Top Gear - The Challenges 1
Robin Reliant
Space Shuttle: Combining cutting edge amateur rocketry, British Grit,
and truly intergalactic levels of messing about, Richard and James try
to put a Reliant Robin into space.
Building Amphibious Cars:Can
the lads create a vehicle equally at home on land and water? Will they
even make it across the reservoir without drowning or catching
hypothermia?
Building a Limo: The boys are up against it, making
their own stretch limos from everyday cars. But the challenge has only
just begun. There are some high-profile celebs who need a lift to the
Brit Awards...
Building a Convertible: Attempting to turn a
Renault Espace into a fashionable 'drop top', the team prove that trying
to make your own convertible is a bit like trying to cut your own
hair... you can do it, but you probably shouldn't...
Parkour vs
Peugeot 207:They may wear silly trousers but these parkour (the barmy
sport of leaping across rooftops across the city) lads are serious
competition for Captain Slow's Peugeot 207 in a race through Liverpool.
Veyron
Race from Alba:It's Top Gear's most dramatic race yet. Jeremy's in the
Bugatti Veyron - the fastest, most lavish supercar ever - while Richard
and James are in a flying washing machine - with Captain Slow at the
controls!
Crap 70s Supercars:They were once state-of-the-art
Italian supercars - the Maserati Merak, the Ferrari Dino 308GT4 and the
Lamborghini Uracco. Now, all the lads need to do is try to drive them
from Bristol to a "gentleman's" club in Slough.
Top Gear - The Challenges 2
Amphibious
Cars: The Sequel - The magnificent return of the homemade amphibious
cars, as the lads drive their vehicles to Dover and across the Channel.
Well, that was the plan…
Bugatti Veyron vs Eurofighter - Place
your bets. A mile and back: vertically and horizontally; Hammond in one
of the world’s fastest cars, the RAF in a fighter plane with a maximum
speed of 900 mph.
Race Across London - James in a massive
Mercedes, Hammond on a bicycle, the Stig on public transport (!) and
Jeremy in a racing speedboat. Of course the car will make it across the
capital first. Won’t it?
Motorhome Racing - The rules are ‘quite’
strict: it’s a no-contact race; drivers must sleep overnight in their
camper vans before the race and be able to drive home afterwards. So,
how come there’s a kitchen unit on the track?
The Greatest
Driving Road - Scouring the Alps for the perfect road – beautiful
scenery, pure pedal-to-the metal driving and a rush of adrenaline – in
light-weight supercars – have the boys died and gone to heaven?
Fiat
500 vs BMX - The Fiat 500 has been reborn as a city runabout for
fashionable and sexy young people. James May is none of these things,
but surely he can beat a pair of scruffy herberts on titchy bikes around
Budapest?
The 24 Hour Race - The Britcar 24-hour race at
Silverstone is a gruelling test of driver stamina, skill and car
reliability – so guess who’s entering a BMW 3-series powered by
bio-diesel that they grew themselves?
Top Gear - The Challenges 3
CHEAP
ALFAS - The boys try to prove that old Alfa Romeos are proper
petrolheads' cars by buying sub-£1,000 Italian rustbuckets and
completing a series of challenges. Well, when we say ‘completing’…
BRITISH
LEYLAND - Challenge General consensus is that British Leyland never
made good cars. We disagree. So to prove that 40 years of BL is worth
celebrating, the boys shell out for a BL classic and attempt the dreaded
water test.
RACE ACROSS JAPAN - Jeremy and a Nissan take on
James, Richard and the world’s greatest public transport in an epic race
across Japan. Yes, it’s GT-R versus bullet train and it’s a close call.
TOP
GEAR VS THE GERMANS - The boys take on the presenters of the German Top
Gear telly, makes you think Fawlty Towers could have tried harder with
the war jokes to be honest.
THE LORRYING CHALLENGE - Jeremy and
the boys wonder how hard it is to be a truck driver – and ponder for
long enough to buy three lorries and take on the mother of all lorry
challenges.
RICHARD’S F1 CHALLENGE - It’s the Renault that
Fernando Alonso won the world titlein, but Richard’s not quite on the
pace. Put it this way: the tyres needed warming up again after he’d done
his laps…
FOX HUNTING - The boys invent a new rural sport,
pitting a pack of hunting dogs against a Daihatsu Terios. Jeremy gets
stuck in a river and Richard proves surprisingly good on a horse.
BUS
RACING - Boris Johnson wants to know which bus is the best for London.
To find out, we get a bunch of touring car drivers to race them round a
gravel circuit. Very scientific...
Top Gear - The Challenges 4
Train Race
What would Top Gear have been like in 1949? To find out, Jeremy took a
newly built steam train, James an old Jaguar and Richard a legendary –
if painful – motorcycle for a race from London to Scotland.
Electric car
The question – could Top Gear build an electric car for less than the
cost of a G Wiz? The answer was yes, but it looked like a robot’s tool
shed.
Ice Racing Proper petrolheads reckon you
can’t have fun in a car unless it’s rear-wheel drive. Take three
rear-wheel drive coupes on a trip across France, for some unexpected ice
racing.
Police cars Top Gear set about finding
British bobbies the perfect disposable cop car, thereby allowing them to
make us proud on the world stage of Police! Action! Kill! programming.
Classic rally
Jeremy, Richard and James had never bought classic cars at auction
before. How hard it could be? Cue distinctly mixed purchases on a
Majorcan odyssey.
Commie Cars Did the
Communists ever build a good car? To find out, Jeremy and James got
together a load of funny looking vehicles and tested them at that great
symbol of Cold War Britain, Greenham Common airbase.
Ken Block
To find out more about rally driver - and internet video clip sensation
– Ken Block, James was sent to America for an eye widening passenger
ride with the man himself. Good job he packed spare underpants.
Portofino
The Riviera was the cool place to be seen in the 1960s. But the
congested glamour hotspot now is best negotiated by boat according to
James. Richard disagreed, so he got himself a 1960s Ferrari Daytona to
have a sun kissed race.
Fiesta test Top Gear
received a letter from a man called Mr Needham asking why the programme
didn’t ‘test cars properly any more’. Stung by this criticism, Jeremy
set out to perform the most thorough road test possible.
Audi vs skiers
The Audi RS6 is a fast estate car, but is it faster than two irritating
lithe Frenchmen who spend their days pretending to read poetry books so
they look more attractive to chalet girls? Richard went to France to
find out.
McLaren F1 vs Bugatti Veyron Is
Bugatti’s mighty 1000 horsepower Veyron faster than McLaren’s legendary
F1 hypercar? Richard went to Abu Dhabi, persuaded the local police to
close a long straight road, and set about finding the answer.