The Top Gear Story

by Martin Roach

  By this point a large crowd had gathered and to be fair, it would make for a fairly odd sight! Ultimately, Hammond’s car-boat capsized and he was forced to launch himself towards Clarkson’s vessel for safety. However, that eventually capsized too after two miles and on the very last bend of the harbour, so it was left to May’s more understated invention to ‘triumph’ (although even then he only managed to reverse halfway out of the water). Of course, it was all classic Top Gear.

  Yet in the production office, there was a sense that with a little more time and thought, the amphibious car idea might have achieved more so two series later, the idea was revisited. This time the challenge was far more demanding: to actually drive to Dover and cross the English Channel to Calais – a preposterous notion, really.

  This time the cars arrived looking much more sea-worthy. So, we have Jeremy’s Nissan truck – christened the Nissank – with a stabilised outboard motor and endless amounts of internal welding to make it watertight. He even added some huge metal drums to aid buoyancy and was so confident of his vessel that he took a fishing rod with him for those quiet moments when he would be miles ahead in the race! Hammond turned up in a Volkswagen Transporter, albeit only in name, as it really looked far more like a tugboat; May’s vessel was the Triumph, being almost exactly the same as before with a few minor additions that he explained, but no one else really understood.

  It was clear that the production team knew this was a much more difficult challenge as all three presenters were now wearing life-vests. Indeed, Clarkson’s pride came before a fall as they drove into the channel only to find the high winds and choppy waves too much within a matter of minutes. Clarkson and Hammond seemed genuinely frightened while May failed abysmally to even leave the harbour side. Day One of the shoot was eventually aborted and they decided to return the next morning when better, calmer weather was predicted. Hammond fared well initially but ultimately his car-boat sank; he and May were left drinking tea from a flask in the sea before clambering aboard Clarkson’s admirably buoyant and working vessel.

  With typical Top Gear gusto, they then announced that they were about to smash Richard Branson’s one hour and forty minutes record for crossing the channel in an amphibious car, which of course they came nowhere near. However, after dodging mountainous ferries and tankers, they did eventually sight land and although they’d missed Calais, somehow they managed to scramble the odd car-boat onto dry land, much to the total bemusement of several hundred sunbathing French holiday-makers. They had landed in Sangatte, the highly controversial French town mostly famed in Britain for the illegal immigrants who used to stream across to the UK from this port. One is left to imagine how Jeremy Clarkson and his famously acid tongue explained to the watching Frenchmen what they were doing.

  In the Top Gear studio perched on a sloping pedestal sits another battered old Toyota Hilux, the star of one of the show’s most popular challenges ever: is the Toyota pick-up truck really indestructible? It was way back in Series 3, Episode 5 when the team first screened an Australian advert for the truck and pointed out that all the anti-American militia around the world seem to be filmed on BBC News driving those faithful old pick-ups, packed full of machine guns. So, in an attempt to find out just how strong the Toyota was, the trio bought a 13-year-old Hilux 2.4 litre Diesel for £1,000, with over 190,000 miles on the clock.

  The team then put together a series of what can only be termed multiple attempts at grievous bodily harm on the unsuspecting truck. So we see them driving it down steep stony stairs, scraping it along walls, crashing into a (soon-to-be-notorious) chestnut tree, leaving it standing in the Severn Estuary as the tide came in, dropping it from a crane, driving it through a wooden shed (the Top Gear production office, apparently), dropping a caravan onto its roof, smashing a demolition crane’s wrecking ball into its rear and even setting fire to it. Amazingly, after all the abuse, it still worked!

  The feature actually over-ran the episode because the truck refused to be killed. So, in the sixth part of the series, we witnessed the finale: they put the pick-up on top of a tower block, which was then demolished (how did it get there?) with Andy Wilman’s ‘£100,000 just for crisps’ budget. After the rubble and dust had settled, a mechanic came on site and without spare parts and only the aid of basic tools, he spent a brief few minutes under the bonnet. He reconnected the battery, put some diesel in it… Yes, it still worked! Clarkson called it ‘automotive greatness’.

  Aside from the brilliant television feature, it doesn’t take a genius to work out the commercial effect of 350 million viewers around the world seeing this remarkable machine treated to such abuse only for it still to work. All hail the Toyota Hilux, one of Top Gear’s greatest-ever features!

  Perhaps one of the series’ most famous and brilliantly executed challenges was when the team decided to turn a Robin Reliant into a Space Shuttle (although they did not actually ask the ill-fated question, ‘How hard can it be?’, this stunt certainly falls into that category). I can’t quite imagine the production meeting when the idea first came up but clearly no one dismissed it as absurd, so in Episode 4 of Series 9 (a very strong period for such mad features), we have the team working with space engineers to create the impossible: a three-wheel re-useable space rocket built from a car normally associated with Peckham’s finest market traders. Perhaps only Top Gear could think of this and certainly, only Top Gear would actually go and do it! The show’s production notes class this as ‘easily Top Gear’s most ambitious film’.

  Again, like the ‘Toybota’ feature, this is a stunning example of a clearly ludicrous idea being executed with considerable cost and precision. Despite the hilarious premise, they set about the challenge with no expense spared. The mechanical process started from a fairly simplistic base with Hammond saying they chose the Reliant because it was light, cheap and ‘pointy’. The team called on the skills of The Rocketeers – the same team who helped them send a Mini down a ski-jump in an earlier challenge.

  Very quickly, however, the project escalated and within a few seconds of screen time, we are shown an engineer’s workshop containing a complex structure with a maze of high-quality welding and metal components carefully woven into its framework. Huge solid rocket fuel boosters towered above the Robin Reliant. Hammond and May were clearly stunned by the progress (Clarkson was absent, having declared this the most stupid idea ever and so he refused to get involved). For all the hilarity, this was not an actual gag – if successful, the Robin would become the largest non-commercial rocket ever to be launched in Europe.

  Next up, they went to a high-tech wind tunnel where at first they just stood in it with the Top Gear dog (complete with goggles), but soon the boffins joined them to put a scale model of the Robin Reliant through its paces in order to check aerodynamic prowess. Needless to say, it was pretty useless and the bespectacled boffin-type offered no glimmer of optimism for its chances in space.

  Pushing the boundaries still further, a scale model of the Robin was made and attached to a very expensive remote control plane, the idea being that once the rocket had flown in space, it would need guiding back to earth for its landing (even the usually daring Richard Hammond was not about to climb into this machine). So by now they had involved rocket engineers, remote control champion racers and tech-mad wind-tunnel geniuses.

  The launch site was on a military base in Newcastle and once more the costs kept racking up: so we saw cranes, haulage trucks and endless personnel putting the Robin Reliant rocket in place. Despite the comic overview, the stunt was in fact highly dangerous, not least due to the presence of the volatile solid fuel mix of nitrous oxide and rubber – essentially laughing gas and old tyres. Worse still, the launch site was a military base renowned for having scores of unexploded bombs hidden underground.

  Finally, the big moment came and Hammond and May were visibly exhilarated when the rocket launched into the sky. It was truly glorious and when the solid rocket fuel boosters detached on command, the engineers and p
resenters quite literally danced for joy. Their joy turned to despair as the second-phase rockets failed to detach and the overly heavy car-shuttle plummeted to earth, hitting the ground and exploding into a massive fireball. In the meteoric collision, nothing was left. The car was completely destroyed, but one badly burnt wing with a Union Jack sticker intact was recovered and now sits in the Top Gear office.

  So, being critical, they didn’t succeed in the challenge of making a re-useable space shuttle from a Robin Reliant. Apart from the fact that it’s a pretty big ask, they did complete their challenge but for the final failure, though. So we are left with the teasing question: had the second-phase rockets detached on schedule, would the shuttle have landed safely and been a total success? We’ll never know and it’s pretty likely that BBC budgets will prevent them from ever trying again …

  The list of more daft Top Gear challenges reads like a surreal selection of crazy ideas that a bunch of young boys have dreamt up after perhaps having their first-ever pint of beer: making a convertible People Carrier; grannies doing doughnuts and handbrake turns; can a rally pit team strip and rebuild a car faster than four women get ready for a night out?; can a stretch limo jump over a wedding party?; how many motorcycles can a double-decker bus jump over?; how many bouncy castles can an ice-cream van jump?; what’s the best wig for driving in an open-top?; how easy is it to create a life-size remote controlled car?; can they beat the record for the most complete sideways rolls in a car …

  As Richard Hammond said when he was about to launch the Robin Reliant into space: ‘If you’re eight years old, you probably want to watch this …’

  CHAPTER 8

  The Top Gear Specials: ‘US Road Trip’

  Of course, all this japery with blowing up caravans, encouraging nuns to skid, breaking numerous speed records and generally acting out endless schoolboy fantasies with cars makes for great TV, but where Top Gear really raise the bar is during their more substantial challenges. These are best exemplified by the small handful of so-called specials they have attempted. There have been four specials within actual series (‘USA’, ‘Botswana’, ‘Vietnam’ and ‘Bolivia’) plus two further stand-alone programmes (‘Top Gear Winter Olympics’ and ‘The Polar Special’).

  In this writer’s opinion, the best special of them all is the fabulous ‘US Road Trip’, first screened in Episode 3 of Series 9. The team hate fly/drive holidays and contest that the logistics of this type of trip and the myriad of problems encountered means that it’s not a holiday at all, but a living hell. So, the premise was simple enough: is it possible to fly to America and buy a car more cheaply than you can hire one for a fortnight? Thereafter, can you travel through four US states and then sell the same car and get most of your money back? Equipped with just $1,000 each, they set about finding out … and very nearly never made it back.

  Clarkson’s relationship – if there is one at all – with the USA is strained at best. He calls it ‘the United States of Paranoia’ and has been openly critical of Barack Obama, particularly in the aftermath of the President’s acidic attacks on BP following the Gulf of Mexico oil spillage of 2010. Clarkson points out the absurdity of the fact that in the US, you need a permit for most things except buying firearms.

  The plan was to create Top Gear’s very own road movie. As inspiration, the production crew used famous American flicks such as Thelma & Louise and National Lampoon’s Vacation. Initially, the trip was meant to be merely a Cheap Car Challenge spread over two segments, but as the backroom staff researched and prepared the film, it became clear that they had enough scope to produce a lengthy and highly entertaining stand-alone programme. Surprisingly, it is also noted on their website as one of the most gruelling shoots ever, even taking into account the later ‘Polar’ and ‘African’ specials.

  The team flew into the US and stayed at a very upmarket hotel before the trip began. On the first day, the trio was sent out to the rather salubrious areas of Miami to purchase a classic American car for their $1,000. With every dealership they tried, the options became more and more limited until eventually they were left with a handful of dishevelled-looking car lots in the openly dangerous parts of town. Dealerships such as ‘We Aim To Please Motors’ and ‘Adolf’s Cars’ are all visited. At one point, Clarkson radios Hammond to tell him not to drive any further along a certain road as he will almost definitely get shot. Even the car dealers admit this, proudly showing Clarkson their rifles and handguns, explaining theft was a big problem and that a sniper’s sight was entirely justifiable just in case the thief managed to start driving away. Clarkson was on brilliant form, seemingly unmoved by all this and even began to barter for the cars, by saying: ‘How much murdering goes on here?’

  However, the choice of car was limited and their final selection is hilarious: Clarkson bought a battered Chevrolet Camaro RS, principally because it’s ‘very popular with murderers’. It’s a typical American muscle car, with a five-litre V8 engine, but this particular model also came with no air-conditioning, a broken rev counter, a radio with only one (gospel) station and just three previous murderers. He even found an old shirt hidden under the bodywork, which they presumed was from the last victim of the previous owner. When Clarkson took the Camaro back to the team’s luxury hotel for the night, no one had forewarned the valet and he promptly asked the presenter to leave the premises.

  On his first-ever trip to the USA and complete with cowboy hat and boots, Hammond rocked up in a Dodge Ram pick-up truck. James May was last – as usual – and arrived in an enormous 1989 Cadillac Sedan, which was so big that Hammond observed that it was a long walk simply to stroll around it. It had newspaper repairs to some of the bodywork and a broken number-plate saying ‘Titanic’. May didn’t care, he loved it. Meanwhile, Clarkson was already homesick: ‘Florida is full of awful old people, fat people, nasty insects, people who offer you cheese and then shoot you!’

  They all set off north out of Miami for a 90-mile trip along the highway to a race track. Funnily enough, the Top Gear team later revealed that one of the hardest parts of the show’s production was finding a track in NASCAR-loving southern states that wasn’t just an oval. This, according to Clarkson, is because having both right- and left-hand bends is too complicated for Americans. Eventually they located Moroso Motorsports Park, which was also infested with alligators.

  Challenge One within the special was a timed lap around Moroso and for this, they introduced The Stig’s American cousin, a very overweight racing driver wearing identical white racing overalls and helmet, said to be a CIA experiment gone wrong. He even emerged out of a classic white-trash trailer. The Camaro won in 1.09 minutes, easily ahead of May’s lumbering Cadillac, which Hammond admitted had aged him just waiting to finish.

  The second challenge asked the trio to accelerate to 50mph before slamming on their brakes to avoid plunging into an alligator-infested pond. They all managed to survive … just! Then they were able to set off for stage three, an 800-mile road trip to New Orleans in the sweltering heat and humidity of the southern states. After running out of fuel and fixing a flat battery, they finally got started but by now Clarkson was extremely grumpy with the USA, warning the viewer that if they were thinking of going there, they should know that ‘everybody’s very fat, everybody’s very stupid and everybody’s very rude. It’s not the holiday programme, it’s the truth!’ By this point the viewer was left eager for Clarkson & Co. to launch a no-holds-barred version of Holiday!

  After a pit-stop to fit a barbecue to the back of his pick-up, an internal shower to Clarkson’s Camaro and a clothes hanger (!) to May’s Sedan, the team were informed that the only food they could eat that night was road-kill. Taking the names ‘Brokeback’, ‘The Murderer’ and ‘The Captain’, the trio then abort their attempts at CB radio, saying truckers only ever talk about the weather and prostitutes. Finally, they found their campsite for the night, only for Clarkson to disappear while May and Hammond argued over who was going to ‘peel’ the only road-kill t
hey’d found: a squirrel. So, where had Jezza gone?

  What other show on TV would strap a cow to a car? Well, Alan Partridge once did, but he’s not a real person. It’s a fantastically surreal moment when Clarkson’s Camaro appears over the horizon with a huge, bloated cow tied to its roof. The heifer in question had died of natural causes by the side of the road (although this didn’t stop some Top Gear snipers complaining to the BBC about animal cruelty). In fact, it had died some days before being mounted to Clarkson’s Camaro and once attached to the roof, the dead beast quickly began dripping bodily fluids all over the bodywork. For months after the film, the crew found their cameras, clothing and equipment smelling of dead cow.

  While May slept, Clarkson and Hammond sabotaged his air-con and the night-vision footage of them sniggering as they ripped out his wiring is really no more than two naughty schoolboys up to no good on a field trip away from home. This particular clip perfectly sums up an undeniable part of the Top Gear appeal: it’s a private joke shared by 350 million people, the equivalent of being invited in to the popular gang at school who play all the best pranks, but without having to take any of the risks. It’s a voyeur’s nirvana of practical jokes and dressing-room banter.

  By now, all three presenters had become attached to their old bangers but the next challenge would not only deface the cars but also see one of Top Gear’s most genuinely sinister moments. The idea of ‘baiting’ rednecks was not a new one – originally there had been talk of driving a pink Smart Car as far as possible across Texas without being attacked. However, eventually the production crew issued the trio with a different challenge: each was allowed to paint provocative slogans on their rivals’ cars. So, Hammond daubed Clarkson’s car with the words ‘Country & Western is rubbish’ and ‘Nascar sucks’ – given both are staples of Deep South life, this was a bad start. May’s car was adorned with Clarkson’s slogans ‘Hillary For President’ and it’s worth bearing in mind that in the Republican-loving south Mrs Clinton is seen by many as the political Antichrist. Worst still – and as it turned out most dangerous of all – were the bright pink slogans that James May painted on Hammond’s car: ‘Man Love Rules’ and ‘I am Bi’. Given Hammond was sporting Aviator sunglasses, a cowboy hat plus boots and was constantly chewing gum – in other words, a southern cowboy stereotype – this choice of car graffiti turned out to be one provocation too far. Hammond had jokingly said the challenge was a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity to get Jeremy killed’ but he didn’t know then how close he was to being frighteningly correct.