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Tonight, Maserati brings some V8 thunder to our track,
Mercedes brings some smoke
and we wave goodbye to Saab.
Hello... Hello, everybody and good evening.
Hello and welcome - thank you so much.
We begin...
We begin with a letter - thank you, everybody.
It's from a Swiss gentleman and it says,
"Dear Si Appelli, Top Gear.
"You're more than halfway through this series
"and yet you still haven't raced a car
"against something that isn't a car."
He's right, we haven't - and we should!
As with our off-road scooters last week, this race will take place in Wales.
And this is the rally car we'll be fielding...
a Skoda Fabia Super 2000.
Last season, this car dominated the championship,
winning seven of the 12 rallies and locking out the entire podium
with a 1-2-3 on four of those occasions.
But although the car is clearly no slouch, is it any kind of match
for the non-car thing we've got lined up for today?
In fact, if I were the car,
I might possibly be weeing myself right now.
Because today, it will be taking on Yves Rossy,
the world's first jet-powered flying man.
Yves, I have many questions.
Starting with, what exactly is this thing?
That's a wing, and to push me in the air, four engines. It's very simple.
Four jets? Yes. And you steer just with your moves of arms and legs...
So you haven't got like, levers to control the...? Nothing.
The only thing is a little throttle that I have here.
That's the only thing that command. Well, look, all the best.
Mm-hm. I'll be on the ground. Yeah!
'And THAT brings us neatly to the actual driving of the car.'
Now obviously, I could take the wheel of that thing myself
and show that Swiss cuckoo clock some real talent,
but under the Top Gear apprentice driver training scheme,
I've agreed to let the guy behind me, Toni Gardemeister, cut his teeth on this one.
To be fair, he's pretty good already.
Finnish rally champion.
So, let's see how this race will work.
This is the course the car will be racing around.
Eight miles of prime Welsh rally stage.
As the car sets off, Yves will climb to 8,000 feet in a helicopter,
jump out, and then follow the course from above.
Now, Rocket Man can travel at a steady 120 miles an hour
and we can't.
Well, I could, but I'm not sure yet about our novice driver.
Anyway, you might think because of his cruising speed, we don't stand a chance,
but there's more to it than that. At the end of the race, Yves has to land,
so he has to cut his engines, deploy his parachute
and all sorts of technical rocket-man stuff has to happen.
So, trust me, we're in with a shout here.
'And also, we will be busy covering precious miles
'whilst his chopper is still climbing to launch height.'
Just relax, Toni, I'm here if you need me.
Obviously, Yves could cut a corner up there, but don't worry,
we've thought of that - we've put a farmer out there
with an air rifle with strict orders to shoot him down if he sees any infringement.
That's FIA rules all sorted.
As the chopper lifted, the flag dropped.
We're off!
Oh-hoh!
Oh, my God, he's quite confident.
Ye Gods!
Yeah, just as you are.
We are absolutely monstering this course!
We've got 265bhp down here. Toni is using, I'd say, all of them!
Yeah - whoaah!
'However, as we passed the three-mile mark, Yves was ready to jump.'
He's jumped!
Engines are good.
Well, he's dropped, I can't see him out of the car.
'But somewhere up there, he was following our course
'and closing the gap.'
Aaargh!
Hello! Just concentrate! OK!
As a new driver, you get giddy, you show off and it goes wrong. Oh...
Up there, Yves is hitting speeds of 120, 150, 80 miles an hour.
In just, well, a lycra suit a small crash helmet
and a kitchen table on his back.
How the hell did I get mixed up in this? I mean, I'm just baggage now.
'Within seconds, Yves had caught up.'
There he is, there he is!
He's ahead of us, he is ahead.
Ow!
'As Yves streaked into the lead,
'we still had just under four miles to go.'
Aaaaargh!
In the air... Ooh-argh!
Ye Gods.
Right, OK!
'Up ahead, Yves's journey was, unfortunately, almost done.'
There he is. There's his parachute.
We've got to just take advantage
while he's slowing through the air to land. We've got to give it everything we can.
We've got about two minutes now. Absolutely...
This is going to be so close!
Oh, my God.
There he is.
He's behind the hill.
He's behind the trees, I don't know, he's not down yet.
We still have a chance here.
This is it. Where is he? Where is he? Is he there?
Oh no! After all that!
Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!
Don't blame yourself. That's the main thing, man - don't blame yourself.
You did a great job. Thanks for the guiding. I was there for you.
Thank you. I'm going to sit here for a little bit now, just...
You look a little bit dark now.
Yeah, do you know, I'm just going to sit here for a minute.
BLEEP!
Was that a bit scary? Yes! Very. It's so fast.
You said at one point, something was getting loose.
Yeah, me - my bowels, specifically! It was really scary.
But what gets me about Yves, flying, is there must have been
a first time he did that - you can't work up to being a jet-powered man.
You can't start with propellers.
Oh, no! So there must've been a first day.
He woke up one day and thought, right, it's today.
I'm going to jump off a helicopter with a kitchen table strapped
to my back and a couple of jets and I'm pretty confident I can fly.
Anyway, we must now do the news and we begin with this.
What is the worst thing in the world?
Trying on trousers.
He's right, actually. You're right.
But the second worst thing in the world is when you're going on a journey somewhere
and someone in the car says, "do you mind if we stop"
for some reason - "look, there's an ancient monument".
I don't want to look at that! I want to look at my friends who we haven't seen for five years.
You're absolutely right. There are some people
who stop on a journey at a motorway services to play a fruit machine.
Those people who say, "I need to stretch my legs".
If you're Alec Guinness and you've been in a box in a Japanese prison for six months, yes,
you need to stretch your legs, but after 30 miles in a car, you don't.
It's when people say they need to stop to eat. Why?
I can't imagine a journey long enough that means YOU will need refuelling.
Well, if you were driving from Cairo to Khartoum... Yes, but not in Britain.
If you're going from Leicester to Birmingham, you don't need food. You won't starve in that time.
No, and I'm glad you brought this up because this is where I'm going, OK?
One place I could never understand why people stopped at
was Little Chef, because what they did was they took ingredients
and then ruined them.
I once stopped at a Little Chef very early in the morning
and I said, "Could I have an omelette?"
The woman said, "No, I'm sorry sir, the powder hasn't arrived yet".
That's not a good sign, is it?!
I once dropped a sausage from my plate in Little Chef and it bounced.
They made it out of old squash balls!
The other day, we heard they'd shut getting on for half their outlets,
and we weren't surprised, but the other day we stopped at one that was still open.
I went in and this guy gave me a paper cup,
he said it's a casserole mash.
I thought, that's just going to be bits of placenta...
Oh, God!
Garnished with the chef's bodily fluids. Nice.
It was the second nicest thing I've ever put in my mouth. Second?
OK. It was brilliant. I loved it, to be honest.
It's because they've got Heston Blumenthal doing the menu.
Yes, he cut his teeth, didn't he, in Heston services?
BMW has sent us news of a new Mini. It's a concept, here's a picture.
It's a twee little van with "Buckingham" picked out
in old-fashioned sign writing and it looks like
the sort of thing we might have been driving just after we won the war.
Oh, for God's sake, please! Don't go there. Won it.
Don't go there. They've done this before, BMW.
A year or so ago they did a Mini, but at the back,
it had a wickerwork picnic hamper and a silver tea set.
The point is, we would like to extend an invitation to
people of Germany to come over here, not in a bomber...
Not all at once. Not in uniform, marching... And not at night.
No, not at night, but come over here as tourists
and we'll show you the Shard, for example, in London. Modern skyscraper.
We'll show you the Range Rover Evoque.
We'll take you to an Adele gig. Maybe not Adele.
Not if ITV are covering it, cos you'll just get that...
Then there'll be an advert for panty liners.
Germans need to come here, they really do - to come here
and understand we're not driving around in twee little vans,
tugging our forelocks at the squire any more.
They're obsessed with this, bless them.
They always say, "ve love your England, viz your tweed and your little houses mit-out electricity".
We should go to Germany with mullets and leather shorts
and wander about whistling Scorpion tunes and see how they like it.
Racial stereotyping - which we don't do.
News from the Continent! I've always wanted to say that.
"News from the Continent."
The French have announced that from July 1, you must, by law,
carry a breathalyser kit in your car.
You can understand the logic behind that
until you think about it carefully, and then there's a flaw.
You come out of the bar, you've had a glass of wine and you think, "am I OK for driving?"
You use your breathalyser kit, it says yes, you are,
but then you can't drive, cos you've used your kit.
It's a one-shot deal?
You'd have to walk to the chemist and buy another kit before you set off.
Don't they also make us carry warning triangles?
Yes, and in France, you've also got to carry a full set of spare bulbs and a high-visibility vest.
Aren't all those things the police's job? Do they want us to stick some cones in the car, just in case?
And maybe a radio, a notepad, and a pencil?
But, if they're turning us all into policemen,
we could stop other motorists and help ourselves to 130 of their euros.
Yes, we could stop Brits on the last tolls before Calais,
who are rushing to get the ferry and have been speeding.
Has anyone here been caught speeding in France?
It's like saying, has anyone been to France? Yes.
Would you have to carry handcuffs and a big truncheon as well? No, that's Holland.
Now, Richard, tell me, when you go to work at the BBC in London, where do you park your car?
Well, I park it in the car park at the BBC, underground,
where everybody else parks. Where do you park?
I park in the underground car park. It's a bit of a walk, but that's what you do.
Now there is a loading bay outside our office
which is more convenient but there is no parking there.
Now I took a photograph in this loading bay this week. Here it is...
We may recognise this car if the watch The Apprentice.
It belongs to Lord Sir Sugar.
His chauffeur was probably loading him into the building then. Exactly.
Technically this was a delivery. So that's fine.
More worrying is this. OK, if we zoom in...
Now, right there is a little Fiat Panda,
part blocking the door of the honest working men
whose job it is to deliver things to the BBC.
And I'm wondering, Hammond, who has a little black Fiat Panda?
I don't know. At the BBC?
I don't know.
Does David Attenborough? No, he doesn't. Paxman?
Moving on, the most important news of the week.
Road safety campaigners are always telling us that driving is extremely difficult.
It's so difficult that you couldn't possibly do something else at the same time.
But we disagree with this. We think driving is easy
and you can do pretty much anything while you are driving in perfect safety.
We do, and a couple of weeks ago he said to prove that point,
he would drive around a track while sewing a button onto his shirt.
- OK, who'd like to see me try that? - Yes!
Here we go, we have got it on tape.
'This is a Suzuki Swift.
'There's me at the wheel sewing a button on as I drive.'
I will try and get back underneath again
before we get to the Hammerhead which is tricky
because I've got too many chins and I can't see what I'm doing.
Memo to self: lose weight.
So there you are, ladies and gentlemen, you can do it.
You can sew a button...
But it goes on a bit. Hold on,
because after you'd said you'd do that,
James then said he reckoned he could drive a lap of our track in a car,
whilst in a sleeping bag.
Can you? Well, let's find out. Oh, here we go.
Here I am driving along in a Suzuki Swift, exactly as you were.
Are you wearing normal clothes?
No, I'm in a sleeping bag.
Shuffle the wheel. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.
Now tell me, was it easy?
There was only one problem...
that blithering idiot Hammond has turned the heater up
to full blast because he thought it was funny.
And of course I can't reach the knob.
So there we are, road safety enthusiasts...
proof that you can do other things while driving. I'm not suggesting that people do.
Don't drive to work tomorrow morning in a sack.
But we've just shown that you can drive while sewing or in a sleeping bag,
so you can certainly drive while eating an apple or...
Putting a CD in. Well, if you still live in the 1980s, yes, putting a CD in.
Driving is easy! It's not difficult.
Right, no moving on to this - it is a Maserati GranTurismo
and it is a soft, floppy and very enormous barge for people who can't drive.
Our studio director's got one.
Um, I really don't like it at all,
but Maserati has now scratched its head
and tried something a bit different.
This is what they've come up with - the GranTurismo MC Stradale.
It's still vast.
The gap between the wheels is longer than it is on a Range Rover
and even beyond the wheels, look, it just keeps on going.
Still, it's now been lowered and lightened and stiffened.
So theoretically, it's become a proper no-nonsense road racer.
It even has a button marked "Race" on the dashboard.
That speeds up the gear changes, backs off the traction control
and turns the exhaust all the way up to 11.
Under the bonnet, the V8 has been tweaked
so it's now firing 444 horsepower at the rear wheels.
And the results of all this are dramatic.
The standard car is like a duvet on a hot night,
flopping about everywhere, being annoying.
This, though, in race mode, this is as tidy as a Marine's bunk.
You can sense that the suspension is doing battle
with the bulk of the thing.
But you can also sense it's a battle that the suspension is winning.
There's a majesty to the way this car drives.
And it feels like it has a soul, too.
Ooh-ooh!
Oooh, I like you.
Oh, and Joe Walsh was wrong.
Because my Maserati actually does 187.
So, it goes brilliantly and thanks to carbon brakes...
it stops just as well.
However, if you want a road racer,
you should know there's a new alternative
from the dour, sensible, no-nonsense Germans at Mercedes-Benz.
This is the C63 Black.
It's the latest plunge into the world of insanity
from the skunkworks deep inside the bowels of AMG.
In many ways, it's very similar to the Maserati.
Both cost around Ј110,000.
Both are two-seaters.
Both have double-clutch gearboxes
and both are jolly fast.
But there are differences.
Big ones.
You look at this car and you take in the aero tweaks on the front-end,
the nostrils in the bonnet, the massively flared wheel arches
and the enormous carbon fibre rear wing.
And you sit in here and you know you have strengthening braces
and you think, yes, this IS a full-on racing car.
It isn't. It isn't that.
It isn't even close to that.
No, no, over there. Go over there. Over there. Go over THERE!
What is that rear wing doing?!
I think it's providing rear-end lift. There's no grip at all.
It is hilarious!
Through the corners there's just no way that I can keep up
with the man in the Maserati because he is driving a racing car
and I... I'm wrestling a mad yellow bear!
This, honestly, is Winnie The Pooh with road rage.
I mean, obviously it's much more spectacular to go round the corner
in a cloud of your own smoke.
But it's slower.
As you can see, because after every single corner,
he's 300 yards ahead of me.
100 yards ahead.
200 yards ahead.
300 yards ahead.
So on a track, the Maserati is better.
However, as an everyday road car, there are some issues,
chief among which are the racing harnesses.
Look at this - honestly, it's like something out of an S&M catalogue.
It means you can't reach the glove box.
You can't reach car park pay machines or tollbooths.
They couldn't have ruined the car more
if they'd smeared the carpets with dog dirt.
And even if you ignore the bondage gear, all is still not well.
If you take the gearbox out of race mode
and put it in everyday "going to the shops" auto,
it sits down there, in the bowels of the car thinking,
"Now, he's just pulled that lever, that means I have to do something.
"What is it? I have to bake cake?
"No. Mow the lawn? No."
"I know! I am a gearbox!
"He's pulled the lever, that means he wants third!"
It's so dim-witted and slow in normal mode,
it makes the whole car feel like it isn't joined up properly.
So how does the Mercedes stack up as a road car?
Well, like the Maserati, the rear seats have been removed.
But for a fee, Mercedes will put them back.
They will also - free of charge - move the steering wheel
and pedals over to the correct side of the car.
And look at this - hasn't been invented in Italy yet.
It's called a seatbelt and it's so simple and easy to use.
And there's more.
It's smaller than the Maserati,
much like Lincolnshire, so it is easier to park
and it has a fantastic central command unit
which not only tells you where you are and what you're listening to, but also,
if you push this button here,
how much G you're generating in the bends.
Where the throttle is and how much brake you're using
AND the condition of your tyres.
What it should say is, "Very poor, because in the last corner you turned them all into smoke."
Yes, I'm just taking the children to school now.
I'm on the school run.
Just turning left into Acacia Avenue.
The biggest problem though with this car
is that it's not what you'd call comfortable.
Honestly, if you want to know how this car rides,
sit on a piano and asked someone to push you down that cobbled hill they used in the Hovis ads.
It's ridiculous!
I actually owned the predecessor of this car
and I've been saying for years, it rides too harshly.
And what have they done with the replacement?
They've made it worse!
So, there we are.
Both these cars are good fun on the track,
albeit for very different reasons.
But for commuting and shopping and going out for dinner,
thanks to the ride in the Mercedes
and the gearbox in the Maserati, no.
Neither of them work very well at all.
It does have a better petrol tank than mine.
And the seat belts are easier to do up. Yeah.
Let me get this one straight,
so you finally admitting that AMG Mercs are ridiculous?
Well, I mean, if you are me
with my very specific requirements for a car, it's very good indeed.
Yeah, but quite a lot of people aren't you, so for all of them?
Well, as I said in the film, er, it is a bit stiff.
Yeah. Just why don't you tell the ladies and gentleman
how many laps of track you managed
before the rear tyres went down to the cambers? There's a very pretty girl there. Have you seen?
How many lap did you manage of our track
before the rear tyres were lunched?
Erm...
Four.
- How many? Four. - Four!
Four laps of the track.
That adds up to 6.8 miles.
That works out at Ј85 a mile, just in tyres, to run this car. Yes.
And we're now going to have to man our wallets once more
because it's time to find out how fast the Mercedes and the Maserati go around our track.
And that of course means handing them over to our tame racing driver.
Some say that he is the only man in history to buy a DFS sofa
when there wasn't a sale on.
And that his favourite boxing venue is Munich Airport.
All we know is that he's called The Stig!
And they're off.
Now the Maserati is undoubtedly quicker through the corners,
but the Merc will blitz it on the straights.
Obviously we are not going to find out here because, look,
the Merc is already twitching, and wait for it...
yes, smoke and sliding.
Stig unfortunately still obsessed with The Archers.
Chicago, once again the Merc sideways.
They should have called it the Crab.
OK, hard on the brakes for Hammerhead.
What will happen in here, I wonder?
Yup, there goes the Mercedes. Oh, even the Maserati's sliding.
And the Merc continues to smoke like a refinery fire.
A double helping of agri-drivel there.
OK, here we go, the Maserati has the V8 engine.
The Merc is now unleashing a 6.2 litre, 510 horsepower V8 atom bomb.
Just a fantastic amount of power in that thing. Two corners left.
Looking pretty even so far.
Penultimate corner.
Didn't go sideways, but Gambon, he did.
And there we are, across the line.
Now the Maserati... Yes.
The Maserati did it in 1.23.1. So it goes there. Not bad.
Nearly as quick as a Ferrari 430 in fact.
Come on, then. The Mercedes...
1.21 dead. What?!
Look at that. It's between the 599 and an SLR.
What?! Hang on. No, no. Hang on.
How...? How did IT do that?
Because as I've explained to you many times, Hammond,
precision and technicality will always be beaten
by shouting and smoking and power.
Anyway, it's time to put a star in our reasonably priced car.
My guest tonight is quite simply Doctor Who,
which explains how he was able to travel back in time to the 1980s
and steal Phil Oakey's hair. Ladies and gentlemen, Matt Smith!
Hello, hello, hello! How are you? Hello, big man. It's good to see you.
Thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure! Doctor Who is among us!
He is!
You're not wearing your Doctor Who outfit!
No, mate, just me civvies.
And I've got odd socks on cos I couldn't find them.
You're actually dressed more like...
Well, I've discovered you are a football enthusiast.
Oh, big! Yeah, a massive football enthusiast.
Did you ever play properly?
I played for... I mean, yeah.
I went through the youth academies and I played for Forest and I played for Leicester.
Hooray!
There's actually a Leicester City supporter here?
He's here! I should say it that way round.
You played and then what happened?
I had a back injury called spondylitis,
or it's some sort of strange name. Was it caused by your hair going all on one side?
Yeah, I was injured for a year, and God bless my dad,
he'd drive me up from school every day when I was playing at Leicester and I'd get the treatment there.
But I just never recovered, and so they let me go.
Do you reckon you could've been a footballist
if your back hadn't have...? I hope so. I was captain at the time,
at Leicester under-15s, and, um...
You know, I had a great season. But who knows?
The one player that I played with,
and at Forest, we were two years unbeaten.
And the only player that went on to play in the Premiership was Jermaine Jenas, that was it.
Yay. Howay.
Let's move off football and on to Doctor Who which is I'm sure where everyone wants to go.
It's the longest-running sci-fi series in the world. That's correct.
Is it 50 years now or next...? 50 years, on, I think, it's November 23rd or 24th, 2013. 50 years.
And you're the youngest Doctor ever. I am the youngest carnation.
I'm in the Guinness Book Of Records which as child, I was like, "Yes!"
The youngest Doctor Who.
It's better than seeing how many beans you can put up your nose!
One of the things that fascinates me is that when I was growing up,
and Doctor Who had the Daleks on, I was, "It's a thing with a sink plunger!" I was terrified.
But now, even my youngest plays Call Of Duty and plays the Nazi zombies with dogs that explode.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is it difficult to think of something that will scare a child
who has just finished shooting an alien in the face on a PlayStation?
Well, no... Yes, perhaps, but...
Doctor Who isn't scary in the way
that there's blood and guts and people getting blown up.
And actually, how scary is that?
"Scary" is in tension. That's why I think the angels are really scary.
Cos when you're not looking at them they go, thumpthumpthump, like that.
Yeah, that is quite scary.
What's the grinning doll one called?
Which one?
It looks a bit like Richard Hammond.
There were some dolls in this one,
the peg dolls, or there's the scarecrows,
which was a Tennant episode.
And then Cybermen aren't scary.
Yes, but... They are not! Somebody said they are, but they aren't.
It's like, they're here, right, and they come at you like this.
They're slow, I know.
You could just walk away. "Oh, there's a Cyberman there, I'll just stroll over here."
Never apply logic to Who, because... I suppose.
Presumably a lot goes with being Doctor Who that's not just playing Doctor Who.
Everywhere you go, you've got to have children saying, "Who's the scariest monster?"
Yes! I don't know if I should even say this, but I got home last night,
got to my door, and there was little girl of about 12 or 13
reading a book in a bush.
And she said, "Don't worry, I'm not a homeless person."
Then she said, "Could you just say, 'Hey, I'm the Doctor.'?"
So I just sort of said, "Hey! I'm the Doctor."
Then went, "Go home!"
That is quite scary. You could get into trouble for that.
Anyway, we had Michael Fassbender on last week. I know, he did well.
He did well and he's not the only one that's appeared naked in a film recently.
You have too, in The Womb, you had your Time-Lord sausage out.
It was with Eva Green, who played a Bond girl.
A very beautiful woman. She was, in Casino Royale.
The first scene of the first day,
we're on the most northerly point of Germany and it's Baltic cold.
It's March. And I've got to get in the sea.
So I get there, I go in the sea,
freeze my BLEEP off, come out,
and then do this scene with Eva Green!
And what can you do but apologise and go, "It's normally much more majestic!"
It was awful! This beautiful French woman and you're like...
I saw... I saw in the film,
you see her eyes, I come and she goes... You what?
I come out of the water. I see, I'm with you, and she's like...
Yeah, it was crap, basically.
Now, cars.
As you're such a young Doctor Who, I can't imagine your car history's particularly brilliant.
Well, no. The first car I had was... I passed at 18 and I got a Corsa which I bought brand new.
And I've got to say, it was a brilliant little motor,
and it's still going. It's still going. So, this was a ten-year-old Vauxhall Corsa?
Yeah, my sister's driving it about and I broke the wing mirror,
so I just taped it with gaffer tape and had it like that for four years. My friends would call it "The Shed".
Was it much bigger on the inside than on the outside? Sadly not. What do you dream of owning?
Do you know what I'd like most of all? I'd like an old 911. I know it's a point of contention...
You may as well have an old one cos the new one is exactly the same.
They're sexy cars.
Especially the old 911, from what was it?
In the '90s. They're the same as they are now! And it's not new.
Obviously, of course, you came here to do your lap. Yeah.
How did it go? I was getting frustrated. I spun off a couple of times.
But I just thought, "Right, hell for leather!" But I think that was my problem.
A lot of the guests that come here struggle with the second-to-last corner.
And we've got some footage of you attempting to get around there. Oh, God... Anyone like to see?
Yes!
Let's have a look at Matt coming up to the second-to-last corner.
And...
run a bit wide there.
Now that was attempt number one, there.
And then that's Gambon with a new line.
There we are, not crossing the line. Here we are again.
Oh, you, BLEEP!
See, that's quite angry. Oh, dear, now...
Fishtanking.
I really admire...
I do admire a man who goes, "No, I can do it!"
Who here would like to see Matt's lap?
Yes!
Play the tape. Oh, no...
Now, let's see if we can see any evidence of this aggressive driving.
Right, concentrate. Calm.
♪ We're singing in the rain... ♪
That's not a bad idea, actually. ♪ Just singing in the rain... ♪
I was getting too annoyed, you see.
Couple of bites at turning in there. Wide, wide, wide...
That's a tortured tyre, but it is clinging on well.
I'm just sort of braking around it.
♪ And down to second gear... ♪
Ooh, running a bit wide there.
Listen to those tyres! They're working for a living today.
This is the Hammerhead coming up.
It's like an angry shark. Oh, yeah...
That's actually quite nicely done.
In, a lot of understeer at the first part and... Argh!
OK on the way out.
And we're going to hit Gambon like a BLEEP train.
'Come on!'
Like to see a man planning ahead - we're only at the Follow-through,
still got that to do. And the tyres... Long way.
Good cutting.
Yeah, yeah... Into second. You're in very soon.
You can leave it in third actually for Gambon.
And lots of understeer again, but across the line!
Now, you are by no means the first Doctor Who we've had down here.
You've had Chris and David.
Yeah, we've had Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant.
We've even had Billie Piper.
Former assistant. Yeah, I've driven with Billie. She's quick.
She did it in the Lacetti in one... I haven't got my glasses on.
It was either a 1:46 or a 1:48. Has anyone got any glasses?
She did it in 1:48.3. Actually, she was the quickest. 1:48.3, what were the others?
Eccleston was 1:52.4, in the Liana,
and Dave was 1:48.8.
1:48.8... So where do you think YOU'VE come?
Actually, you're in a new car. Cos they did it in the Liana or the Lacetti.
So where do think you've come? I have no idea.
I know I'm nowhere near Fassbender.
Oh, I don't really want to be below Louis Walsh.
Where is Louis Walsh? At 1:47.7, that wasn't that rapid.
You did it... Hm...
1...
40...
So that's good.
3...
Point 7. Get in!
Matt Smith, the fastest Doctor Who!
And you go right up there. I'll take that.
I'll take that, absolutely! That's a bloody good time.
Yeah! Get in!
That was a good time. Up there with Ryan Reynolds, exactly the same.
And it's weird, because normally,
when a lap looks boring and slow and steady, they're the quick ones.
Yours looked properly aggressive.
So, do you drive the TARDIS like that? Is it the full, "Give it some!"
Absolutely, that's the only way to drive the TARDIS.
That's why it's always broken. You're always having to hit it with your screwdriver!
It's been a huge pleasure to have you on, the fastest Doctor Who we've ever had. I'm chuffed with that.
Ladies and gentlemen, Matt Smith!
When we heard the news that Saab had closed down,
Jeremy and I were genuinely very sad.
Although we weren't actually sure why, so we went to investigate.
Saab began as an aeroplane maker.
But after WWII, it noticed that demand for fighter planes had dropped off dramatically.
So it decided to start making cars as well.
The first effort was created by two men...
one who designed wings and one who designed bomb racks.
Neither had done a car before and it kind of showed.
Their prototype had enclosed front wheels which was very aerodynamic,
but as you drove along in winter, snow would build up in the arches
and it was only when you got to a corner when you noticed the steering had jammed.
There were other issues too - the rear window was tiny
and there was no boot lid.
Mass production wasn't their bag either.
While Austin made a car every 27 seconds, it took Saab 27 minutes.
Oh, and all their cars were painted green.
So, a green car with no boot you could use,
and in bad weather, no steering.
But the biggest problem in those early days was the engine.
As James shall now explain.
This is the 92. It was Saab's first production car,
and it came with a thirsty two-stroke engine
that produced just 25 horsepower.
The real problem is that the engine was only lubricated when you had your foot on the throttle.
In a two-stroke, engine oil is mixed with the fuel,
so if there's no fuel going in, there's no oil going in.
This wasn't an issue when you were driving along on a level like this,
or going up a hill, because you had your foot on the throttle and you had the fuel and oil going in.
But once you were going downhill, you had a problem as you had to brake with your left foot, but...
Whoa! Keep the power on with your right foot
so that the engine still got some oil.
Whoa... This is very tricky.
And it feels stupid. I'm driving and stopping at the same time.
Then you'll arrive at the bottom of the hill with your brakes completely boiled over
and your 65mph Saab would be absolutely unable to stop.
It's hopeless.
'Saab's history is littered with terrible mistakes like this.'
'There was the 900 convertible,
'which was as rigid as a week-old salad.
'There was the Sonnet,
'which was supposed to have been a sports car... but wasn't.'
'And then in then in 1992, they even made a car with no steering wheel.'
In fact, the more you drive this...
the easier it becomes.
The temptation is to just stare at the bonnet in wonderment
that you can actually have any directional control at all.
So, lots of Swedish strangeness, and an advertising campaign that didn't make much sense either.
'Only one aircraft manufacturer makes cars.
'Sierra-Alpha-Alpha-Bravo.'
Yes, Saab loved to remind us
that their cars came from a company that made jet fighters.
But it was nonsense.
This jet fighter, for example, had an engine made by Volvo.
'Saab. It's a pity other cars aren't built this way.'
The idea was that you were buying "a jet fighter for the road",
but were you?
So, James, you have a pilot's licence
and I believe you've been in a Typhoon, a fighter aircraft. Yes.
Is there anything in here that puts you in mind of that plane?
No. What, nothing?
No.
Is the key down here on a Typhoon?
No.
Do you have to lock the Typhoon in reverse before you take the key out?
No, it doesn't have reverse, as such. It has reverse thrust.
Yeah, but it doesn't have a reverse gear. It doesn't have a key, actually.
So, this is really not the same.
However, it does have a night panel button.
It shuts down all the dials apart from the speedo.
Now, I can see this would be useful if you were in
an F-14 over the Pacific
looking for the landing lights on your aircraft carrier.
But on the A38 outside Derby, why would you want that?
I used to worry it was all just broken anyway. How do you know?
I went in an F-15 once,
it was very different because nothing in here is covered in sick.
Even after Saab was taken over by General Motors in the late '80s,
their marketing men kept at it.
Breathtaking acceleration.
Here, an F-22 Raptor, not built by Saab, being used to advertise
what is basically a Vauxhall Cavalier.
Saab, pure driving pleasure.
So, Saab, a chequered history, bonkers advertising
and lots of harebrained ideas.
But for every idea they had that didn't work,
they had another which did.
Often brilliantly.
And one of the most brilliant ideas of them all was this.
The 99 Turbo.
Saab weren't the first to turbocharge a car,
that was Chevrolet and BMW and Porsche.
But they were the first to put a turbocharger on a mainstream car, which was this.
It was thanks to this car that everything in the '80s
went turbo-crazy.
The word "turbo" came to mean anything that was really good. It did.
I had a turbo vacuum cleaner, which was fair enough,
but my mate had turbo sunglasses!
It said it on the lens.
You also got turbo razors. Turbo aftershave.
Did you? Well, I didn't because I don't wear aftershave
because I'm not from Cheshire!
There was more, because you could even buy your Turbo
'with water injection.' I don't understand that.
I could explain it but you're not interested.
No, I am. You're not! I am interested.
Water injection in the inlet cools the charger
and it's the job later done by... I'm not interested!
All we need to know is that with water injection this
turbo-charged pocket rocket could get from 0 to 60 in eight seconds.
That's quick, even by today's standards.
It accelerates faster than a modern Mini Cooper. Yeah.
And a Renaultsport Twingo 133. This is a fast car.
It is quick.
Now, there is some Saab weirdness.
The steering wheel comes out of the dashboard at an angle.
It's like that. And there's a button here that says extra. Extra what?
It doesn't say. It just says extra. Try it. Ready? Yes.
You haven't got any more interesting or attractive!
Little details aside, this is a fantastic car.
This is a truly fantastic car. It's a legendary car.
I used to covet this massively.
It wasn't just the speed I liked, either.
Because when you look at the bumpers
sticking out like a spoiled child's bottom lip,
you get a sense the Scandinavian engineers
cared about the safety of you and your family.
I had my first proper road accident in one of these.
I was a passenger here on this side.
I was only 17 and it belonged to my girlfriend's dad.
It was quite a rare car and it was lovely, white with a blue stripe.
The interior was this brick-red dusty colour.
And it was a really nice car. We went around a roundabout
and a car coming up the road didn't stop and T-boned us here.
I was perfectly OK. You would be in a Saab. What was the girl called?
Uh...
Kate? No...
You can remember the Saab had brick red upholstery and had a blue stripe
and where you were sitting but not the name of the girlfriend.
Was she called Derek?!
Because this car was fast and safe and a bit left-field,
it brought the Saab brand to the attention of
a very specific type of customer.
A customer who has remained loyal ever since.
This person likes Audis.
This one likes Ferraris.
This one likes the bus.
This one has a Honda.
He has a Peugeot.
And then this chap with the black polo neck
and the thin specs.
He is an architect, and he likes Saabs.
♪ All the leaves are brown... ♪
Research has shown that Saab drivers are the best educated people on the roads.
The 99 gave Saab customers other companies could only dream about.
This car, then, was Saab's Dark Side Of The Moon.
Their first big hit, the one we all remember.
None of the models that followed the 99 Turbo appeared to have quite the same appeal.
But they did.
'What we have here is a 1980s BMW
'hanging upside down eight feet from the ground.
'And what we are going to do is drop it.'
You wouldn't want to be in that if it fell from a crane upside down.
If you were Richard Hammond, you'd be all right.
Yeah, that's toast. The steering wheel is touching the ceiling.
'So, let's see what happens
'when we drop a 1980s Saab 900 from the same height.'
God, I really wouldn't have believed that.
I would not have believed that in a million years. Look at that.
I think you could get out as well. That is stunning.
Saab made the pillars so strong that when they went rallying
they didn't have to fit a roll cage. Is that true? Yeah.
They had to fit one because of regulations but it wasn't necessary.
I was talking the other day
to a friend who is a senior designer with another Swedish car company
and he said nobody could ever work out why Saab cost so much until they crashed it.
Saab were always pathological about safety.
Before putting a car on sale they made sure it could survive just about anything.
Even a head-on collision with a moose.
This attention to detail caused a few problems
when they conceived the 9000.
Because, to save costs, it was designed in tandem
with the Lancia Thema.
The idea was that behind the different badges
and underneath the bodies, the cars would actually be the same.
And it seemed like they were - up until the point that they were crash-tested.
Lancia's engineers described the results as perfect.
Saab's engineers described them as - I'm quoting directly here - "not good at all."
And from that moment on, the joint venture completely fell apart.
The Saab ended up with much bigger wheels than the Lancia.
It was also made out of thicker steel
and had a completely different rear axle.
Sticking to principles like that is expensive.
Saab was losing money hand over fist on every car it made.
Even advertising it as a jet fighter for the road didn't help.
Saab 9000.
So, in 1989, Saab was bailed out by General Motors.
To try and larch some fiscal sense into them,
a team executives from GM went over to Sweden and said,
"This is a Cavalier from our Vauxhall division."
"To make your new car, you change the body and the badges. That's it."
Nice and cheap. Body and badges.
Saab ignored them so completely that their new 900
shared only a third of its components with the Cavalier.
When the time came to replace the 900 with the 93,
the General Motors executives went to Sweden again and said,
"Here is the Vauxhall Vectra. This time we mean it.
"Only change the body and the badges. Nothing else."
Guess what? The Swedes went even more mental.
They changed so much that even the wheelbase was different.
At one point, a General Motors accountant went to Sweden
to see why Saab was costing them so much money.
He got into the new 93, turned on the Sat Nav
and thought, "Wait a minute, that's not one of our systems."
He was right, it wasn't.
Saab had developed, at vast expense, their own system
because they thought GM's wasn't good enough.
Eventually, General Motors had had enough.
In 2010, as Saab was finishing the job
of turning the Vauxhall Insignia into the completely different 95,
the Detroit giants pulled the plug.
The brand itself will have some residual value,
the company's facilities are likely to be broken up and sold.
At the last minute, a buyer was found,
a Dutchman who owned a small car company called Spyker.
To get the money rolling in,
he needed to get the new 95 into the showrooms as quickly as possible.
That meant it went on sale before it was finished.
And that meant it was a commercial flop.
And so in January of this year, Saab closed down for good.
So, this is the last ever Saab that we are in right now. Yeah.
This is the final chapter. I really like the way they did things.
I am going to miss Saab. It is a sad day. It is sad.
It is a sad day, too, for the Swedish town of Trollhattan
where for 60 years the workforce has tried to be different, to be better.
To think outside the box.
And, of course, it's very sad for our architect friend who,
from now on, will have to buy a five series.
Still, there's one crumb of comfort because let's not forget
whose engines powered the first-ever jet fighter.
BMW.
Genuinely sad.
You ought to know that the Messerschmitt 262
was supposed to use BMW engines but it didn't work.
It had Junker's engines when it went into action.
James, we haven't got time for your precise history of aviation since 1944!
What I'm interested in, those architects who've got Saabs today,
if the company has gone, will they be able to keep their cars on the road?
Well, you might imagine
if you had a Saab you could take it to a Vauxhall dealer
but because Saab changed so much, you may as well take it to WHSmith.
They would be more likely to be able to service it. The good news is
a new company has started up specifically to
provide parts for Saabs.
If you are an architect, fingers crossed, you should be OK for a bit.
That's the second week on the trot we have ended with a useful piece of consumer advice!
It's weird. And on that bombshell, it is time to end.
Thank you so much for watching. Good night!
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