Yeah, well, they were going to build a space shuttle to get to the Rover space station.
James
The Rover space station would be fab, actually, wouldn't it? It would be dark metallic green, and it would have a grille on that would sort of appear every 24 hours as it rotated, and sort of glitter in the sky.
Right, the news! And, um, we're feeling a bit remiss this week, because we like to think on Top Gear we're across what's happening in the world of cars, and then out of the blue, Ford wrote to us and said, "We're introducing a new Mondeo." We didn't know it was coming! Who'd like to see it?
So if you just want to go and see Granny, or a girlfriend in Manchester, and it's a 60-quid rail fare, you can just ring them up, drop a car at your house, drive it up there and back -
Well, I don't know, because presumably this is the launch of their campaign, it's quite an important moment, somebody spent an awful lot of time planning this and working on it, and the worst thing we could do is give out the number. Which is 08456 775 775.
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.
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.
You'll notice all these things and you'll think, "That is a really pretty, pretty car. Well done, Vauxhall. I'll have the Lotus."
[trying to break the land speed record for towing a caravan]
James
Right. I've been looking in the Guinness Book of Records. It doesn't actually say that I have to use a car to tow the caravan. So instead I've decided to rely on the most powerful engine in the universe. Gravity.
It's a terrible shame Jeremy didn't like the 350Z - I wondered if he might be interested in the 350Z watch. It's a very large watch with a very small face. What do you think of that?
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?
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.
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!
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.
"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."
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.
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 -
Top Gear · 1,774 quotes
James
