Welcome to Season Ten! Regrettably, no Polar Special, but perhaps in the future. Also new is Hammond’s haircut–it’s longer now and a bit floppy; a slightly more couth version of May’s “style”. Also new is the set: between Series 9 and 10, a fire crisped their set (Clarkson blames Channel 5,) which now looks to be furnished with cast-offs from somebody’s grandma.

Clarkson: Hello and welcome to Top Gear. Now–thank  you–now in the current climate, I think it’s very important to reassure you that everything you see on this show is for real. Hammond, standing on an equipment case so that for once he’s taller than Clarkson: Yes. Nothing on this show is faked. In any way. Clarkson takes it up again: Which makes it even more amazing when you see what we’ve got lined up for you over the next ten weeks.

We’re given a sneak peek, which includes the endurance race, the African special, and amphibious cars, part 2.

Hammond: Right! On with tonight. Clarkson: Yes, yes indeed. Every year, the world’s Golf GTI enthusiasts congregate in a field in Austria and they talk about fuel injections, wear jumpers with “GTI” on them, and frankly, I’d rather blowtorch my nipples off, but Volkswagen every year sends them a little present, a concept car of some kind, to say thank you for your loyalty. This year, though, disaster. Volkswagen forgot. Eight weeks to go, and they had to build something, anything to keep the fans happy. (Onscreen, we get flashes of a car going by on a track.) Luckily, Volkswagen owns lots of other car companies: Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Skoda, Audi, and Seat. So they had a big bin to rummage around in for parts. What they did then, with the clock ticking, was to take the rear axle and brakes from a Lamborghini Gallardo, the twin turbo-charged W12 engine from a Bentley Continental, and the rear subframe and sort of floor from an Audi R8 and then they put all these bits and pieces  in the body of a Golf. And here it is. It’s called the GTI W12, and unlike most concept cars, it actually works. Sort of. We’re treated to car porn shots of the dubious white GTI W12.

Clarkson explains a few issues. The paddles on the wheel for the gearbox don’t work, the climate control doesn’t work, some switches also don’t work, and the sat-nav thinks it’s in Germany, so it doesn’t really work either. It does have a 6 L 640 horsepower, 12 cylinder engine that goes 0-60 in 3.5 seconds with a top speed of 202, so that’s excellent. It’s 6 inches wider and 3 inches lower than a normal Golf. The roof is carbon fiber. There are these massive intake vents on the sills to cool down the engine, which has been placed in the rear seat. It looks Golf-ish but it isn’t. Clarkson says that it isn’t a particularly savage car, but it has quite a surge of power. He’s zipping along the track: “It’s an insane car, this. Opening up a Golf to find it has 640 hp is like going up to Gordon Brown’s trousers to find he’s  wearing stockings and suspenders. Mad.” I have to say, it is crazy ugly. The skirts all around, the big fat bottom-heavy look, the tires visually dominated by the spokes on the wheels are all just bad news. I do think it’s ripe for a conversion of some sort; perhaps Clarkson’s entry in stretch limos revisited?

But the real problem is that it can’t corner for anything. Indeed the understeer is terrible and actually vile; Clarkson usually finds himself backward once he’s come out of a corner. Because of the short wheel base and rear wheel drive, Clarkson tells us that it demands some delicacy in the driving. Which, plainly, he doesn’t have. Shots of him understeering wildly careen across the screen. Try as he might, he can’t get the car to come out of a turn forward. He swears but it doesn’t help. The kindest thing he can say about it is that the brakes and suspension aren’t finished yet.

Back in the studio, May wants to be absolutely clear on one point: This isn’t actually going on sale, is it. Clarkson: No, Volkswagen sent it to us because they said if people like it, we’d put it into production. May: Well, they won’t get encouragement from me, to be honest. That is ghastly. Clarkson:…I can’t see the point  saying, “I’ve got a supercar and it the great thing is, it looks like a Golf!” That’s like saying “I’m married to a supermodel and the great thing is, she looks like a traffic warden!”

Clarkson: Some say that his scrotum has its own small gravity field, and that because our producer rigged a phone vote, he now has a new name. All we know is he’s called Cuddles.

The stereo in the GTI doesn’t work either, so there’s no soothing audio for the Stig.  Even the Stig can’t completely tame the ferocious underseer that is the GTI W12, and loses speed. But notice how he never loses control of the car; Clarkson was just too aggressive with it. He’s also got some oversteer now which is bad. He takes Gambon rather gingerly and finishes in 1:29:6, quite unimpressive, but at least we can quit this ungainly monstrosity.  Summing up, Clarkson puts it succinctly: if you want a slow car that looks like a Golf, get a Golf. Words to live by.

May strolls through the crowd: Right. It’s time for a question. The question is, where is the best driving road in the world? Something that has everything. The challenging bends, no traffic, great views, the long fast straights, the lot. Clarkson joins him at a series of maps to critique the planet’s land masses. The perfect driving road isn’t in the New World, cause everybody in America flies, and in South America does drugs, Africa is full of ox, Al Gore says that the Antarctica is gone, Australia’s overrun with spiders, Japan’s signposts are all full of gibberish, the Americans will shoot you in Iraq, and Asia is full of communists. Hammond, who’s been sputtering in protest for awhile, finally breaks in: We discussed this at length and eventually decided that the best driving road in the world was probably somewhere in continental Europe. Specifically, around here. The Alps.  Then we decided that the best thing for us to do was to go there and see if we could find it.

The quest begins in the hills above Monte Carlo, in the south of France. They’re lovely hills, all green and wreathed in mist. Hammond: Obviously, you can’t go looking for the best driving road in the world in a Japanese hatchback or a people carrier. So what we thought we’d do is bring along a selection of the new generation of lightened supercars. Of course they did.

We’re viewing a bright green Porsche 911 GT3 Rs, chosen, obviously, by Hammond. He describes it thusly: a lighter, tauter version of the 911, and the RS is a lighter, tauter version of the GT3. So this is the ultimate version of the ultimate version of the ultimate version of the world’s ultimate supercar.

Unsurprisingly, Clarkson disagrees with this description and stands by his selection: a bright mango-orange Lambo, which is also unsurprising. Clarkson: No, it isn’t. The ultimate F plan supercar is what I’ve brought along: the Lambo Gallardo Super Legera, and it’s like a normal Gallardo, but it’s 100 kg lighter and the V10 engine is  a bit more powerful. That is quite a recipe.

May scorns this: Yes, I suppose it is if you’re a fat, middle-aged bloke who wants to bore everybody about the tracks you’ve been on. As you’d expect, I’ve done it properly. I’ve got a proper, gentleman’s racer: The Aston Martin V8 Vantage N24. It’s a bright yellow, and has a Union Jack on the left rear quarter panel along with “J. May”.

Hammond (supressing hoots of laughter): James, that is just a racing car.

Clarkson: It hasn’t got anything in it at all. It hasn’t even got a passenger seat.

May defends his selection: This isn’t just some road car Porsche with a bit of scaffolding in the back. It’s 250 kg lighter than the standard car. That’s the weight of a big motorcycle.

Hammond: So you’ve got no radio. May: No.

Clarkson: You’ve got no carpet. May: No.

Hammond: No air conditioning. May: No.

Clarkson: You have got a car with no air conditioning in the south of France in the middle of summer. Hammond chortles: It’s better than that. His windows don’t open. May: Yes they do, actually. Hammond cracks up:That’s a cat flap!

Clarkson and Hammond taunt May a little bit more about the air-conditioning situation before getting into their cars and starting off. May is left behind, fussing with buttons and switches. He finally gets the engine going, and it does sound lovely. Strapping himself into the restraints, he must be exhausted by the pre-flight checks because we hear him mutter, “Oh, God.”

We’re treated to some lightweight supercar porn on the motorway. Three minutes in, and Clarkson adores his car. Hammond: So much fun! Ha ha! When May finally catches up, they turn off the motorway and begin their quest. It doesn’t take long; they find themselves on Col de Turin, which is quiet and beautiful until they arrive. The road is quite twisty and the surroundings quite gorgeously green. Clarkson enthuses some more about the Lambo, Hammond twitters in delight, and May feels superior about his stripped-out car. Air conditioning is heavy and saps power from the engine; fuel consumption is higher, it spoils acceleration and  upsets the handling. Lightweight car = more fun driving. This particular road is used as a special stage of the Monte Carlo Rally. Hammond describes it as being busy,  twisty, low walls to go over, and huge drops to kill you with ease. May is crawling up the incline, sweating. Hammond loves the hairpin turns. Clarkson rhapsodizes aout pretty much everything. May keeps hitting his elbows on something hard and there’s an obnoxious squeaking.

Clarkson and Hammond are so far ahead that they pull off the road. Clarkson asks: How’s your Beetle? Hammond: Fine, thank you; how’s your Audi? Cut to May and his litany of discomforts: Hot, uncomfortable, numb buttocks, crushed testicles, sweaty shirt, smelly pits. Back on the side of the road, Hammond is perched on a wall so he is higher up than Clarkson, and they discuss the cost of their cars. The Lambo is 26 grand more and the Porsche 15000 than the standard versions of their cars. Meanwhile, May: I’m beginning to go slightly faint as a result of my dehydration. My eardrums are bleeding and my pelvis has been turned to dust. It’s going to kill me.  He finally catches up and gets out of the Aston quite gingerly, muttering, “Oh, testicles.” His first words to his copresenters: That is unbelievably good. Right. What do we think about that road? Clarkson: You didn’t want to talk about your car, then, James? May: No, car’s excellent. Clarkson persevers: You know you’ve made a mistake, didn’t you.

They discuss where to go now. Clarkson proposes Italy, Hammond Switzerland, and May Austria, for the smooth roads. Italy has bumpy roads. That determines the choice; Hammond accedes to Italy, and they’re off.

Clarkson hears a beep, which signals that he’s low on gas already. May is in acute discomfort and says grimly that he has to do something to get the seat higher; he’s feeling like an 85-year old man. Clarkson runs out of gas before the next service station. The camera crew has extra fuel, but he can’t get it into the Lambo because the fuel door won’t open. Hammond pulls up and observes the situation: Oh, dear. Clarkson: Nice view, here–and points off. Hammond: So you thought you’d stop and admire it. Clarkson: Yeah. I might need your help…there might be a problem. Hammond: What? Clarkson: Fuel filler cap won’t open. Hammond pauses a moment: See you in Italy. Drives off, laughing like a loon. Clarkson is forced to consult the instruction manual, which is in Italian. He doesn’t read Italian. Ultimately, however, he is victorious and they regroup and rejoin the motorway along the Italian Riviera.

Just in time for a long tunnel. The acoustics are incredible, and the sound of the three different engines is fierce and awesome. I must say that I’m gripped with the visceral need to go to Europe, rent a supercar and go blazing through that tunnel.

Clarkson is out of gas again; he gets about 9 miles to the gallon. May is pleased since the Aston has a 110 liter endurance fuel tank. Clarkson seems a bit stung, and offers his slipstream for the use of the others. Hammond bristles like a terrier: In no way have I lacked in power to keep up with this thing.  Oh, the manly posturing. The Porsche has 415 hp vs 552 for the Lambo. Nobody discusses the Aston. Hammond: It’s how it uses it, it’s how it deploys them.  May sides with Hammond, further irritating Clarkson. His top speed is 195, vs 185-ish for the Porsche and 175 for the Aston. May calls the Lambo half-hearted and limp-wristed; Hammond grins and mentions to May that some compromise on his car might be worthwhile, but May lies his head off and stoutly avers that he loves his car. Clarkson goes in for the kill: In fact, he loves it so much he bought it a present. May is forced to reveal a nice, plump cushion. Clarkson nails him on the extreme discomfort his car provides, and Hammond jests that it’s a scatter cushion to improve the interior design. May moans in relief: So much nicer! My poor buttocks!  They line up, three abreast, on the motorway; competitively, Clarkson and Hammond pull away to race. Clarkson cackles; he’s in the lead.  Hammond says that the Lambo and the Porsche are very close and the Aston very slow; he didn’t expect that.  They’re headed for the Italian Lakes and plan to stop for the night in Vercelli. Clarkson has booked the hotel; it’s not very nice and he anticipates shouting.

They stop in an open, extremely graffitied car park. Hammond: Tell me we’ve stopped here to steal some wheels or something.  Clarkson: It could be worse. Hammond: How could it be worse? That’s the motorway! May gets a dig in too: Jeremy, I’ve always wanted to stay in the Italian Lakes. Hammond, cuttingly: So we’re carrying on by bicycle tomorrow. Because these will be stolen, obviously.  There’s more scoffing at May’s lack of lock or ignition key for the Aston.

Back in the studio, May laments the hotel’s lack of a bar, restaurant, and air-conditioning in the rooms. Hammond taunts that it was like being in his car. So they left the camera crew in the sweaty hell of Vercelli and drove on to the lakes. In the north. Clarkson, however, took them north-east. 200 km in the wrong direction. Clarkson rushes to put his spin on: But we found a hotel in the end and all was well. Hammond accuses: You ruined our holiday! Clarkson, marginally contrite: I did ruin your holiday and I’m very  sorry about that. But we must now move on.

Clarkson: The SHRPC once said that she and her husband set their alarm clock an hour early every morning so they’d have a chance to make love before going to work. Much like James May, although of course, he lives alone. (May raises his eyebrows) Ladies and gentlemen, star of everything that matters, Dame Helen Mirren! 

We learn that her husband’s an American; she thought Clarkson would really like LA because people tend to live in their cars there. She says that Clarkson reminds her of Paris Hilton, because he’s uber-male and she’s uber-female–two sides of the same coin. Clarkson: But I don’t put naked pictures of myself on the internet. Maybe I’ll give it a whirl. (God, no! My eyes!)  Mirren: To be fair, neither did she… Clarkson: He’s a tit, Paris, if you’re watching. Have sex without a camera.  On to cars: Mirren has had some bad luck with cars and currently doesn’t own one; she uses public transport. She has to explain this exotic concept to Clarkson.  When asked, she’s very dismissive of supercars and middle-aged owners; she says something that is bleeped out by the censors. Clarkson is taken aback, but recovers: Hammond’s got one. Mirrin: He’s not a pillock; he’s a nice guy, and I’m sorry, Richard. Clarkson, apparently having forgotten that women will give Hammond a pass for just about anything up to and including triple homicide: I thought he was a pillock.  Her lap was many things, including terrifying, adrenaline-pumping, and fabulous. Off to an aggressive start, she repeats the Stig’s instructions around the track and ends at 1:52:8.

Back to Italy. The lakes are gorgeous; the roads are not. They are being worked on, which makes the lads cross. May and Hammond are tearing thin strips out of Clarkson, both for the last night’s adventure and the current state of the road. Much profanity has to be redacted. I am amused by the range of profanity; much broader than what I tend to use. I feel there might be a crossness due to lack-of-sleep issue as well. There are speedbumps, which for Hammond is the final straw: I’m exploring the limits of grip here. They load onto a ferry, which is even slower, but must be cooler, at least for May.  When the ferry docks, May reluctantly gets into his mobile slice of damnation to find that it won’t start. He has to get off first and is holding up the rest of the ferry–horns blare, officials gesture. Eventually they resort to pushing it off. Clarkson also has some trouble getting the Lambo off, but eventually they’re all on terra firma and sally forth. The road is boring, but they head north to Switzerland. The scenery is gorgeous, with lovely waterfalls on the San Bernardino Pass. Hammond puts the hammer down in glee. Clarkson predicts that the Swiss will view these three cars as though the Antichrist, but is too happy to care. May freshens up a bit with a can of deodorant. The road is smooth and elegant.

They end up in Lichtenstein. The only thing Clarkson knows about it is that they make more false teeth here than anywhere else in the world, and speculates that this is why Hammond brought them here.They pull over outside the museum so that May and Hammond can consult the map. Clarkson reads a researcher’s fun facts about Lichtenstein: the last country in Europe to give women the vote in 1984, the entire population would fit into Cardiff’s Millenium Stadium  with 39500 seats to spare; there are more companies than people, and it’s a tax haven. Hammond’s been ignoring him and finds a likely candidate road on the map: That is a killer stretch of road. That is a beauty. May: Shall we try each other’s cars for this bit? Clarkson: What? May: Why don’t we try each other’s cars? Clarkson, undeceived: No, I really like this one, mate.  May is stuck with the Aston. Clarkson: This, theoretically, is the start of the greatest driving road in the world. Whoops, though, there’s a bike race and the road is closed. Hammond: I fear I might have made a slight mistake here. Clarkson: Where do you want to go now? May: Austria. Hammond: Oh, God. Clarkson, rudely: You go to Austria. We can’t smell your pits from there. I’m going to Italy.

Reluctantly, they head south, stopping for the night in Davos, Switzerland. In three countries, there was one stretch of good road; a bad day. To make themselves feel better, Clarkson and Hammond vandalize the Aston, removing the “J. May” and spelling out “K.Nob.” Hammond: Sounds like a racing driver’s name. Clarkson chortles: And he’s bought us a drink.  Laughing, they hustle across the street to the hotel.

The next morning, they continue south and can’t quite believe what they’ve stumbled across. Hammond: Mile after mile of deserted perfection. Even Jeremy had to concede I was right about Switzerland. Clarkson rhapsodizes: This is absolute heaven! Hammond: This is much more like it! Clarkson: That was God thinking of when he gave the Swiss this place? Plainly, it should be ours.  Hammond: This road was a test of brakes, steering, grip, power, and handling. An ideal place then to reflect on the cars we’d brought on our motoring holiday. To the accompaniment of a stacatto drumline, they power through the challenges of the road. Hammond practically has an orgasm over the Porsche: Everything about this car has now come alive. It’s suddenly in its element. God, this thing just tracks so perfectly. May, trapped in the 21st century wheeled version of a torture chamber: I wonder how much more of this I have to endure before I can admit this is a terrible car and that I hate it and that I want to go home. Clarkson: It’s actually a physically pleasurable sensation that runs up your arm when you turn the wheel…Jeremy Clarkson today married a Lamborghini and moved to Switzerland…We’d all pretty much decided that we’d found driving heaven. Well, two of us had. But then we popped over the border and into Italy. We found a cherry for the top of our cake.  Stelvio Pass. Fifteen miles of asphalt spaghetti draped on an Alp. It is just stunning. The three gaze down a valley in silence, absorbing the beauty. Clarkson: Shall we do it? They’re back in the cars; we get closeups of the cars, bug-splattered road warriors. Clarkson: Here we go. There are cameras mounted on the sides of the cars close to the pavement; they show really rough roads and tight turns. Hammond: The drops, impossible! You go over the edge here, you’ve got time to phone the insurers. May: There’s no other way of saying it; this is a magnificent piece of road building. Clarkson: “Not like Playstation, this–you can’t just hit the reset button when you get it wrong. You just go through the Pearly Gates on fire.” May: I hate to admit it, but this Aston is starting to make a certain amount of good sense. Even the brakes have stopped squeaking.  They climb past 8000 feet. Hammond admits: I think at this altitude, the Lambo has got the advantage. I shall solve that though with some bravery. Clarkson: This is hard work. If I had no air conditioning, I’d look ridiculous now. Cut to May, sitting buck naked in the Aston, pouring water over himself. In voiceover, Clarkson: “What an extraordinary road. Thank you, Italy…We finished our run and as the cars ticked themselves cool, we knew their work was done. Our quest was at an end. Davos to Stelvio. The greatest driving road in the world.” We finish with more shots of the cars easing through the countryside.

In the studio, the lads sum things up. Clarkson: So there you are. If you’re thinking of going on holiday next year, forget Center Parks, just go there. Hammond: Yes. Now, the cars. So, James. May (forcefully): No. They laugh. Hammond: I thought the Porsche was fantastic; I loved it. But the thing for me about that car, the main problem is, I still don’t see why it’s 15000 more for the RS version than the ordinary GT3. Clarkson: I have to say the same thing. On the Lambo, I can’t belive I wouldn’t have had as much fun in a normal Gallardo. The other thing as well, if you’re going to do a special edition Lamborghini, don’t take stuff off, put stuff on, like space thrusters and machine guns, becaues that’s what Lamborghinis are all about. May: So hang on, we took three cars on holiday and they were all wrong. Clarkson: Mmm. Hammond, strangely elated: Yes. We’re back in business! Clarkson: Yeah. Top Gear, ambitious but rubbish. (More and more, I want that line on a tshirt.) Hammond: That’s us. Clarkson: And more of that next week. See you then. Good night!

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