Scenes with Richard Hammond 464
[May has a coughing fit as the Porsche Panamera appears on the TV.]
RichardYou all right?
'Scuse me - no, I'm going to die now.
Is it this, has this made you feel sick?
I was going to say, that's exactly what it is - I looked at that and it nearly killed me, it's so awful.
[...]
What gets me is, who's going to say of this, "No, no, I don't want the Maserati Quattroporte or, what, you know that four-door Lamborghini we had in the studio last week, do you remember? Who's going to say, "No, I want this instead"? That's like being offered the choice of marrying two women, one of them unkind and ugly, and the other beautiful with a heart of gold, and saying, "No, I want the brutal minger."
[Jeremy has proposed putting giant magnets on the front of cars to avert collisions, and a member of the audience has pointed out another benefit]
The man here - doesn't look bright - he's just pointed out that you'd be driving along, every screw and nail [pantomimes road debris adhering to the bumper magnet] doonk, doonk, doonk, on the front, you'd never get a puncture!
Richard
Along with the manhole covers and signposts! And the railings! And traffic lights! And dogs with metal collars on! And skips!
[During the Cool Wall segment, Jeremy asks the audience about the Morgan Aeromax]
Do you find him attractive?
WIWoman in the audience
I came with them.
Richard
Is everybody all together?
WIWoman in the audience
He brought me...
What the hell accent's that?
WIWoman in the audience
(blushing) I'm American...
You're American? You can't be, you're nowhere near fat enough!
[Audience laughs]
You're American? Welcome ... Welcome to the free world, you'll like it here.
[During the Cool Wall segment, Jeremy tries to guess what car people drive from the shoes they wear]
[Camera pans over to a pair of orange leather shoes]
OH MY GOD, WHAT KIND OF AN IDIOT-- oh, hello James.
[A little later]
This year a motoring icon is celebrating its fortieth birthday.
No, he's thirty eight. Same as he was last year, and the year before. Mind you, it's his birthday next week, isn't it?
Oh it is actually, then he'll be thirty eight.
Richard
Yes, alright, funny, funny.
Thirty eight year old Richard Hammond!
Richard
I am! Thank you, very much.
[At the start of the news]
And now the news. And it's great news, ladies and gentlemen! It's news to warm the hearts of nations: Jeremy Clarkson has lost his voice! [Audience cheers and applauds]
Richard
Mate, sorry. I know, imagine how we feel. They're gutted mate, they're gutted. But the good news is that means we can talk about whatever we like and say what we like.
[Jeremy pulls a sad face]
Richard
Yeah, yeah, whatever...
[Croakily] Can I just say...
Richard
Ooh, it speaks! Or sort of squeaks.
[Jeremy tries to speak but has trouble]
Richard
Ooh, that's just a noise. Are you deflating?
[Jeremy pulls out a bottle and sprays it in his mouth]
Richard
What's that? [Reading from the bottle] Synthetic saliva?
It means I just have a few minutes of speaking.
Richard
Oh, so you like - you need more saliva? Well ladies and gentlemen I have no doubt we can oblige with that! How do you know it's synthetic and it isn't just some bloke... [Imitates spitting into a bottle] Bottle it!
You can shut up for a kick off as well.
Richard
What noise is that you're making?
[Pointing to May] Have you seen his eye? He's got the biggest eye infection I've ever seen. At least I don't look like a mutant.
Richard
Has it come to this?! I'm working with these two. This isn't a television program anymore; it's a colony!
I tell you what, instead of hurling abuse at each other, why [coughs] -- excuse me -- why don't we do the news?
[later in the news]
Do you remember Chevrolet in the early Corvettes, they had a little dial that showed you how many revs the engine had done. From new.
What, going around at five thousand RPM, be going rrrrr...! It would have to be this... [holds out arms] be wider than the car just to get the dial in!
Well, I worked it out for my old Porsche, actually.
My old Porsche's twenty five years old -- I worked out it had done 8.4 times ten to the eight (8.4x10^8 = 840 million) revs since...
Richard
You worked that out? For -- your -- car? You spent time -- WOW! So you must actually have done everything there is to do in the whole world to get to the bottom of the list of everything a human being can do -- what's it like on the top of Everest? Is it good?
Richard -- I went to a dinner party the other day and I sat next to a girl who said she couldn't believe that James May was still single.
Richard
There's your answer!
[Introducing Jeremy's road test of the Ford Fiesta]
Richard
Now - every week on Top Gear we get a stack of letters. But this week one in particular caught our eye. It's from a Mister Needham and it says "Why do you not test cars properly any more? Have you forgotten how?".
Now this really hurt us, so we decided to take the new Ford Fiesta and do a proper road test. Like they used to on Top Gear in the old days.
Richard
Yeah, to be honest we were quite looking forward to it. But then at the very last minute, Jeremy came in and said he wanted to do it.
Grandparents, if you've got grandkids that like cars, what they like is cars, okay. They don't like towels with car names written on them.
Exactly with this sort of thing you can buy a bottle of red wine for 2.99, 3.99 in the shops. If you get a bottle of red wine with the Alfa Romeo logo on it, it's 15 quid.
Oh I can beat that May. This is an ice scraper OK. It's covered in Santa's pubes, it's got SAAB written on it... £38.50.
It's given us an idea. [produces a plate of vomit, to groans from the audience] See this? It is a plate of sick. Now it is utterly worthless. But if I just pop a BMW badge on it, £13.80.
Richard
[produces a false arm clad in a baggy purple sleeve] It does work, this sort of branding. This wizard's sleeve for instance.[Clarkson laughs madly] Absolutely WORTHLESS, but it bears a Ferrari badge. 45 pounds. [Audience pays attention to what James has]
[holds up a fencing foil with a load of sausages speared on it] This pork sword...
Richard
No!
James don't do the pork sword! [holds up a stuffed chicken] This cock...
Richard
Has it got four rings on it?
Yes it has! Put this cock in your wizard's sleeve
Richard
Thank you
It's all gone horribly wrong.
[After testing their V8 rocking chair]
It hasn't worked, because the noise is so great, you'd never hear the television, would you?
Richard
That... and the fact that the old lady has disintegrated. Her head's come off!
[on the Embarrassing Flirting Award]
Richard
In third place: James May, for this fantastic, sonorous approach when presented with two girls during our Alfa Romeo trip through Warwickshire.
[The clip with James May saying hello to the girls from Series 11, Episode 3, is played, prompting uproarious laughter from Jeremy, Richard and the audience.]
Richard
I'd forgotten how bad it was!
You have to start with "Hello".
[Introducing the special from the studio]
Hello and and welcome to a sea of disappointed faces. Because these people have driven all the way down here today only to find the show isn't actually coming from here today.
No, it is in fact coming from six thousand miles away, here [points on map] in Vietnam.
Richard
Yes, we were told to meet in the centre of Saigon and await further instructions.
So, sit back, enjoy the ride.
[meeting up after finding the money they've been given isn't in fact worth very much]
I'll tell you the problem, is cars only came to Vietnam a few years ago, ok--four or five years ago? They've got the two hundred percent import tax on them, they haven't had time--in the four or five years since they've been here--to get cheap.
Richard
So there are no bangers.
Everything's expensive and we're actually quite poor.
[James gets Jeremy's attention and gestures to the motorbikes behind them]
Richard
Look around us, what do we see everywhere?
You know I can't do that.
Well what else is there? [pokes box of money] Bet you can get a bike for that!
Richard
It's our only option.
I bet you could get a lump of excrement for that as well, it doesn't mean I'm going to go...
Richard
It's transport, with an engine. It's the only choice we have.
Look, that's all we've got. [Holds up a bundle of money and puts it back in the box] Bikes.
[Jeremy describing his bike without any of the enthusiasm the other presenters have shown]
I've bought this, which is um... a motorcycle.
Well technically, this is a scooter. [picks it up into the upright position]
If you let go now it will just fall over.
No, it's got a thing called a stand!
Richard
You really don't know anything about bikes do you? I mean, really...
Richard
Tell you what I will say, it's actually very pretty. But it's going to be useless because whatever the challenge is, tiny wheels and looking good--that's not going to help.
Why are tiny wheels wrong?
Because the holes are big and the little wheels go further in.
Richard
So you're going be [wobbly sound] all over the place.
How many cylinders has it got?
Top Gear · 1,774 quotes
