like you did in Portugal?
Which I also hated because it was too set-up."
Yes, so we decided to make a completely unplanned film.
No scouts going ahead to find locations,
no pre-scripted exchanges between us,
no set-up explosions.
No. All we agreed on was that we should do whatever it was we were going to do...
in Croatia.
We chose to meet in the town of Zadar,
next to its famous sea organ.
(SEA ORGAN PLAYING)
Not realising that this wave-powered machine
makes a terribly annoying noise.
But I ploughed on regardless.
This is an Audi TT RS.
Four-wheel drive, five-cylinder, turbo-charged,
two-and-a-half-litre engine,
nought to 60, three and a half seconds.
Really you can think of it as a Nissan GTR
in a Bauhaus baby-gro suit...
No, that doesn't work, hang on.
Sorry, I normally think...
I normally think of this before I get here. Hang on. It's a...
It's a GTR...
with a well-groomed scrotum? No, that's...
(SEA ORGAN PLAYING)
Before I'd had chance to come up with the right words...
...Richard Hammond arrived in an Ariel Nomad.
This is an Ariel Nomad.
I know, I've already said that in voice-over.
Why didn't you bring a Porsche?
You could have brought that Porsche...
What is it? The new one?
No, the one that was the Cockster that is now the 97 one?
-Uh, the 718? -Yes, that. Why didn't you bring that?
Because I brought this.
Nobody's gonna say, "Shall I buy an Audi or some scaffolding?"
I grant you, it's... No, because they're both...
-What? -Cars?
Are they the same price? No. Do they have the same performance? No.
Are they for the same thing? No.
As we argued about our mismatched cars, James arrived...
...in an even more mismatched Lada Riva.
Well, that's not gonna work, is it? I mean...
This is...a Lada Riva.
We know. We've already said.
-I'm talking to the viewers. -Yeah, but they already know, don't they?
-I said it in voice-over. -You haven't said voice-over yet.
Yeah, he's done voice-over. He said mine in voice-over as well.
This is whatever Jeremy said it was. And I paid just £800,
which leaves me £1,200 for the all-important modifications.
-And that is plenty. -Hey?
What modifications?
The modifications to turn them into fire engines.
We're gonna turn them into fire engines.
Who said anything about turning...
Turn your car into a fire engine using the money you haven't spent
out of the budget on the car. I've spent £800.
Well, I just borrowed that from Audi.
I made a phone call. "Can I borrow a Nomad?"
If you don't turn it into a fire engine, you won't win the competition.
-I'm not in the competition. -You are in the competition!
James, we have tried time and again to think of a way
to turn something into an amusing fire engine. It can't be done.
The fire engine already exists. It's brilliant.
It's already more compact than you'd expect,
faster than you'd expect, you can fit the firemen in it, and the water.
-And they work very well. -Exactly. That's the challenge.
You're only saying you're not gonna turn that into a fire engine
-because it's an air hostess car. -It is not.
Have you checked the boot to make sure the luggage
hasn't moved during the journey?
JEREMY: Then our unscripted film got even more unscripted.
MAN: Can I have a selfie?
-Um, well... -OK.
That's really up to you if it's a selfie! I mean...
If I do it, I'll get us all in. I'm better at this.
-I can get everybody in. -Could it maybe wait?
-There you go. -Brill.
Come on, let's do whatever we're doing. Doors to manual.
-Cross check. -OK.
No air hostess jokes.
-Is that seat back upright? -Where are we going?
Well, let's just go. This is the point at which we set off.
We always do that. Chat, chat...
There'll be a line of voice-over. I'll put some voice-over in that says...
Hang on. It'll say,
"Since we weren't able to decide what we were doing,
-we all went in different directions." -OK.
Since we weren't able to decide what we were doing,
we all went in different directions.
If he'd thought about it in advance,
Richard would have found a quarry in which he could test his action-lifestyle Nomad.
But he hadn't. So...
(HORNS BLARING)
Yeah, we've...
I don't feel I'm exploring the outer reaches of this car's potential
in this traffic.
JEREMY: Because I had satnav, I fared better.
And found the perfect road
to open the taps in this brilliant little TT.
(REVVING)
Oh!
The engine in this car is an absolute masterpiece.
You've got as near as makes no difference
400 horsepower.
And then there's that sort of deep bass drum of torque all the time.
And listen to the noise it makes. It sounds like...
(ENGINE ROARING)
It sounds like...
um...what does it sound... It sounds like...
It's like... It sounds like a bear that's trodden on a plug?
No, a bear would go "ow", wouldn't it?
Soon I'd got it worked out.
Oh! Listen to that.
It sounds like a happy hippopotamus.
(GRUNTS)
Now you would imagine that putting
this much power and this much torque in an Audi...
RICHARD: Hey, Jeremy, do you have to put your phone in flight mode
when you drive one of those?
Bob the Builder appears to be here in his scaffolding. Anyway, as I was...
Would you mind checking round your feet to make sure there's nothing on the floor?
As I was saying, you would imagine...
Have you folded your tray table away ready for when you stop?
You would imagine that putting this much power and this much torque in a TT
would make it wayward and out of control, but no...
Have you pointed out the lavatories?
There's nothing for it, I'm gonna have to lose him, get out of radio range.
Right, Hammond, goodbye, I'm losing you now.
He probably thinks this is just a dune buggy with a number plate
that's no good on the road.
I shall now prove that he's wrong.
Charge!
Well, it looks like we've got ourselves an unscripted race here.
Ha-ha-ha. Oh. Oh.
Hang on a minute, wait.
Oh...
What?
Where's the road gone?
(WIND WHISTLING)
If we'd sent scouts out last week to check it out like we usually do,
we'd have known about this and we wouldn't have done it.
-But we didn't. -No.
-So we didn't. -No.
But the fact is, I really want to show you how fast this is.
I-I'd like to see it in my mirror,
but there's just one other thing before we do that.
-What? -I'd really like a jumper.
So, the situation is, we're gonna have a race
after we've bought him a jumper.
-Yeah. Ideally... -And while we're doing that,
I should imagine in the edit they'll cut back to James in his stupid Lada.
Yeah.
JAMES: While those two were bumbling about, I'd found a workshop...
Good.
...and some health and safety-obsessed locals...
...so I could convert my Lada into a fire engine. Oh, yes!
JEREMY: Meanwhile, back in the 21st century,
Hammond had bought his jumper
and we were looking for somewhere to have our drag race.
It's a dual carriageway.
No, it's got buses on it.
We can't race where there's buses.
And there was another problem as well.
It was obviously a slow news week in Croatia,
so we were being followed everywhere by the paparazzi, and TV crews.
JEREMY: We can't do it here. Everybody is filming us.
RICHARD: This is impossible. How are you supposed to have a bloody race?
Hammond, just pull over here. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
Three, two, one, go.
(ENGINES ROARING)
Stop, stop. Abort, abort. He's paparazzi.
We can't do it here. It will be in the Daily Mail.
Luckily though, Hammond then had a sudden burst of intelligence.
RICHARD: Look, there's an airport sign.
Oh, yes. Well spotted, Mr Hammond.
Well, that's where we always have drag races, isn't it?
Business as usual.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
However...
RICHARD: There's a man with a... This is like a news crew here.
-You're joking? -Hello.
-We're just having a drive. -Don't tell them we're doing a drag race.
You just said that on the radio!
-Hello. -Hello. Are you having a nice time?
Very nice, thank you. Look. So you can't be cross with me.
-You love Croatia? -Absolutely, yes.
So, we're...we're just having a drive around.
Thanks.
Yeah.
Right, runway's there. Jeremy's gone in to ask permission.
Drag race, humiliation, end of, move on.
RICHARD: Ah, nobody in?
JEREMY: No. He says it's a commercial airport,
they're not gonna suspend flight operations for us to do a drag race.
-I mean he has got a point. -Yeah, I suppose so, but...
Well...
He also said if we had rung a couple of weeks ago,
he might have been able to sort something out.
-There's a reason why we do that. -Exactly!
Here's how I'd sum up unscripted television.
You could sit and film a waste disposal unit all day long and every day long
and transmit the pictures, hoping that one day a cat will fall into it,
or you could actually push a cat into it and get it over with.
Whilst James continued with his stupid fire engine conversion,
Richard and I drove about until eventually...
...we found an abandoned runway.
-Right, ready! -Do the tension thing before the race.
Oh, OK.
Rev the engine.
(REVVING)
RICHARD: Yeah, he's got 400 brake horsepower but his car is heavy.
This only has 290 brake horsepower
but it only weighs 670 kilos.
So in actual fact this has 400 brake horsepower per ton.
That doesn't.
Hang on, hang on, hang on. Hang on, Hammond?
How are we going to start it?
Normally we have a production member with a chequered flag. We haven't got that.
We'll start it on the radio. That's what we'll do, we'll start it on the radio.
I'll do it, OK? No, wait a minute, hang on.
No, I can't do it, I've got launch control, I need both hands.
I can't do it, I have to put the radio away
before I set off. I've got nowhere to put it.
Shall we...why don't we just get a local person?
Yeah, that's not difficult, for somebody just to wave a flag. Yes.
Right, we'll cut back to James
and then when we get back we'll have a local person.
JAMES: With Hammond and Clarkson's camera crew
looking for a local person to start their pointless race,
I was finally in business.
(WARNING BEEPS)
So, here we are. Just a few hours and exactly £1,200 later, my fire engine.
My colleagues have been very quick to point out
that the fire engine as a concept is very well established,
but this is something different. You don't call the fire brigade.
I patrol in your area and you summon me if you need a fire putting out.
Like an ice-cream van. And to that end I have a siren.
(TINKLY MUSIC) ♪ Pop Goes The Weasel
There is a large range of fire-fighting accoutrements on board.
There are various hoses. We've got CO2 for electrical fires, fire blankets, sand.
There's a water cannon here. See, if I just turn on that pump,
steer with my knees, and put on the windscreen wipers,
and extinguish the fire. There you go.
And a lot of it comes through the window and it... Jeez.
Yeah, it's quite... I may have made it
a bit more complicated than it needs to be.
All I needed now was a fire to put out.
And since this was an unscripted film, it had to be a real one.
I'm going to put my light on, and my siren, just in case anybody needs me.
♪ Pop Goes The Weasel
JEREMY: As Mr Softee continued to drive round
looking for an unscripted fire,
our camera crew had found a typical Croatian to start our race.
(COUNTS DOWN IN CROATIAN)
It didn't work, we didn't go anywhere.
Um, oh, yeah.
I-I dunno where I was. My mind was elsewhere.
I've had another idea. Why don't we use her as the finish line
and then get, I don't know, a sound recordist to do the start?
RICHARD: Yeah. That works.
OK, problem sorted. We have our starter.
We've lost the distraction, in quite a big way, actually.
(ENGINE IDLING)
(REVVING)
Three, two, one, go!
(CLANKING)
(REVVING)
I just cooked my clutch.
Ah.
(ENGINE ROARING)
That is one hell of a finishing line.
Back at the start line, the news was bleak.
I think I've broken that drive shaft end.
As spare parts had to be sourced,
I decided to take the finishing line for a spin, in my functioning Audi.
-Woo-hoo! -Hammond?
I need to go to feed my pet.
She's got to go and feed her cat.
Right. You go off with the old man, I'll fix the car.
(SIREN WHOOPING)
JAMES: (BROADCASTING) Fire service is now available in your area.
JEREMY: Back in town, Fireman May
still hadn't found anything to put out.
A kiosk, not on fire.
Ice-cream shop, not on fire. People with shopping, not on fire.
(SIREN)
Are you having a fire? Your last chance to summon
the local fire brigade if your mobile phone is ablaze.
JEREMY: James eventually realised that in an unscripted world
he wasn't going to find a fire. So he deployed his acting.
Wait! Smoke! It looks as if somebody's bin's caught fire.
Not to worry, I can deal with that.
(WHIRRING)
RICHARD: Several hours later, with my car fixed,
we were finally ready for our showdown.
-Let's do it, then. -OK, let's do this.
Let's sort this out.
(REVVING)
Three, two, one!
(TYRES SQUEALING)
Come on, baby, come on!
Oh-ho-ho!
No! Where's he come from? Oh, no!
(EXCLAIMS IN CROATIAN)
What's that?
Since when did a finishing line have an opinion on a result?
I'm better than him.
I don't know why you're applauding, I really don't,
because there you are, Monaro Boy,
that is what unscripted television looks like.
You've got 17 minutes of film there.
All we did was buy a jumper - which was actually a sweatshirt -
-It was. -and have a ten-second drag race. That's all we did.
Hang on a minute. I built a fire engine.
Yeah, but it wasn't a very good fire engine.
-Yes, it was. -I'm sorry, James,
but your water cannon would only be any use
at putting out a fire if the fire were on your windscreen wipers.
Anything further away than that would be hopeless.
-I put out that bin fire. -Yeah, the bin fire that you started.
I did not start it.
-Yes, you did. -I might have done a bit.
You did a lot. Anyway, listen, we'll pick that up later on.
Now, though, it's time for Celebrity Face Off.
(CHEERING)
And once again we're asking an important question.
Who is the fastest classical singer in the world
who has an interesting connection to the British motor industry?
Many, many people we could have gone to for this one,
but in the end we selected two.
And they are, and would you please welcome them now,
Michael Ball and Alfie Boe!
(CHEERING)
Gentry men.
Thank you very much.
How are you? Have a seat. You can go in either way.
Both British this week.
Welcome gentlemen, welcome, welcome.
Now, I've just described you as classical singers
but actually that's not strictly true, is it? You're not...
-Well, it is for me. He's... -I'm not.
But classical music, how was it described in that movie In The Loop?
It was all vowels? Which it is, "aa-ee-aa-uu-uu". Nobody likes classical music.
-Do that again? -(WAILS TUNELESSLY)
Do you wanna come on tour?
Whatever your music is, however, it is unbelievably popular.
Last Christmas you were number one, with your joint album,
and that kept The Stones and Little Mix, whoever the hell they are,
off the number one, and then this year,
your album's keeping, who is it, the Stereophonics?
Yeah, we went to number one again.
And it's still... it's doing all right.
Cos I was looking... I was thinking, so what sort of music is it?
And I was looking on YouTube, at clips of you two singing.
The audience is quite...old.
Those are Michael's fans.
Are they Michael's fans? They're the ones that... Do they smell of urine?
-No! -No?
OK, we were just waiting, they were...
One of your audience said that
they'd bought our album, so there is someone here who has our album.
-Who is it? -Where is she?
Well, "she", there's a surprise.
-Come on, where are you? -She's now denying it.
Yeah, she's denying it. She's surrounded by a load of bikers, that's why!
We've got to get onto these connections with the motor industry
cos that's what people are interested in here,
which is a genuinely fascinating thing that we've managed to find with you two.
-We'll start with you if we may. -Sure.
Michael, your dad was world sales chief for British Leyland.
That's where he ended. He started off as an Austin apprentice back in the '50s
and eventually ended up as world sales chief at BL
under Michael Edwardes and the whole Red Robbo scenario,
and when they actually went bust. So...
So you grew up in a British Leyland household?
-Totally, yeah. -So how did you ever get to school?
We did have some dogs. We even had some...
Well, did they make anything that wasn't a dog?
No.
My favourite one had to be the Allegro Equipe.
The ugliest car, with the "Go Faster" stripe.
Yellow and brown "Go Faster' stripe".
And matching nylon interior.
Didn't your dad progress up to things like E-Types and what have you?
Yeah, yeah. I remember him crashing the E-Type.
Taking me to school, funnily enough. Third day he had it
and someone into the back of him,
he went into the back of, well, underneath a lorry.
There's a lot of nose to go under a lorry, let's be honest, with an E.
The fascinating thing is he launched the Mini.
He was the guy, he was given a 500-quid budget.
He was taken in by Issigonis and all of them, they said,
"This is the car, we want to make some headlines. Do a thing with it."
And he came up with this concept of "It's Magic"
and put on one of the first-ever car launches.
didn't he do the thing about how many things can you get in a Mini?
That's right. That's absolutely right.
Which became a huge thing, for those of us old enough to remember,
they were always seeing what they could get in a Mini.
800 Boy Scouts.
I'm gonna move it on, if I may, to, not your dad, but you...
actually worked on the shop floor at TVR?
I did. I started off... I was there for about two or three years.
There are some questions I've got about TVR, because I...
As I understand it, people who worked on the shop floor
would often, before the cars were painted,
or underneath the carpets on the boot floor, leave rude messages.
-Yeah. -Is that true?
Absolutely! There's a guy driving around in a TVR Griffith
with, on the bonnet, with a big penis shape on it.
-Underneath. -Before it was painted?
Yeah. And there's a car door somewhere with "Alfie is a twat".
I think I've got that one!
They basically got some things right about TVR, so...
You always think, they couldn't possibly have done this?
If you've got a TVR and you lift up the carpet in the boot...
There'll be a message somewhere, yeah.
Wasn't it a way of passing messages onto one another down...
Well, there wasn't really a production line, but...
Yeah, that was the, you know, the flatting shop would pass
a message down to the paint shop, and, yeah, usually rude and annoying, but, yeah.
Didn't they used to spray the backs of your heads?
Yeah, they'd come up to you and just straight across the back of your neck.
With the paint? Which was cyanide? Yeah, it was.
Cyanide-based paint, yeah! Yes!
I came out in a bit of a rash, but I'm all right now!
Why did they use cyanide paint?
Just cos it was the metallic feel that they'd get from it. That real...
-Like a metal flake thing? -Yeah.
So that must have hurt? Well, being sprayed in cyanide?
It did a little bit. It stung for a while.
The worst thing was being shoved through the powder coating room. That was...
(LAUGHTER)
That really...that really got under your skin.
That itched like crazy, that did. That was rough.
It's a wonder TVR went out of business, isn't it?
It makes you wonder, "How did that happen?"
Cos they had the engine, presumably your dad's engines, weren't they?
Cos they were using the V8s from...Rover V8s?
Yeah. They built this engine bay and they mounted this engine on a plinth
and then stuck the exhaust into this metal box,
bricked around the metal box, fired it up on the first test of one of the engines,
and they didn't turn the extractor fan on.
Oh, God!
So this metal box was turning into this huge bomb, basically.
It backfired, lit up everything, bricks flying everywhere.
All the paintwork, cars were smashed to pieces with bricks,
and the metalworking, the foreman came up and said, "What the (BLEEP) wrong?"
He said, "Just get on with it. Come on, clean up, we're all right." And that was it.
Was anyone ever killed there?
Not as I... Oh, there was a guy, yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
Yeah, he...
I think...
-We're laughing. -Yeah, I know, it was crazy.
Yeah. He did, he went in the spray booth without his mask on
and just started spraying and keeled over and that was it.
So he disposed of himself with cyanide?
Yeah. It was crazy. Well, the paint job was good.
He said, "Ooh, I've done it."
So how did you get from there to singing?
Well, I was working in the factory and working on a Griffith
and I was polishing it away
and this guy was overhearing me singing along to the radio,
and he said, you know,
"You've got a good voice, you should try out for this company in London."
And I took the day off work, went down to London and...
sang for this company and got taken on.
Came back to TVR, handed in my notice, and my foreman went crazy.
He said, "What do you wanna go and do that for? Singing?"
He said, "Why do you wanna leave this job? You're on 60 quid a week."
Well, there we are, then.
Didn't you try to get Michael to give you a leg up in the music business?
When I was at college, I stayed in the same area of London
that he was living at the time, I was renting a room,
and I posted a note through his door to see if he'd give us a bit of advice and...
never heard a (BLEEP) thing.
(LAUGHTER)
-See, you look nice. -Oh, I know.
You have that nice-looking face, but actually there beats a cold heart.
Oh, I'm a cold bastard.
Absolutely. I mean, no, I still haven't given him any.
Could you remember it? You don't remember the postcard?
-No! -But your house burnt down?
-Yeah, it did. -Did you do that?
Probably! When I didn't hear anything from him, you know. It's the only way forward.
So, anyway, you're here, in the depths of the English countryside,
and how did it go on the track?
I'm dreading this. I'm so nervous.
Are you? I loved every second.
I was told there is quite a bit of needle between who is the fastest today?
BOTH: Yeah.
And there's a big dinner riding on this.
-A really major dinner. -Who shall we go with first?
Let's have a look at...
-Michael's lap. -OK.
JEREMY: Here we are. And it's a smooth start. Up into second.
-Pedal to the metal. -Well, pedal to the carpet.
Now, I like to brake half way through this one.
And you do as well.
I think it makes sense cos then you've got more speed going onto the tricky bit,
which is coming up now,
cos we've run out of money and there it is, the gravel.
Really, keeping it quite tidy through there,
and tidy through there as well.
Who the hell puts gravel on a race track?
I told you, we haven't got the money.
Right, now, this is the... I can't remember what it's called.
Gravelsel, that's what it is,
Named after the Carousel of the Nürburgring. Onto difficult bit two.
Is that any good?
-That's pretty good -It's quite slow.
Cos sometimes if you keep it tidy
and it looks slow, it's actually fast.
That's a hard corner. Cos it always is more slippery than you think.
Right, now, smoothly onto the main stra...
Well, not smoothly, virtually stopping.
(LAUGHS) I'm loving this!
Good. Now this is supposed to be flat but it's quite greasy today,
so you probably wouldn't be. You definitely aren't.
Right, final corner coming up now...
Ooh, more understeer, not as bad as last week. But there we are, across the line!
(CHEERING)
-I mean... -Well, who knows?
-I didn't crash. -You definitely didn't crash.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Or gets around. What's that?
These are the times. But we're not gonna reveal them until we've had a look at
Alfino, as we liked to call you all week, when you were coming off.
Right, let's have a look at Alfie's lap.
-Oh, fog's come down. MICHAEL: He gets special effects.
Right, and he's disappeared.
All right, Bally, I'm coming after you.
God, that really is a pea souper. Could you see all right?
-No, it was... -Ooh, there's an excuse, Alfie.
-You should say, "Yes, easily". -It was easy. I was fine.
That's nice and smooth through there. Now, are you exuberant on the gravel?
Let's have a look, as we come up here.
Ooh, that's wide!
This gravel turn is as wide as Michael's vibrato.
(LAUGHTER)
JEREMY: That traction control is really letting you have some angle there
as we come now to Difficult Bit Two.
Cutting that corner nicely, sliding wide on that one.
Very different styles you two have got here.
God, that really is fishtailing down there. Onto the tarmac once again.
We'll ignore that.
MICHAEL: That's illegal!
You almost stopped as well. Now, here we go.
(BLEEP) Yay!
JEREMY: I never would have had you as a swearist. Right, now...
That seems fast but wide.
Ooh, he's off, he's off!
No, he's back on. And stopping. Why? No, not...
Virtually stopping.
And then across the line.
(APPLAUSE)
I actually don't like this bit,
having to reveal the times to two people when it really matters.
-Really matters. -It does.
Anyway, I've got the times here.
Are you nervous? I'm really nervous.
I've shat myself.
It smells like one of your audiences.
(LAUGHTER)
-I've gone again! -Right.
-Michael Ball. -Yes.
You did it in one minute... 23.3.
My heart is pounding.
Alfie Boe. One minute...
twenty...
...four point four.
AUDIENCE: Ooh!
(APPLAUSE)
Too exuberant.
I think, too exu...
-You probably had more fun. -Yeah.
But you were faster. By actually 1.1 seconds.
1.1 seconds?
-Yeah. Do you want me to say it again? -Would you mind?
It's not the winning, it's the taking part!
(LAUGHTER)
So there we are, ladies and gentlemen,
Alfie Boe and the fastest classical singer
with a connection to the British motor industry,
-Michael Ball! -Thank you!
(APPLAUSE)
Now, this week we are in Croatia,
making a totally unplanned and unscripted film
in which we attempt to turn cars into fire engines.
No, James, we are not.
Well, I am. Yes, but to be quite clear,
Jeremy and I are doing something completely different.
JEREMY: Having proved that my Audi
was faster in a straight line than Richard's Honda-powered Nomad,
I was now determined to show him it was also faster at rallying.
I'm confident for several reasons.
It's got four-wheel drive, it's got a differential that moves the power
to whichever wheel is best able to handle it at any given moment,
and it has a fabulous gearbox.
But most of all I'm confident because this is the first Audi I've ever driven
that has a front on it.
What I mean by that is it has a front end that goes where you point it.
You flick the wheel and it goes in the direction you selected.
There's no understeer. You then have to sort out the back end, obviously,
but that's OK, that's what all top drivers, such as myself, want.
Does that mad old ape really believe his air hostess chariot
will stand a chance off-road against this custom-built off-road racer?
Has he got £3,000 worth of Fox off-road long-travel coil-over suspension?
No, he hasn't.
Can he glance out the side and see exactly how his wheels are positioned?
No, he can't. Does he have a hydraulic handbrake?
No. Does it weigh just 670 kilograms?
No, he weighs more than that.
JEREMY: All we needed to sort this out was a loose-surface gravel track of some kind.
Obviously nothing planned, we just drive round until we find somewhere.
Can't do it there, too many trees. That's just a little bit of gravel.
Can't go there, that's an orchard.
Somebody will be cross. There must be somewhere!
Meanwhile, after his success with the staged bin fire,
James was now getting carried away.
Ah, looks like a job for me.
-My pleasure. -Ah...
JEREMY: Back out in the countryside,
Richard and I had stopped by some nice lakes.
But, because this was an unscripted film, we didn't have much to say about them.
I like the waterfalls.
Yeah, the waterfalls are nice.
What's your favourite of the waterfalls?
-I like that one. -I like that big one.
-Yep. -Oh.
Hold that a minute.
Right, I've done a quick chart of how we're performing so far.
We aren't...?
RICHARD: I'm not performing. -Right, Economy.
Three points for me, most economical obviously,
followed by Hammond, two, you, one.
Top Speed. It's the other way round. You're the fastest, three points,
two for you and one for me, the slowest. Now, Value.
You get a point for every pound you save under the £2,000 budget,
but you lose a point for every pound you go over it, OK?
So I am winning that. My car car was £800.
I score 1,200. You...
Minus 65,000...
-James? -I think there's something wrong with him.
645.
I can't write on a vertical surface.
Let's have a writing competition. You lose!
Hang on, your car, you lose...
Minus 48,000.
-I can't be minus anything. -Hang on, hang on,
have you included his optional windscreen?
-Don't encourage him! -Was that optional?
-It's an optional windscreen. -How much is it?
1,500 quid.
Minus 1,500. That's interesting.
Minus minus is a plus, which is a minus.
James, this is very riveting, but it's irrelevant.
It's not irrelevant.
It's like saying, "Jeremy, you lost to Manchester United yesterday."
I wasn't there, and I wasn't taking part.
-You are taking part in this. -I'm not.
Yes, you are. Just because you can't be bothered and you've done it wrong.
You're losing. Catch up here. You've got Fires Extinguished,
Water Capacity. You can still claw it back for the total.
But at the moment, mate, you're losing.
Fires Extinguished. So far I've done two...
Having thrown James's chart in the lake,
Hammond and I resumed our search for a rally stage.
And soon, we found one.
This would be perfect for our timed shoot-out.
Hammond elected to go first.
Right, this bush is the start/finish line, OK?
-OK. Yes. -Good.
No, hang on. I don't trust you to time me.
I'm not. Sylvia is.
Oh, great, the human finish line.
Yes!
SYLVIA: Tri...
(SPEAKS CROATIAN) Go!
This is it.
A little touch of the brakes.
Don't wanna drift too wide.
Two-wheel drive means I've gotta take advantage of every bit of grip I can find.
A lot of rocks! A lot of rocks!
Come on. Get your concentration on, Richard!
Now, floor it! Everything we got!
-Sylvia, what was the time? -Two minutes, five point seven.
Well, that's... that's probably brilliant.
Two minutes, five point seven. Right,
-My turn. -OK.
Watch and learn.
(COUNTS DOWN IN CROATIAN)
Go!
Right, I have the whole car set up in its dynamic mode.
So, the throttle response, the gearbox, the suspension,
they're all now sharper than an architect's pencil.
Jesus! God's truth.
I am not the world's best loose-surfaces expert.
I'm not even in the top 20 million.
But, in a car like this, you feel like you have all the control you need.
Absolutely unbelievable. And flick it in.
That front end on this is just phenomenal.
(ENGINE ROARING)
Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo!
Yes! Go, go! Go, Jeremy!
Oh, yeah, totally unbiased.
-The finish line looks happy. -Sylvia, what was the time?
SYLVIA: Perfect time. Two minutes, three point seven.
Oh, come on!
That's just because...
She can't mess with time.
Time is just an entity on its own. You can't mess around with it.
-Jeremy! -(PHONE RINGS)
-Hammond, Hammond? -No.
Hammond.
May. What, now? Where?
OK. No, yes.
Yes, yes, yes, I've got satnav. I'll find it. All right, bye.
He says he's organised a demonstration
and he wants us two to come and watch it.
-Watch it? -Yeah.
I'd personally prefer to do another race of some sort.
-No, there's no point. -In a swimming pool, perhaps?
-The finish line is biased. -On a beach? Why don't we...
No. Let's go. I'd rather go and see James
than be humiliated by another biased...
-Why don't we have a race in a sauna? -No.
As James was a fair few miles away, we had time to sum up
what we'd learned about our cars.
I know the Audi TT has an image problem.
I know people think it's an air hostess's car.
But the RS genuinely is different.
The RS is like...
Oh, not again. Um...
It's like...
It's difficult to think of anyone who really needs a supercharged Ariel Nomad.
Even an emergency off-road vet would have nowhere
to put their tools to do anything when they got there, so it's useless.
It's also draughty, expensive, noisy...
...and brilliant!
I adore it!
It's the best toy in the world, and what finer praise could you have for any car?
Eventually we met up with our colleague, who was eager to explain what he had in mind.
I'm making a simulated bush fire,
the start of a bush fire to demonstrate
how quickly my roving fire engine could just put it out
before it develops into something like a massive conflagration.
This bush fire, OK, is going to start right next to a road.
Which happens to be next to where you've parked your fire engine?
I'm not... I'm gonna drive in and put it out.
But you know where it is! You've just started it.
I know! It's a demonstration, you morons!
It's two and a half feet from a road!
Bush fires happen miles out in the middle of...
All right, go and build one out there. It doesn't make any difference.
Why don't we go and start a fire for him?
That's more realistic. You travel to the fire,
wherever we've started it, and put it out.
Off you go.
RICHARD: Having travelled a realistic distance from the road,
we soon had a bush fire on the go.
JEREMY: Ooh, hello. Hello! Hello!
Yes!
That is speeding things up, isn't it?
Isn't it? There you go.
What it's doing is catching on. The wind moves it along and it gets bigger.
It's quite good. Another bit there, look.
Then we told James to come and do his stuff.
(TINKLY MUSIC)
(JAMES HUMS ALONG)
Relax, I am coming to put out the fire.
RICHARD: However, because of his leisurely pace,
the fire had grown a bit by the time he got there.
Jeez.
Pressure.
It's too big!
I've run out of water!
This isn't gonna work.
I think what we've established here
is that he's only capable of putting out fires that he's started himself.
Yeah, that are nearby and contained.
I haven't got anything left!
JEREMY: Luckily, at this point, the real fire brigade arrive.
(METALLIC CRUMPLING)
Thank you.
(CHEERING)
It's a six-tonne lump of water...
Hold on. Hold on, hold on.
Let's have a look at the final scores on my water-damaged scoreboard.
No, James. No, there's no point.
You get minus a million cos that was the cost
of the real fire brigade that had to come,
and I get plus a million for winning everything.
No, hang on, the only reason your doors-to-manual Audi
beat the magnificent Nomad is that you fed the finishing line's cat.
And because it was faster. And better in every way.
It is a superb car, that TT, but you can't have one.
Because of the air hostess thing?
No, because I've driven three examples
and every single one has had squeaky brakes.
You can hear it in the film, and it drives you mad.
Yeah, that's unforgivable.
And on that terrible disappointment, and that total waste of time,
it's time to end. Thank you very much for watching.
Have a very happy New Year.
Unless you're watching this in April, in which case, whatever. Goodbye.