Top Gear · Season 5
[During the £1500 Porsche challenge];
This was a hugely advanced car when it first came out: polyurethane bumpers; first car ever to have passive rear wheel steering... I've always, always... oh my God, I've got steam.
Is Jeremy breaking down?
Uh, guys, I've got a lot of steam coming out of the bonnet.
Did he say I've got some speed, or I've got some steam?
[voice over] No, it was definitely steam and it was erupting after just two miles.
[Jeremy discovers a leak in his Porsche's cooling system and "fills" it with about 10L of water before giving up, with it gushing from the radiator almost as quickly]
Jeremy and Richard have gone off inside to buy an egg, in the hope that we can use that old trick of mixing the egg white into the coolant system and that will find and block...
This, [He shows a chocolate Creme Egg] …this is Hammond's contribution. He's bought himself a chocolate egg.
[on his £1500 Porsche] For the first time today I have no warning light on the dashboard - all is well. Apart from, you know, the rear windscreen wiper and the electric window and the electric door mirrors and the stereo, and the clock, and the air conditioning, and the speedometer and the milometer, and the piston ring that's eating the engine, and the big smoke coming out of the back, everything's fine.
[During the £1500 Porsche challenge]
What is the next challenge?
You've got to spend the change from your £1500 budget...
Yeah..?
And with it, you've got to improve your car as much as possible and have it judged by an independent adjudicator who is from the Porsche owner's club.
Yeah, so you can spend all of the money from your £1500 that you didn't spend on your car... on your car.
How much did you spend?
I spent £750 on my car, so I've got £750 to spend on improving it.
I spent £900 on my car which gives me £600 to spend in improving it.
How much did you spend?
[mumbling] 1500
Sorry?
1500
So you've got nothing to spend on improving it.
[Jeremy and Richard grumble about James' success in producing a number eleven skidmark off the line with his Porsche]
I've never seen him do anything that lairy!
That is... thirty-one feet.
Not bad.
Don't tell him that. Yeah, you did about four inches, mate. Well done.
Give up!
Yeah, that's four inches!
That's quite good!
Yeah, no, that was me the other day in a Bentley.
[After Jeremy does an "Asian number eleven" burnout - a rather sloppy 720-degree doughnut, as his car lacks the power to spin up the wheels in a straight line] You can't have that!
Look, if you were from a region of China just near Tibet northeast you'd look and you go [affects terrible "Chinese" accent] "Ah, someone write ereven!"
[At the end of the challenge]
So, James, how much did you sell your Nine Forty Four for?
£1,400!
[the presenters have been told to write personal ads mentioning their cars, with points awarded for each reply]
"41-year-old man with sensitive hair" [May is interrupted at this point by Clarkson and the audience's reaction but resumes] "drives Porsche 944 luxe, seeks brewery heiress or similar, must have liberal attitude to motorcycle components in the bath."
"Porsche 924 owner"... got it in first... "good looking, mild mannered, snappy dresser, 5'11".."
Whaat?! "Five foot eleven"?
"Mild mannered"?
It's a Lonely Hearts ad! If I put "angry short bloke," I won't get any replies!
So how many replies did you get?
None...
My ad: "Porsche 928 driver — that's the V8 one"...
Did you actually put, "that's the V8 one"?
Yes, right there, "that's the V8 one".
You actually did, ah.
"Tall, slim hips, likes books with speedboats on the cover, would like to meet someone for friendship, maybe more."
Can I just point out: do you know where he put that ad? He put that in the "Men Seeking Men" column. [laughter]
[During the opening sequence.]
On tonight's show: Richard takes an American muscle car in a road movie... across Lincolnshire; a 4-door saloon goes head-to-head with a Lamborghini; and it's the Top Gear Awards for the best and worst of 2004.
[on the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII MR FQ400]
This is amazing! A fit young racing driver in a supercar and he cannot pull away from a fat man in a four door saloon!
It has this Sonic the Hedgehog arrangement on the roof to help keep it straight and true with speed, and to help it cleave the air more easily, it has shrunken door mirrors which appear to have been modeled on Shrek's ears.
[on the Toyota Prius]
See the trees smile at me as I waft by. And watch the children run into the road, because they haven't heard me coming.
[on the Toyota Prius engine display]
This, I think, is a particularly good way of distracting you from the child who's run into the road having not heard you coming.
[continuing about the Prius]
Actually I'm being unfair. The Prius is so slow the child could run into the road, get his ball, and hit puberty before you ever actually hit him.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's Top Gear pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
