Richard Hammond quotes from Top Gear

Richard

Oh my Lord.

James

What do you reckon?

Jeremy

He was fine... until the door slammed, and now he looks like a berk.

Jeremy

So the rally team got the car changed in...

Richard

Twenty-seven minutes.

Jeremy

Twenty-seven minutes - and the women took...

Richard

Don't know, got bored, we left. To be honest, we packed up everything, stuff in the van, off, still going, talking, things like that.

Jeremy

I don't think men and women should be allowed to go out with one another.

Richard

I don't think it works!

Jeremy

Men should go out with men.

Richard

You're making me nervous. Stop it!

Jeremy

I don't want to go home tonight and find my front door's moved, and that all my children are badgers and that I'm married to Frank Bruno! I don't want it to change everything.

Richard

And this'd be a gardening program and we shouldn't be talking about that anyway.

Jeremy

Well, exactly! And do you know, the thing is, that - you know those advertising standard authorities? They always say you've got to be, what are they, truthful... ?

James

Hang on, it's: [ticking them off on his fingers] Decent, honest, legal, truthful.

Jeremy

So that advert must be true.

James

That would be great! You could buy the Lexus, and then you'd wake up the next day and it would've changed into a Jaguar! With a bit of luck.

Jeremy

And it's left-hand drive, which means you're a cheapskate. The thing is -

Richard

[laughing] That is so true.

Jeremy

He's never overtaken anyone. "Is it safe? Is it safe?"

Richard

That's what passengers are for.

James

You're not seriously suggesting that this... revolting, plastic fronted piece of pig-iron is a serious alternative to something like an X5?

Jeremy

Size is important in these things. [beams]

Richard

That's a little harsh.

Jeremy

The thing is that Nissan have now said, "Aha, but the car you drove was sort of for a, I don't know, a small market in the south of France or somewhere." The British ones, which are going on sale in...

Richard

'Bout, September, autumn sometime.

Jeremy

Yeah, September, October - are going to have better suspension, bigger fuel tank, different aerodynamics, better interior trim, traction control as standard - going to be completely different.

Richard

Which rather begs the question, why did they say "There's our new car! See what you think. It won't be anything like that, obviously, but there it is anyway."

Richard

I'm not sure this was such a smart idea.

James

Why, do you think they just think we're a pair of screaming -

Richard

Well, exactly.

James

Yes.

James

You're not going to get this, I know, but that car, it's small, it's silly, all it does is make the rest of the world massive. You know like the Incredible Shrinking Man in that film, where the telephone keeps getting bigger in his hand?

Jeremy

No.

James

All right.

Jeremy

But I'm sure it happened, I'm not saying it didn't happen, I just don't remember it.

James

OK, well, it's a bit like that. You sort of drive around amongst these massive road signs and huge hatchbacks, it's absolutely brilliant.

Richard

Can't say I noticed it myself, I thought it was all right, but, um...

Jeremy

It's not so much a car as a shoe.

James

All right, look, here's a proper piece of British ingenuity: a bloke called Geoff, he's made a steam-powered bicycle after 30 years' work. He started work on it in 1972. Roughly 250 years after the steam engine was invented.

Richard

It's not really on the cutting edge, is it.

James

Well, what this bloke has done, he has taken one old technology, one outdated technology, he's combined them to create something genuinely useless. It's brilliant!

Jeremy

They're saying it's an "urban on-roader". If we analyze that, an "urban on-roader" is a car designed to go on the road in town. So... it's a car. Isn't it.

Richard

Essentially, yes.

Jeremy

[consulting press release] They are saying that: it has got a split folding rear seat...

James

Like a car.

Jeremy

Yeah. It's available with a selection of petrol and diesel power units...

Richard

Well, that is clever.

James

Like a car.

Richard

Yeah, yeah.

Jeremy

... various transmissions, three trim levels...

James

Car-like.

Jeremy

Yup, very car-like... "It's fun to drive, handy in traffic, easy to park and and able to shrug off hard use by active individuals and young families."

Richard

They've put some thought into this, haven't they?

Jeremy

"Has elements of the SUV appeal," no it doesn't, it's not four-wheel-drive, "with good ground clearance and ruggedness but without the cost and complexity of 4x4 transmission."

James

It's a car.

Jeremy

It's a car. "At the same time it offers good all-round performance and capability out of town, from motorways to farm tracks!"

Richard

[impressed] So you can drive out of town as well!

Jeremy

It's not just an urban on-roader, it's a motorway on-roader as well! And it can do farm tracks, but nothing too difficult, OK?

James

Right, the news, and we begin today with a, well, probably the best piece of news I've ever heard since I was born. An event, in fact, which eclipses the very miracle of my birth.

Richard

Hang on, the best piece of news you've ever heard ever?

Jeremy

What is it?

James

[beaming] They're going to stop making the Beetle.

Richard

And that's it.

James

That is fantastic. No, the old one. They're still making it until the 30th of July and then it stops forever.

Richard

And why is that so good?

Jeremy

Why do you hate it so much?

James

Do you really want me to do it?

Jeremy

Well, no, just... I can't imagine...

James

OK. It's a rubbish car.

Richard

That's incisive.

James

That's the first thing, it's a rubbish car. Secondly, it was a scandal. OK? That car was stolen from a Czech bloke called Ledwinka, I think, by Hitler and his henchmen, they put it into production, they stole money off the German people to build it and to build a factory, they never got a car, instead they used the factory and slave Russian labor from the Eastern front -

Jeremy

You can't blame a car for Hitler!

Jeremy

I went up the hill in the - there's a hill that you basically drive the, all the cars go up - and I went up in the McLaren Mercedes.

Jeremy

The new SLR.

Richard

Yeah. Stunning thing. And?

Jeremy

Well, I was still a bit drunk, so I have - there it is, look - um, I think... I have... I dunno.

James

So hang on, it - so you're probably the first UK journalist to get in that car.

Jeremy

Yeah.

James

We've been talking about it for what now, two years, probably?

Richard

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James

And you went up the hill... drunk... waving at MacPherson Strut or whatever her name is out of the window.

Jeremy

I wasn't driving it, I was slumped in the passenger seat.

James

Oh, well, that's all right, then! Who was driving it?

Richard

Can you tell us anything about it?

Jeremy

It made a jolly loud noise in the condition I was in, that was for sure. It sounded like a Messerschmitt had mated with a Spitfire.

Richard

To your drunken brain at the time.

Jeremy

[imitates engine noise], only louder than that.

Richard

You wouldn't make much of a war correspondent, would you, standing there in war-torn wherever with a desolated landscape, "So, Jeremy, what happened?" "Dunno! Drunk, missed it. Found it like this."

Jeremy

We get a hundred million letters every week from women complaining about their men's love of cars.

Richard

This is true. We do.

Jeremy

We don't write to Trinny and Susannah on What Not to Wear and complain about women coming out of changing rooms going, "This dress is perfect and I like the color, I'll try something else on."

Richard

No we don't.

Jeremy

Isn't the Isle of Man just amazing?

Richard

It's fabulous! It's like someone's gone out and designed Top Gear Fantasy Island specially for us!

James

Oh, if the Isle of Man was this great, I'd be absolutely blown away by the Isle of Woman.

Richard

Yes, the kippers were good --

Jeremy

Yes, but there's no speed limits here, James! "Ooh I know, but the kippers!"

James

I'd rather the pussy cat than the kipper.

Richard

They were good, though!

James

The reason the Porsche, I think, is the best car is, you know when you drive some cars, you get a, a sense that the car is smiling, when you're driving?

Richard

What on Earth are you talking about?