[During the opening sequence.]
Tonight: A £65,000 car for the people!; a Range Rover at 45 degrees; and the new Bentley coupé comes to our studio.
“July 20th, 2003” · Season 2, Episode 10
In this episode: Jeremy Clarkson (9), Richard Hammond (3), James May (3)
Now normally driving a TVR with any sense of purpose is like chatting to a bloke in the pub and, you know, he says "Well, yeah, we went on 'oliday, took the missus, in the caravan," and then boomf!, punches you in the face, no warning. This, though... it's got understeer! It's telling me, it's saying, "I gotta let you know, you're gettin' on my nerves a little bit." It hasn't lost the lairiness, but it's just been to anger management.
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.
Hang on, the best piece of news you've ever heard ever?
What is it?
[beaming] They're going to stop making the Beetle.
And that's it.
That is fantastic. No, the old one. They're still making it until the 30th of July and then it stops forever.
And why is that so good?
Why do you hate it so much?
Do you really want me to do it?
Well, no, just... I can't imagine...
OK. It's a rubbish car.
That's incisive.
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 -
You can't blame a car for Hitler!
[Jeremy is reporting on the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where, as he previously noted, he was waved to by Elle Macpherson]
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.
Both : [in unison] The SLR.
The new SLR.
Yeah. Stunning thing. And?
Well, I was still a bit drunk, so I have - there it is, look - um, I think... I have... I dunno.
So hang on, it - so you're probably the first UK journalist to get in that car.
Yeah.
We've been talking about it for what now, two years, probably?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you went up the hill... drunk... waving at MacPherson Strut or whatever her name is out of the window.
I wasn't driving it, I was slumped in the passenger seat.
Oh, well, that's all right, then! Who was driving it?
Can you tell us anything about it?
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.
To your drunken brain at the time.
[imitates engine noise], only louder than that.
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."
[on the Volkswagen Phaeton]
[voiceover] This is the first-ever recorded example of a German joke: a Volkswagen that costs £65,000.
[mimes wiping tears of mirth from his eyes while a sitcom laugh track plays, then becomes serious]
But actually... it isn't funny.
Apparently, Piëch insisted that you should be able to drive the Phaeton all day at 186 miles an hour, when it's 120 degrees outside, and the air conditioning must be able to maintain a temperature in the car of 71.6 degrees. My! I bet he was fun to go out with of an evening.
And round at the front, things get even more... German.
[on the Cadillac Sixteen]
I like luxury. It's the new performance.
[...]
Now this is what I call shock and awe.
[on the Overfinch-modified Range Rover]
It's a bit like sliding down a black run in a wardrobe. It's a giggle, but you've got no real say in your direction of travel.
If you have any thoughts or opinions on what you've seen in the last ten weeks, do please keep them to yourselves.
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