[During the opening sequence.]
Tonight: Jaguar's supercharged XKR vs. its twin sister; why do road-works take so long? And Jamie Oliver prepares a delicious lap in our Reasonably-Priced Car!
“January 28th, 2007” · Season 9, Episode 1
In this episode: Jeremy Clarkson (11), Richard Hammond (9), James May (2)
[Upon starting the new series]
Now there is actually a problem, really, because, obviously, one of us blokes has now become Princess Diana!
[referring to Richard's comeback to the studio]
...and here's something I never thought I'd be saying at one point, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome... Richard Hammond!
[having just made a grand entrance down a staircase, with fireworks and dancing girls]
That's the most embarrassing thing I've ever done!
[on Richard's return]
Anyway, listen. This is the big question. I guess everybody wants to know. Are you ready? Are you now a mental?
No!
[the audience laughs]
I'm not! I'm fixed! I'm completely fixed, and normal, and healed. Thank you. What are you doing?
I thought you might need these... [hands Hammond tissues] ...in case you start dribbling.
That's all I've had for four months...
What? Tissues?
No! People hanging around just watching, waiting for my eyes to point in different directions and for me to go bonkers. I'm fixed, I'm normal.
Are you the same person that you were before?
Yes! I mean, the doctors were worried, because it's brain damage, you know... personality change or whatever, but... no, the only difference between me now and me before the crash is... I like celery now and I didn't... before.
So you're still shouty? You're still fighty?
Yes...
And if I take you to the pub, are you still going to want to punch me in the face after 15 minutes?
Yes, though that's, to be honest, more [gestures to Jeremy] your personality than mine.
I always want to punch him in the face after 15 minutes, sometimes less.
Yeah, that's perfectly normal.
[moments before his dragster crash]
When the afterburner lights, I haven't got 5,000 horsepower: I've got 10,000 horsepower, and possibly the biggest accident you've ever seen in your life.
[getting strapped into the dragster moments before his crash]
I don't wanna be upside down!
[his first thought when the wheel of the jet car exploded]
Oh bugger! Something's gone wrong!
[on the Stig]
Some say he once threw a microwave oven at a tramp, and long before anyone else, he realized that Jade Goody was a racist pig-faced waste of blood and organs... [the audience applauds wildly and Jeremy pauses for a short moment]... [laughing] all we know is, he's called the Stig.
...how hard can it be?
Oh, how I've missed the pang of dread every time you say the words "How hard can it be?"
[In a fish and chip shop, ordering a meal for his work crew]
Can I have cod-and-chips... seventy-five times?
[observing the approach of a storm]
In the immortal words of Basil Fawlty, "Oh spiffing!"
[speaking over a bull horn to the men of the D5481]
The Pantheon, the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China. Each a shining beacon of mans ambition and today the D5481 will join that list. We shall build this road in a day, our resurfacing work will last for a thousand years!
[on the Jaguar XKR]
...while it doesn't have a shed load of power, it is still quite fast. You passed sixty miles an hour in 4.9 seconds. You passed a hundred in thirteen seconds, and that's good... but imagine how good it would be if it had more power!
We weren't trying to set records, I just wanted to go really, really fast.
So you did 314 mph?
Yeah.
And you wanted to know what it was like to go really fast?
Yeah.
So you'd found out. Why didn't you just get into your car and go home?
[Richard looks sheepish]
I don't know really. The thing is, that run that you just saw, that was at 5 o'clock, and we had the runway until 5:30, and... [general laughter]
These quotes come from Wikiquote's Top Gear pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.