This...
is a car program.
There will be no cushions.
There will be no rag rolling.
No one will sing
and at the end of the series, no one will have a recording contract.
This, is our new base.
And this is our purpose built test track.
There are no traffic jams here, well, apart from this one, and no bus lanes either.
This... is Top Gear
And in the show tonight
I put two supercars head to head,
Jason Dawe on what to do when car dealers attack,
Richard Hammond will try to beat a speed camera,
And a star, in a reasonably priced car.
Hello.
Now, two family hatchbacks,
the Ford Focus and the Volkswagen Golf.
Both have five doors...
both have 1.6 liter engines and both cost around 12,000 pounds.
That's how much family hatchbacks cost.
Or do they?
You see on Top Gear, we found one that you can buy, in Britain, no tricks, brand new...
for less than 9,000 pounds.
This is it.
It's the Citroen Berlingo Multispace and I admit...
it's a curious looking thing.
That's because it started out in life, as a van.
All they've done is add some windows here, sliding doors and snazzy seats where the cement used to go...
and hey presto.
Garnish it with some metallic paint, some allow wheels,
and you can even have a diesel version for 8,995 pounds.
Thing is though, are you getting what you paid for?
Is it like cheap wine?
Will you wake up, with a headache?
Well, to find out, i took it down the M20, to the Booze Borough.
For a trip to those... supermarkets of Calais.
First impressions are that i'm driving...
a van.
It's quite echoey in here and not terribly refined, erm...
most central locking systems, for instance, these days they go...
♪bzzz♪ or ♪kheew♪...
but listen to this.
It's very uncouth.
In essence then, the Berlingo is...
very loud.
Very, Van Halen.
But, there is a softer...
Van Morisson option.
For the same money, you can have a 1.6 liter petrol engine which develops
the same power, as a Mk1 Golf GTI.
With that under the bonnet, this would feel much more like a normal car.
But,
how many normal cars have you ever come across that have got green dashboards with
green dials.
And,
how many normal cars are their with five glass panels in the roof
and these roof bars which, swivel sideways
so you can carry a bicycle.
Whatever a bicycle is.
No doubt about it, the Berlingo is turning out to be astonishing value for money
It is possible to buy... a number of other cars for Berlingo money
But none of them will be this size.
None of them will be this well equipped.
And none of them will have something,
that we're really looking for on this new series of Top Gear.
It's an X factor.
See, this, this is a perfectly acceptable car but this
I dunno, it's more than a car somehow.
You want to bring it in at night, let it sit by the fire.
Give it a saucer of warm milk and a little wheel to run around in.
It's got the most important thing that a car can have...
character.
And now the coal is back in Newcastle.
The Berlingo is back...
where it came from.
And I still can't find anything, really wrong with it.
The turning circle's not much cop and there's a fair bit of road noise.
It's not terribly sporty either.
But it is very comfortable.
Hand on heart...
it rides like a Jaguar.
I could go on all day giving you swings and roundabouts but the fact of the matter is, basically...
I like it.
Right, here we are at one of those...
Calais hypermarket, cash-and-carry, booze warehouse jobs
and boy!
Have I got the car for the job.
Let me show you what I mean.
We've got storage space up here,
up here,
and here above the driver.
In the back, there are two
extra glove boxes.
And then,
If we slide that open we've got a cubby hole here under the floor,
and another one there.
Then we simply fold the seats down,
like... so.
And we have, a cavernous boot.
And, I haven't finished yet.
Because, if we open the tailgate
there's another overhead locker here,
for a further ten kilograms of booze.
So,
let's shop.
I want, um, that one.
That case there.
It's terribly exciting all this cheap booze,
but you have to be careful.
Because if customs suspect you're bringing stuff back
that's not for your own personal consumption,
they'll confiscate it and your car.
And they're currently confiscating thirty cars a day.
So I caught up with the shop's owner, and his girlfriend, to talk about this.
Because the... I was... reading in the paper,
that if I we're to put five hundred bottles of gin in the car which i'm legally allowed to do
Absolutely.
Customs are so, "well you'd never get through all that."
Well, how, how,
how can they say that when there's Maggie Thatcher told us to stock our larders up.
I mean...
With five hundred bottles of gin
Yeah, but...
if you, if you drink a bottle of gin a day, that, that's only a year and a half supply.
That's not a lot.
Fizzy... Liebfraumilch.
I don't think i'll be able to convince customs that's for my personal consumption.
No.
Other people were going berserk,
perhaps because they didn't like their cars very much.
Perhaps they wanted to have them squashed.
Trouble is, I really am.. very...
very fond of this car and I don't want customs
to crush it, so
there we are.
Saved a few quid.
Well, pence.
Now, I should explain at this point that other vans are available.
There's the Fiat Doblo which is a trifle cheaper than this,
but I think i'm right in saying
it's the slowest accelerating car that money can buy in Britain today.
uh, 0-60 is 21 seconds.
Then there's the Ford Tourneo Connect,
that's over 10,000 pounds, you don't even wanna think about that, so awful,
erm... And the there's the Renault... Kangoo, that's okay, but basically it's not as good as this.
You have to have, a Berlingo.
Question is,
diesel or petrol?
Well to help us decide that, i've been joined now by Top Gear's new car trader,
pocket sized chap, Jason Dawe, what do you reckon?
Petrol.
Really?
Yeah, don't bother with the diesel,
makes it feel too much like a van.
Well it did feel like that, going down the motorway there was that
♪rrrrgh♪ noise and you just think, look i've saved enough money here.
Yeah, but you can save more at the minute.
Really?
Yup, they are doing a facelift on this car,
which means they're going to change the bumpers and the bonnet and a couple of bits, but it'll basically look the same.
What it does mean is that Citroen have got some of the old models,
they need to get short of them.
These ones, basically?
Yeah, yeah, this car.
This car?
Yup.
So what are they doing?
They're doing a deal where you can get all of that off, so that means instead of 8,995 pounds,
you can get a 1.4 for 7,700 pounds.
7,700 pounds for ones of these?
7,700 pounds yeah.
That's the bargain of the century.
Cheap as chips.
Good tip.
Right, if I could just sum it up, it's like Gerard Depardieu. Slightly swollen middle, broken nose, but there are...
hidden talents.
And it's not just me who likes it. Everyone in the Top Gear office likes it.
All the crew here like it. Everyone,well, apart from him.
He doesn't like it very much, but everyone else does.
erm... And the people who like it most of all are the family of Albanians that are inadvertently brought back into Britain
in each of the wheel arches. They've written to me from their new house in Leatherhead, the Hollys, to say
that it will always hold a special place in their heart.
Great car.
You know how, when you're making up a list, as you do, of the world's greatest racecars,
you've just got to include the Ford GT40.
And here's a reminder... why.
So they built one of the most successful racecars ever.
Great.
But that gave them a problem. Because try as they might, they struggled for years to build anything remotely as glamorous ever again.
Until they came up with a really good idea.
The best car to replace the Ford GT40, was...
The Ford GT40.
I mean, this is the new car, and come on, you're not fooling anyone.
It's okay, four inches higher and eighteen inches longer than the original GT40,
but it is a GT40. Basically they put the plans for the old car on a photocopier at 110% and said...
enlarge.
But is a lot cleverer than the old one. It's loaded with technology. Take a look at this.
So you wanna see the engine? Right, there it goes.
That's actually going to take a moment or two.
In the meantime. You've pulled into a petrol forecourt, obviously everybody's gonna be looking at you, but if they're not, this should tip it.
Have a go. Here we go, let's get to the fuel.
Look at that!
That's just to put your petrol in.
That's unbelievable. We can possibly squeeze in and have a look at the engine now.
It's a 5.4 liter V8, supercharged. that's about 500 brake horsepower. That should be enough.
Bear in mind this is a very, very light car indeed.
But take a look inside.
You've gotta have a look.
This is just... it's just breathtaking.
Look at the switches. Each one looks hand carved from a lump of aluminium.
And the gate around the base of the gear lever,
look at that.
None of that nasty rubber full of bits of biscuits and old chocolate.
Course, this isn't real,
it's a pretend one.
I dunno what it'll be like when they make it.
And, oh yes, they are gonna make it.
Ford have announced this week they will be putting this into production.
But it's gonna be expensive.
It's gonna be on sale in America from 2004 at about $150,000 apiece.
And you're gonna be very, very lucky, even if you've got the money to get a hold of one.
They're gonna be incredibly exclusive.
Basically, you're gonna have to know somebody at Ford.
Other items in the news this week, the Government has announced it's going to spend 145 million pounds on the road network over the next five year
29 million pounds a year and that's enough to pay for three and a half miles of motorway a year.
Wow, so you think of the freedom you can enjoy with that.
I know, looking forward to it.
Three miles a year.
I can't wait.
Three new mil... three new miles of motorway.
I'm excited.
Car news? erm...
Fiat, first of all, they are in deep trouble. They're currently losing 2 million pounds a day.
Well, they're got a new model which they think is going to stem the flow.
There it is.
Look at that, they're saved.
They've saved. No, they'll be fine with that.
It's an estate version of the Stilo and, erm...
it is actually very important this works because, if Fiat goes to the wall, they will take with them,
Lancia, Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Ferrari and of course they won't go to the wall cause they're gonna get bought by General Motors.
So, if you don't buy one of these, General Motors gets Ferrari. It's that simple.
So buy one.
News now of the new Micra.
erm.. A rather gorgeous looking little thing as well.
That's, erm... that's actually not it though, that's the only thing, lovely though it is.
mmm...
Ah...
They will do that eventually. This...
is gonna be the new Micra, which is, well it's alright.
That's not bad. I've always quite liked the Mirca myself.
The important thing about it though is, loaded with technology even in a small car.
It's even gonna have a new... you've probably seen this; keyless entry.
So you walk upto the car and, and then you can...
No, i've got some experience about... there
There is a slight problem with it because you keep a little smart card in your wallet, okay, you get out of the car, push a little button, doors lo
You walk away and you think, is that locked?
So you walk back to check, of course it recognises the smart card and sees you coming, it's open
uhh... uhh...
You could be there for days.
You couldn't, you just.. the only way you know if it wasn't locked is if someone nicks it.
Yeah, that's the only way you can find out for definite.
Now this, erm, we all know the Smart...
the one that's been around for a few years, the one you could park nose onto the pavement...
but now they've got delusions of granduer...
and they've launched, well I think we've got some footage of it here.
Two versions, there's a coupe, and there is a...
cabriolet.
Now the cabriolet is interesting. You've got an elecric folding roof...
rear engine, with a turbocharger on it.
You've got rear wheel drive, big fat alloys, anti-lock brakes, traction control. Basically just like a 911 Turbo.
Okay? Except a 911 Turbo is 90,000 pounds.
This, the car you're looking at here
11,750.
That was the least convincing ooh noise I've ever head in my life, but i mean 11,750.
That, that is incredible actually.
If this is the future, now, here...
I'm not scared of that anymore, you can bring it on. Take as much of the future as you like.
That's stunning, 11,000 pounds.
erm... Take a moment now to talk about Forumla 1.
What are we going to do about Formula 1?
yeah...
Scrap it?
Kill...
No the problem i've got...
I've been working that out...
The problem here, is very simple...
...is that...
Ferrari have completely dominated the...
Now we've got a photograph of what Michael Schumacher is gonna do next year to try and keep it, uh, there we go.
That's...
That's what he's gonna do next year to try and level it out a bit.
But really, the problem as I see it is
that, the cu...
the teams have taken over.
The technology has taken over.
Now that they've got traction control and gearboxes that change for you and...
I heard the other day that the teams, the pit crews, can actually tune the engine from the pit wall.
Well that's... they're spanners...
And they actually said, yes,"Oh no we'll turn down the revs down a bit."
No, one of them developed a fault.
A BMW one, developed a fault and they rerouted the oil, without actually bringing it in.
They did it remotely.
And you just think, where's the driver?
The driver is the big hero.
He's the guy I wanna watch.
You know it was like, the Second World War, you had fighter pilots they were the big heroes.
After that, they were racing drivers.
I want to see heroes.
I don't wanna see geeks in, black clothes going,"ooh well if I just fiddle with this laptop we'll make it go faster."
In fact I'd execute them.
Do you know... do you really...
I would, i'd shoot them in the back of the neck with a 9mm.
I want to see drivers take...
I want Formula 1...
unplugged.
Rip out all the technology and give us proper racing again.
Do you know Jeremy, that...
That was strangely touching.
Your desire for hero...
But you know... I'm just fed up with this...
I don't blame Ferrari.
I can't blame them, you know. They built a better car and they won.
Just get rid of all the technology. Just *krrgh*
I think computer animate the entire sport and get rid of them all in real life.
Right, erm, here's some stirring news for us,
in that it's a very stirring car, the new Bentley Continental GT.
That is a very, very big car indeed.
I think it's gorgeous, you're a bit, eeehhh... about it
It's fine. It's, it's got a slight Vanessa Feltz-y rear.
Yeah, there is something of her.
but the important thing about the car is the engine.
Right? Powering that is a W12.
Massive engine.
It's the same engine they put in the Volkswagen Phaeton which I've already driven at 200 miles an hour.
Exactly. They decided at Bentley, not enough.
Girl stuff. Strap a couple of tubros to it, see how it'll do then.
Which is great but it's given them in interesting problem.
It's now chucking out so much torque,
that they can't tell us how much torque it's putting out.
Everytime they strap it to the machines that they measure it on, it breaks them.
These are things the size of a building, these machines.
They strap it down, tie it all in.
You could tie it to this base here and it would just spin
the whole studio around.
The whole hangar would just be doing that.
We'd, we'd actually go around and yeah, that's exactly what would happen.
So, unfortunately, they can't tell you how powerful it is.
Just, lots and lots of torque.
Now, bit of a challenge.
Old people get quite bad press.
We're forever reading about them driving the wrong way down the motorway.
I know we've got some footage
from a CCTV.
Here we are, little old dear going down to the seaside.
Brake, brake.
Oh noo..
And she's... doesn't do it.
And of course she turned out to be a hundred and seventy thirteen.
Oh no!
Oh no.
erm... The thing is though,
we don't think that old people are as bad as everyone makes out.
So, here's what we're going to do.
We know grandmothers can make a doughnut, but can they do one?
And a doughnut is, uh...
Here's the footage, okay?
Here's me going round and round in a TVR. That is a doughnut.
Now, if you're a grandmother...
and you have to prove you have grandchildren...
and you think that with a bit of tuition, you can do that...
drop us a line.
The address is.... I'm a grandmother and I want to do a doughnut...
Top Gear, BBC Television, Woodlane London W12 7TS.
Or you can look on our website which is on an internet.
Somewhere.
Right, that is enough...
old people, and enough money saving Citroen vans.
Lets have a look at this. Excuse me.
This is Italy's newest supercar from Italy's newest supercar maker.
It's called a Pagani Zonda.
And it is, exquisite.
It's exquisite on the inside too.
Look at this. Just a...
Wool, a lap of aluminium and...
chamois leather and carbon fibre...
and look at these air vents, they're like periscopes
erm... Anyone wanna see the engine?
Right, well lets hop out and we have to... Could you just grab the other side?
erm... You have to undo the leather buckle...
very 21st century, push the little button, okay?
And there it is. Look at that.
That's a Mercedes Benz 7.3 liter...
V12.
You wanna hear it?
Problem is, Health & Safety, okay?
They've told us we mustn't start cars in the studio.
Alright? But, uh, I don't think they'll hear.
Are we ready?
Foot in the clutch, Jeremy, that will help.
I think we got away with that. I don't think they heard us.
erm... Now, do you want to know, what it feels like to drive?
Watch this.
The similarities between the Zonda and an F-15 fighter are obvious.
Both have glassy bubble roofs at the front and a lot of engine behind.
And both have styled exhaust outlets.
There is one difference though.
In the F-15 you don't get much sensation of speed.
Where as in the Zonda...
you do.
The key to this car is it's engine.
It was built specially for Pagani by Mercedes...
and it is a masterpiece.
For me, a huge chunk of a car's appeal is the noise it makes
and, the noise this one makes is just astonishing.
But even better than the baritone backdrop is that under the...
super light all carbon fibre body...
you have a 550 brake horsepower wallop.
Not since the Germans and the Italians teamed up in the Second World War...
have we seen power like this.
The top speed in fifth, is nearly 200 miles an hour.
But i'm moving out of fifth gear now...
and into top gear.
And now my top speed is 220 miles an hour.
Whoa, a bit of twitch under braking.
Whoops.
This car, is an immense achievement.
Plainly, it's very well made.
It's astonishing to behold.
I mean, really astonishing.
Can't believe that, Pagani's come from nowhere
and come up with this.
It's a proper, proper supercar.
In fact, as I see it, it only has...
one problem.
It must face up to the new Lamborghini Murcielago.
The latest in a long line of raging bulls from Italy's maddest supercar maker.
It's the ultimate automotive pin-up.
Or is it?
Eveer since Audi bought Lamborghini, i've been worried that...
the Germans would try to, bring a bit of order to the chaos.
That they'd try to sanitize the madness.
This is the first Lamborghini where you don't need to have the body of...
Jean Claude Van Damme to drive it.
Look, you can change gear with... one finger.
And the steering doesn't feel like it's set in concrete.
And the clutch...
The clutch, it's like... stepping on a marshmallow.
However, some elements of Lambo-ness do remain.
It still has the ultimate, pub car-park accessory; gullwing doors.
And check this out.
When the engine gets hot, air intakes slide out of the buttresses.
Then...
there's the meat; the engine.
It may only be a 6.2 liter V12, the Zonda's a 7.3 remember, but amazingly...
this, is more powerful.
It serves up 571 brake horsepower.
So,
this has more grunt...
but this has less weight.
So which is the fastest?
Well, lets find out.
Four wheel drive means that I have to...
get the car rolling gently before flooring it.
or I'll cook the clutch and...
Into fourth.
Look at that Zonda go.
I'm being annihilated.
150.
Into fifth.
And that's 160.
And I have been destroyed.
Destroyed!
So does this mean then that Audi has turned the raging bull...
into a timid little veal?
No.
Not even slightly.
What they've done is turn it from a supercar into what feels like a...
small, nimble, razor-sharp sports car.
The old Lamborghini Diablo was like a...
chest of drawers with a jet engine, but this...
This you feel like the organic part of a machine.
This is by far and away the best Lamborghini ever.
Not just the prettiest and easiest, but the nicest to drive.
It's so good, it's better than any current Ferrari.
But astonishingly...
it's not as good, as the Zonda.
This...
is the new king of supercars.
So that's it, Jeremy?
You're saying that the Zonda, better than the Lamborghini. Job done. End of story.
Yes, if you're six years old and you're looking to put a supercar on your bedroom wall...
this is the one. You're going to put this up. Not the Lambo.
Yeah, small point. Six year olds buy posters.
What if you're actually buying the real car?
There is a bit of a price issue here.
A small one, I admit.
Yeah.
Yes, the Lamborghini is around 160,000 pounds and this is...
310,000 pounds.
Right.
But, in it's defense, you do get a free pair
of shoes made by the Pope's cobbler with this.
And...
No, no you do. More than that, you get twelve months, free membership...
of the RAC.
12 months?
12 months free.
I'm not joking. You get twelve months free...
but I want to be the one that makes that call.
I want to break down, M6, February, Friday night...
Hello?
Yes, it's my Zonda. It's gone.
I think it's the engine management. You better bring a laptop.
Right, well there's one final test for this, the Zonda, and the Lambo.
Now lets face it. Nowadays, 0-60 times, absolutely meaningless.
Top speed figures, totally meaningless.
What really matters is how fast a car can lap a test track.
And fortunately, we've got our own test track for that very purpose.
So, this is it.
Just under two miles of fast straights...
and tricky corners designed by the test drivers at Lotus.
This one, Chicago Bend is a steady state corner...
that really loads up the outside tyres.
Then there's Hammerhead.
A tricky left and right that provokes understeer.
This one, Follow Through, is supposed to be flat out...
but death awaits the first man to try it.
There are corners with tricky bump and cambers designed to test brake balance.
And in this one here, a badly set up front wheel drive car
will struggle to put it's power down at all.
Right. That's the track. Now we needed someone who could tame it.
So, we got ourselves a professional racing driver...
who could post consistently fast lap times.
We, um,
we couldn't do that. Now we call this thing...
The Stig.
Okay, we don't know it's name.
We really don't know it's name.
No one knows it's name and we don't want to know cause it's a racing driver...
and racing drivers have tiny little brains
and therefore worthless opinions and they're very dull.
Doctors actually call it Mansell Syndrome.
erm... It's job is simple to go out there and drive fast.
So, first of all, we put it in the Lamborghini.
Immense power as we've already discovered.
You've got four wheel drive, you have to trickle it off the line then nail it.
Right, coming over that little light lift now...
and he's coming through Wilson Bend.
Let's see he doesn't step out of line.
He's into third.
Ohh, look at that, look at that. Massive, massive oversteer right.
And through the Hammerhead.
No understeer at all, incredible.
Big oversteer. He's trying not to hit those tyres on the left.
And he's through.
So how's it handle Carpenter's Corner?
This is where you really wanna nail it.
Ohh look at that.
Every power car that goes around our track is gonna set a lap time...
and we're gonna put those lap times up here on out Power Lap Time Board.
And the Lamborghini was...
1:29, which is extremely good so I'm gonna put that up here.
Okay fine now we know the Lamborghini...
Jeremy, I can't get Lamborghini Murcielago on it.
A simple Lambo will perhaps suffice.
L-l-la-m-b-o, there we are.
Okay it's on.
Now we know that the Pagani is faster than the Lamborghini in a straight line.
We've already seen that. But the Lambo
I've driven it. It's faster round the corners.
So,
Let's put the Stig...
in the Zonda...
see what happens.
He's coming into the first corner here, how's it looking through there?
Ooh, he's looking a bit, a bit wobbly but that's...
Is he on... still on th track?
Yes, he is. Now he's got to get it right the way back across...
the other side to get it...
This is the hard one, this is...
Yes look at that. He's really having to fight that car.
Even I found it difficult through there.
Now he's coming up really, really hard and fast.
He's hard on the brakes here.
150 miles an hour all the way down into second gear.
He's actually gonna have to use first in this car.
How much is the understeer through the Hammerhead corner?
God he's actually managed to get some oversteer there.
Good Stig.
Well done, Stig.
It really is quite a driver this one.
Right, Follow Through. Let's listen.
No, he didn't dab on the brakes there.
He's got through the Follow through without following through.
Fighting, God and fighting all the way up through there.
Little bit on the brake though, can see.
On the power.
Ooh, that really is wet out there for this one.
Now there's a dry bit here, oh sorry, that's still wet.
A bit damp. Brake hard.
And he's into Baccarat Bend.
Braking again now for Carpenter's Corner.
Bit of a tailslide, but he's still kept the power on and he's got it.
Should apologise for the easy listening soundtrack going on there.
It's the Stig. It likes to listen to the sounds of the lounge as it goes round.
We've no idea why. Perhaps it calms it down.
Anyway.
Grim, but no need to apologise for that time.
1:23.
That's what? Six seconds off the Lambo's time. That's...
And the incredible thing is it must've made it up in the straights.
All that time. Cause i know. I drove both cars.
The Lambo's faster through the corners.
That's where it has the power. 1:23.
I honestly can't see that being beaten...
throughout the entire series.
I think we've peaked.
Neither can I. But...
If you think you've got a car which is faster than that.
Perhaps you've tuned it.
Implausible I know. But, there you go.
If you think you have , why don't you get in touch.
You can either use text messaging.
Which you have to have a cellular telephone for.
Or write to us using a quill.
Or go on an internet.
Right.
There is a story going round
that says if a car goes fast enough
past a speed camera,
when the second flash goes off and it needs that to verify the speed...
the car won't be there. It's going so fast...
it will have left the shot entirely.
So in the name of scientific endeavour...
and under controlled circumstances...
we had a go, so that you don't have to.
WE've got together everything we need to do this.
A piece of track. Straight, obviously.
We've got a speed camera.
OH, and a really fast car.
And the Stig, to drive it.
Honda Civic Type R.
Lots of people have got these.
It'll hit 60 miles and hour in 7.2 seconds and
and go on to a stop speed of 146 miles an hour.
But will that be enough to be the camera?
So how fast was that?
Well, i've got the pictures back. It was 129 miles an hour.
And, uh, here's the results of the first flash.
And there's a Honda Civic doing 129 miles an hour.
Yup.
and... then the second photograph.
Plainly in shot.
ah...
it's...
Still there.
Still, there, so 129 isn't fast enough.
That won't do. But we didn't give up.
We had another go, and we'll do that later on.
Good.
When most comedians-cum-actors make it to the big time, they buy themselves...
a big type car.
Rowan Atkinson for instance bought himself a McLaren F1.
Steve Coogan, a Ferrari 355.
Norman Wisdom,
oh well, forget that one.
Anyway, our guest tonight, when he made it to the big time, he bought...
one of these. Are we ready?
Right. Here we go.
Look at that.
It is, a
Vauxhall Cavalier Convertible.
Plainly this guy was devoted to making people laugh...
even when he was on his way to the supermarket.
Shall we meet him?
Ladies and gentlemen...
Harry Enfield.
What in God's name possessed you to buy one of those?
It's actually a lovely car. Very reliable motor, the Cavalier.
But I did feel like, bit of a... you know, because i'd sort of become slightly famous and...
you find yourself... It's the only convertible i've had...
At the lights, in the middle of London, cause i've always lived in London.
You're sort of in the lights, and you got the roof down.
And, uh, people crossing the road in front of you, may look in, may see you, and say,"ooh yeah"...
♪laughter♪
And you're just stuck there cause the light's red.
Now, look...
Here, there's a magazine...
The, uh, Convertible Correspondence
The... Vauxhall Cavalier Convertible owner's club
You were, i know, you... you appeared in this.
And this is my favourite bit. Under famous owners.
An occasional feature.
They haven't been able to find anyone since you got one
and you said, it was like.. it was better than a BMW.
-Yeah.
-Did I?
Well, I think it is.
Better than a BMW.
Fine han... yeah.
Which bit of it did you think was better than a BMW?
Well, I think I thought it...
The price was better than a BMW.
Fair point.
Interestingly, um...
when you decided... that it was time to part with the...
um... Vauxhall Cavalier Convertible.
You were getting even more famous at the time.
You went backwards...
...and bought a Rover 200.
Yes, yes I did.
Again, what in God's name possessed you to do that?
Because, most work in our industry is done in Soho...
and there is a shop in Soho that sells...
Rovers.
So, I went in there and... and bought the Rover.
Forgive me, Soho?
It's close to Park Lane, on which...
by memory there's Aston Martin, Jaguar...
BMW, Lexus, McLaren...
Masera... and so forth.
Right.
Right
You could've gone to anyone of those shops.
Not to the Rover one...
and bought a Rover 200...
which wasn't...
But the Rover were in Soho...
and they're about half a mile away. And you know then...
So, is this why you swapped the Rover for a Metro?
Yeah, same place.
When you go round to say...
see Rowan Atkinson or see whoever
at the time in your Cavalier
Yeah...
or your Metro or your Rover...
Did, they say,"Harry..."
Take you on one side? Try to give you some advice.
No, i'm afraid, but, in fact, it did actually happen once...
though I never talk about, sort of...
thing of it, but I do have a...
abiding memory in my head of...
driving round someone's... house.
It sounds very showbiz-y, but this is the only time it's ever happened...
and Robbie Coltrane was there and Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie...
and they all had nice cars.
And I arrived in my Cavalier
And they were all outside, it was a nice day and they
were all talking about each other's cars and...
and they looked at me, and I looked at them.
And no one ever mentioned it.
Just no one ever mentioned it.
No one ever mentioned the car, none of them, ever.
There's nothing you can say.
Anyway, what have you got now?
Lexu... umm, now we've got a...
a Mercedes estate, yes.
Very nice.
It's very small.
And?
It's too small... And now my wife's got a Mini.
Very good.
Have you seen this?
Yes, um, I want that car, it's called a volvo
I want that car.
It's got seven...
seats, and...
Oh there's a picture, look it's on the screen.
Oh, look, that's...
the volvo, cause i'm not allowed to drive, because my wife, likes to drive.
So, i have to sit in the, other thing and I...
at the moment I sit in our...
car like this with an airbag here.
This one... looks very big.
mmm...
I either want this or the BMW one...
which we tried out, it's fantastic.
No you don't.
It's great it's fantastic.
I assure you, you don't want...
And it's the ideal car...
for my wife to drive cause she's got blonde hair and we live in Notting Hill.
And that's the car... people drive.
mmhmm...
You're not just here to chat today.
-No, no.
-Aren't I?
Because earlier today, erm...
We had you doing some...
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely. You see the thing is, every week...
we are gonna run an item called...
A Star in a Reasonably Price Car.
We got the star, obviously, what we then needed...
was a reasonably priced car.
Now we talked to Hyundai... they said no.
We talked to Nissan, they said no.
We talked to Daewoo, they said no
Then we talked to Suzuki, and they said...
sure, have a Liana.
9,995 pounds... on the road.
In fact it's over there. There it is.
and what a beauty it is.
The most beautiful car...
I've ever seen.
And what we're...
in the world.
in... in the...
Absolutely.
And the idea is, is that every week...
our star, will take that round our test track...
see how fast he or she can do it.
And then we'll post that time on a board...
and at the end of the series, we'll be able to name...
Britain's fastest celebrity.
Trouble is, of course, err, we weren't gonna let you out...
without going out first of all, I had to try it
with the other guys and, uh, this is what happened.
GO!
Ooh, my Lord, there's...
God, look at the speed, we're doing 37 before we...
34 miles an hour.
Now, looks at this, look at this, it's going well.
I once drove a supertanker...
that was a bit like this.
We're going off, were going off...
We're off... we're off the track and...
Little bit of track with us there.
How much is a paintjob?
Anyway, we got the tracking fixed...
and the gearbox.
And I posted a time, even with...
big Jason in the back, of 1:50.
erm... now, we're currently cutting you lap...
in the edit suite, we'll be showing it later.
How fast do you think you might've gone?
I don't know.
You don't know?
But it was very fast.
-Yeah.
-Was it?
But I can't remember what comes next. Oh I know...
We're gonna see if we can get that car to go through a speed camera.
We're gonna try and beat a speed camera.
So do you want me to stay here or go?
No, have a seat, roll your sleeves up.
Great.
Would you like a drink?
Yeah.
Chill.
Earlier on, in the name of scientific endeavour...
we tried to see if it was possible to go fast enough to be a speed camera.
We used a Honda Civic Type R. It did 129 miles an hour...
and it was still there for the second flash.
You might think this thing would be the one to do it in...
it wouldn't. It's only a pretend model.
20 miles an hour, tops. So, we got hold of a faster car.
Right then.
This should be worth a go, the Mercedes CL 55 AMG.
At 89,000 not only does it cost as much as a house...
it's nearly as big as one.
But it'll still do 60 miles an hour in 4.7 seconds...
and it'll cruise all day at 155 as easily as your car will do 30.
But will that be enough? Let's find out.
Go on then.
Well, we've got the pictures back.
And here they are, 148 miles an hour...
and, oh dear.
There he is in the first one, and...
still there in the second one.
That isn't fast enough.
We're gonna have to try and go even faster. And we're gonna do that...
Okay, so far in the program we've shown you how to save money on a family hatchback...
we're trying to save you some money on speeding fines...
by showing you that if you speed up you can get round them.
And now we're gonna give you the biggest money saving tip, of them all.
There's been a lot of talk in the newspaper and on the radio these past couple of weeks...
about people running their cars, their diesel engined cars I should say...
on vegetable oil.
There's been so many people trying it...
that up north, one supermarket train...
err, chain, is now rationing...
the amount of oil, that it will sell...
to individuals.
erm... Now the thing is, is that you can run a car...
on vegetable oil.
It's not completely brilliant.
However, i've been joined, here...
by Jason Taylor.
You reckon you've got a little additive that makes the whole thing better, yeah?
So, what we've got here is some, normal vegetable oil?
Yeah.
That's used vegetable oil from a mexican restaurant.
-Used, yeah.
-Used?
Why used?
Well, we find it gives it a bit of better power to the engine.
Really? there's all these bits so
we have to strain those out obviously.
Put that over here.
one of these Jay cloths, okay?
And in we go.
So that'll collect the bits.
Look at that.
and you reckon this'll work?
Yeah it's like golden elixir that stuff.
Does it make the car smell a bit?
It, er, it is actually... the different restaurants, you can tell what you're running it on.
-Yeah.
-Seriously?
So, if we run a car on this, it's gonna smell... essence of where it came from?
Yeah.
Okay, that's in there like that. Fine.
Now, what have you worked out you have to add to that?
Right, well just to make it a bit, a bit...
more runnier, you add...
err... a solvent.
And for this experiment, we've got a non-kerosene based white spirit.
It has to be non-kerosene based for tax reasons.
Okay.
Okay, and how much do we have to put it?
err... In, in a liter, in 97ml of...
err, vegetable oil, you put 3ml of that in there.
so that's about that much? Okay, let's put that in there.
mmhmm.
Okay? So we add that.
Okay? And then we, uh, whisk it up.
Well, actually, you don't really need to risk, err, whisk it, but...
So is that ready to go now?
That's ready to... Well no, you should let it stand for at least...
a week or so.
And how much does that cost?
For a liter?
About 3 pence, plus the tax.
Oh, you have to pay tax?
If you didn't tell the Excise & Customs, that's 3p, if you do tell them...
You have to tell them.
Okay, ye... of course, you have to tell them.
You have to tell them.
Right. And... how much are they gonna charge.
err, 26 pence, but check with your local Customs & Excise office.
That's about 29p a liter. You've got to fill a couple of forms in.
29p a liter.
Just run through, do you have to modify the engine.
No.
Just any old diesel will do?
Yeah.
And you can... and it's fine?
Yeah.
Performance?
The same as diesel, maybe even better.
And you reckon we could tip that into a diesel car and it would work?
Yeah.
Gotta give that a go, haven't we?
This is a Volvo 740.
In the front there's a diesel engine, and in the tank in the back...
nothing. It's empty. Listen.
Start the engine.
Can't start the engine. No fuel.
And we can verify that. Look.
Here we have an independent adjudicator...
Bal, you'll verify there's nothing in there?
Nothing in the tank. We've drained off 25 liters, it's completely empty now.
Right. Brilliant. Well, if we go round the back...
and look in the boot.
We find...
a big container...
full of vegetable oil, from El Rio's in Macclesfield.
Now, we've added a splash of white spirit and, Bal...
is going to pour, that...
into the tank.
Right. Now, it's been converted from a carnivore, into a herbivore.
But of course, being a diesel, you can't just start it. You have to...
bleed the system first, which you've just done, yes, Bal?
System bled?
No airlocks in there? good, lets close the bonnet.
If you wanna step in.
And lets see if it starts.
If it does, I shall be astonished.
That's amazing.
Go! Go!
One pound fifty a gallon and it's working.
Wow.
It's actually, I mean, still going round out there.
And is it, is it...
green?
Environmental? Oh, apparently so, yeah.
So, that, you know... yeah.
Wow.
Anyway, Harry, big news, your lap has been edited.
Do you wanna have a look?
Yes please.
Who'd like to see Harry's lap?
Okay, here we go.
hope I don't die.
Ready, steady, go.
It might skid.
Up on 30 miles an hour.
now I'm going... at 40 miles an hour.
50 miles an...
Blimey.
There, oh yeah. That's supposed to be, take that down...
wahey... And...
nicely controlled.
Little foot on the brake, little tidy bit...
and, into second.
Lovely.
Take it round into second.
Yes, i can feel some kind of braking thing happening there.
Me braking the car.
And... oh, yes, whoa...
Hey, I lost control of that.
Nice. That was fun.
And the winner...
in a race of one.
And there are a couple of things I gotta bring up on that.
On one of the corners, I think it was Baccarat Bend there...
the tail was out.
You're a bit of a hypocrite, you came off the bloody circuit.
I know, I'm saying.
This is praise.
Oh, this is a good thing?
It's a good thing.
It's a good thing. I mean, here I was...
Cavalier convertible, Metro, Rover 200. I assumed...
Father of three.
Yeah.
I assumed that you'd be useless.
Well I was useless.
But it's a very nice car because...
No, but you weren't.
put your foot on the brake and it...
it doesn't skid really. It goes dh-dh-dh-dh-dh...
It's got that, APS braking thing.
Clearly, that'll do, yes.
So you go...
in third, because it doesn't really go in fourth...
But, it's very nice. That's what I call a proper A-B car.
Wanna know how fast it was?
I reckon... should i guess?
That was 1:48, I was 1:50.
1:47.
I've got some disappointing news for you.
Oh no.
Enfield...
I'll just put you up here. you're the very first...
star, in a reasonably priced car.
Enfield...
2:01.
And that's only eleven seconds off the pace and...
that's not bad.
That's not bad.
I've been driving around there all day.
Yeah, you get... put your... there.
Ladies and gentlemen, Harry Enfield.
Right. time now for some insider dealing.
Jason, what've you got for us this week.
Well, first of all the Mini. So, great news for Harry...
at last, after his appalling and rather bad luck with cars...
he's bought one, that's good news.
erm... The car's been our for about 12 months now and the first of those cars...
are actually starting to be listed in Glass's Guide and CAP.
And incredibly, the basic model, the Mini One, which is this one...
err, was just on 10,000 pounds when it was new.
Today that car, as a used car, is worth 10,500.
So you could ru...
You could run on for a year?
10,000 miles, and sell it for more than you paid for?
Yep.
And make your profit, 500 pounds.
I mean that sometimes happens with expensive cars, isn't it? Ferraris and Porsches.
Yeah... but, something this cheap, I mean, just, doesn't happen.
That's astonishing.
think how sick I'm feeling.
Should've bought a whole... dozen of them.
I mean the problem is... after... is... they've... just... is...
The same thing is happening in America, they've just...
Yeah.
shipped 20,000 over there. They've sold that in...
well, 15 minutes, I mean, you know?
Ridiculous. All gone. Yeah
Gone?
So, wh... it really has been a success.
-Well Subaru...
-What else is there?
Everyone knows the Impreza Turbo, um...
when the car first came out, it was a great looking car.
But that's the one we remember unfortunately, the ugly basta...
-That's the one we've got now.
-That's the one we've got now?
But that car's only been out, for just under 3 years.
But it's been doing so badly that Subaru realised they had to change the way the thing looks.
They've actually got a facelift coming out in February of next year.
Which everybody knows about.
Everybody knows about. The problem they've got, is that they've got stacks of these.
So they're gonna do something about it. And what they're doing is they're taking...
3,000. 3,000 of the price of these cars.
So how much is it now?
18,995. You can buy a brand new Subaru Turbo...
-Yeah.
-Seriously , they will do that?
You walk in, you just go,"I want 3,000 of that."
They go," Certainly, sir."
They've dropped it by 3,000. That's before you do any discount and negotiation.
The most you'll pay for one is 18,995.
Well, there's still some...
And then there'll be a new pretty...
I mean, you could just buy that, kick it in the headlights and make it look
better anyway... and then you...
Good news if you wanna buy a new one.
They are so cheap. But the problem is...
that when something new drops in price...
you've got to reflect that in the used car values as well.
Yeah, but I haven't got a used Subaru, so why do I care?
Because if you were gonna buy a used Subaru, you shouldn't.
You should wait for a couple of months
Wait for these to flood the market, and you'll save yourself...
another couple of grand on a used one.
Brilliant. What else?
XC90.
The SUV. The ne... the new Volvo SUV.
Yeah... Yeah...
It's coming to the UK in about November time.
Volvo have made a major error with this car...
because the car is just so good.
But they're only gonna make 3,500.
Yeah.
3,500 for the UK for the whole year.
Now if you divide that by 220 dealers...
Yeah?
It works out at about one car per dealer per month.
Which is nowhere near enough.
I was talking to someone from Volvo the other day, and he said well...
I think we're only gonna make 50,000.
And I just thought, I can't believe that, cause...
they've got a Volvo. Pretty Popular. Make it an offroad car.
Well, sort of offroad car.
And that's really doubly popular...
and then they're gonna put seven seats in it, three rows.
Still space behind for a... labrador.
Or any other sort of sloaney dog.
And then they've got TVs in the back.
They've got sep'arate hifi so you can listen to the
tapes in the... little seats and stereo and err... radio in the front.
And the they said," Mmh, don't think we're gonna sell many of those."
Even though it's 12,000 pounds less than an X5.
Potty.
So, Harry, hang onto your Mini and buy a Volvo...
and you can save so much money you can buy the Cavalier back.
Mazda have made precisely...
two interesting cars in recent years.
The MX-5 which is a sports car for...
girls and blokes who like ABBA.
And the RX-7, which was good, but a bit daft.
So news of a new Mazda sports saloon...
It's hardly gonna excite anyone outside of the Findlay Green Bowls Club.
Is it?
People don't buy Mazdas, because they desperately want
a Mazda. They buy them because...
well, unfortunately for them at that particular time...
it suits their needs.
In that sense, Mazdas are like seat plungers.
You don't really want one, but sometimes, you just gotta have one
Mazdas are good cars, for shy exhibitionists.
You could drive one butt naked through any town in the world...
and not an eye would be batted.
They're practically invisible.
The Mazda 6 needed an image, so it got one, and it looks...
fantastic.
Mazda confess quite openly to leaning over the shoulders and cribbing from BMW and Volkswagen.
But they haven't been stupid enough just to turn out a straight copy.
Oh no.
The interior doesn't look like a Japanese copy of a
German design.
This is a Japanese design.
They've used their own ideas.
And the changes are much more then merely cosmetic
They haven't messed around for this car.
They haven't just tweaked the old 626 and launched it as an all new motor.
This is entirely new. So, there's a whole new rage of engines.
This is a 2.3 liter, 4 cylinder job.
The figures, really aren't that good.
On paper it's about 166 brake horsepower.It's very interesting.
0-60 is claimed in 9 seconds.
Ho hum.
But that doesn't tell the whole story
The point is it's tuned so that it's... a constant power delivery.
It's mid-range. It's always there.
It feels like a bigger, lazier engine than it really is.
And then there's the handling which, well...
where did this come from?
This is a Mazda, yes?
Are we quite sure?
It goes round corners...
really, really well.
It just grips and grips.
If anything it's encouraging me to misbehave.
And I particularly like that.
This is incredible.
It is exciting to drive and I was really not expecting that.
It's just such a shock.
Like discovering someone really grey and average like, like John Major, is a shagmeister.
One blip does make itself abundantly clear pretty quickly...
It's quite noisy. As soon as you just
head off in one direction for any length of time with any speed on...
there's a lot of road rumble and wind noise.
That's gonna be bad news when you get to the motorways.
So how much will it cost?
Well the cheapest BMW 3 series is 18,695 quid.
and for that you'll be lucky if you get a sun visor.
This is the top spec Mazda 6. It's got everything on it.
And it'll cost you, 17,995 quid.
So, will value for money, cure Milton Keynes man of his BMW addiction?
Probably not.
This, is still a Mazda.
People will think of it, as a Mazda.
So no matter how good it is, let's be honest...
the life of luxury and excitement in the south of France...
does not await the Mazda 6.
I'm sorry.
For you it's gonna be a life of having up and down the M5.
The M4. Service stations.
Cheap motels.
But it makes me fool good that at least we've brought it out here for a...
final, damn good thrashing.
A final day out, a final fling before you begin your...
life of misery and servitude.
Now i've driven this car...
And I couldn't believe how brilliant it was.
It... it just feels so tight.
And sharp, and it's a Mazda.
I know.
And 700 pounds cheaper than a BMW, another 700 pounds saved.
With more power and more kit.
quite an achievement. Right, more science.
Final attempt at this. We've been trying to prove...
Is it possible for a car to go fast enough to beat a speed camera?
so far all we've proven is that it's really, really difficult.
We had a race track, a Stig to drive the cars, really fast cars...
haven't done it. We're gonna have one last go.
So far, yes I agree, we've failed.
But we haven't disproved the theory, just that we need a quicker car.
Something like this.
TVR... Tuscan S.
Remember this would be a crazy thing to do if we weren't using a professional racing driver...
on our own test track.
No flash.
It never went off. It was going so fast.
It was over 170 miles an hour. The camera never saw it.
Seriously?
Absolutely, so we've proven...
It is a mug's game, you need two miles of track...
you need a car that will do 170 miles an hour, but in the name of science...
we did it.
And on that happy note we have to start winding up the show.
The vegetarian car is still going round outside.
Next week, I go to Wales with an RS Focus.
We've got Jamiroquai frontman Jay Kay coming here to try and go faster than Harry Enfield.
And, you know...
You're always seeing people, with motorbikes...
try to se how many buses they can jump?
Yeah?
Well next week, we're gonna see how many bikes we can jump...
with a bus.
See you then, good night!
Subtitled by: Blayde visit us at www.finalgear.com Berlingo provided courtesy of Eltoro
It's called... a Nissan Mildred.