Stig intro: Some say, that he cut that man's hair...and that if he compensated a soldier for getting wounded, he wouldn't try to take it all back again. all we know is, he's called the Stig.



Clarkson: if you were in the market for a large, fast, spacious, executive saloon car, you'd imagine that you'd be spoiled for choice. me too. however, Richard Hammond - who is quite mad - has decided that every single one of them has a fatal flaw.

Hammond: it really doesn't matter which one you pick. take this one for example, the Audi S4. it's built entirely for businessmen. and real businessmen are not The Apprentice and Dragon's Den and Richard Branson, all helicopters and hostile takeovers. they're actually quite dull. and work in Swindon. their cars aren't cars; they're uniforms. silver or black paint, maybe a splash of wood on the dash.

Hammond: the interesting bit there is the Bathurst bit. because this car is Australian, and the Bathurst is Australia's most famous race. Basically it's a place where Holden and Ford fans go to have a massive fistfight, and then in the interval when the paramedics go in, sometimes a car race breaks out.

Hammond: i fear that anyone who likes the Bathurst is probably quite a bad businessman. the world of powerpoints will not take you seriously. but hey, the consolation is, when your business does eventually go bust, there's no way in hell will the bailiff ever catch you.

Hammond: apparently, suspension is adjustable. presumably from oversteer to oh-dear-we've-just-crashed

Hammond: it costs 45,000 pounds, and for that you get almost limitless vulgarity. no spoiler is too big. no vent is too gaping. no supercharger is too red. in short, the perfect fast saloon for anyone who's not a businessman. i'm thinking actors, vicars, professors, um..children.



Hammond: this is called the Maloo, which in Aborigine, means thunder. now, strictly speaking, because it's Australian, this isn't a pick-up, it's a ute.



Hammond: but that's enough maths. time for a quick ute history lesson. it started in the 1930's when a farmer's wife wrote to Ford of Australia complaining that there was no car that could take her to church on a Sunday, and the pigs to market on a Monday. the answer was a ute, and the Australians have worshipped them ever since.

Hammond: and adding weight to the back doesn't work that well either.



Hammond: the next time you wake up and realise you're not a businessman, but you'd like a fast car, remember, the Aussies are here to help

May: is that your idea of consumer advice?
Hammond: yes!
May: you really are a steak and kidney lock opener aren't you?

Clarkson, on the un-synchronised bagpipes playing from the Maloo + Bathurst): that is literally the most painful drone i've heard since James tried to explain fuel injection to me.

=======================NEWS SEGMENT=====================
May: and the big news this week is a new Ferrari. here it is, it's the F430 Scuderia convertible. hmm, and if you are one of the 499 people who have ordered one of those, all we have to say to you is..."you big daft cock!"
Clarkson: big mistake
May: it was a massive mistake because while you were doing that, Ferrari were working on this - that's the 458 Italia and i have to say that from the front, it looks absolutely exquisite. but from the back, it looks even exquisiter.


Hammond: how do you feel now
Clarkson: and what's more, this is fantastic to drive
Hammond: how can you possibly know that? nobody's driven it yet
Clarkson: ah-ha! history teaches us this. because every single time the Ferrari Formula 1 team is doing well, their road cars are rubbish. every time their Formula 1 is doing very badly, their road cars are brilliant. and this year you see what i'm saying. they can't win anything, even an egg and spoon race.
May: and the problem is, if you've only got 100 people working for you, 50 of them are completely bogged down designing a windscreen wiper for a road car, you haven't got enough people left to win the Formula 1 world championship.
Clarkson: and do you know why? Formula 1 cars are designed by men and men cannot do 2 things at once.
Hammond: no, that's a good point, we can't.
Clarkson: am i right? exactly
<female audience members nod>

Clarkson: people, people can i just get serious for a moment. we've heard that over in Amsterdam at night, various drunken louts - there's no other word for them - have been picking up you know the little smart cars and throwing them into the canal. seriously. apparently it only takes 4 people to pick it up and lob it in the drink.


Clarkson: now, i bring this up because i'm just slightly worried that over here in England, people might start picking up those little electric G-Wizzes and throwing them in the river. can you imagine how awful that would be for Mr Weird Beard if his pride and joy were to find itself one morning in the Thames. i really cannot urge you enough not to do that.
Hammond: thinking about it, if you did lob an electric car into a river, wouldn't it kill all the fish - zzt! - and they'd all float on the tops
Clarkson: would it do that? is there any electricians here? would it electrocute the -- why aren't you at work?
electrican: no
Clarkson: why? the voltage is too low and the amps...so it turns out it's fine to throw a G-Wiz.
May: i'm not convinced by that though because i think electricity is a mystery. it is! i don't know actually believe in it.
Clarkson: you don't believe in electricity!?
May: no one really understands it.
Clarkson: what you are witnessing here is aspergers made real
May: is that what makes my wee smell funny?
Clarkson: no!
May: oh that's asparagus.

Clarkson: now, you may have heard a few days ago that Michael Schumacher is standing in for the injured Felipe Massa. interesting timing. this is the last program in our series. no more cars to test till November on the track. suddenly he's available
Hammond: no, we're not saying anything, it's just those are the facts.
Clarkson: i do want to talk about Felipe Massa. obviously he was injured in the Hungarian Grand Prix where a spring hit him in the face at 140mph. i'm just staggered he wasn't killed!
May: it weighs about the same as a bag of sugar. but the thing is, he was wearing one of those new regulation carbon fiber crash helmets and they are unbelievably strong.
Clarkson: 'cause the injuries he's got as far as i can work out are very similar to the ones you got
Hammond: possibly yes, the frontal lobe damage so that's kinda where you live. that's personality, emotional control, spatial awareness, all of that.
Clarkson: so does that mean that if he gets better, and we're all praying he does, he's going to become an irritating little arse?
Hammond: it could. you never know with brain damage, or it could happen that he'd come back to work and suddenly discover that the people he works with are...well they've become incredibly irritating. and quite fat.

Clarkson: you know we used to say in the olden days, that all bad drivers drove Volvos, particularly bikers. this was a good thing because you knew where bad drivers were. saw a Volvo, you knew it was a bad driver. all was well. then Volvo started making good cars - the T5 and so on - the bad drivers dispersed; we didn't know what they were in! what are the bad drivers in?
Hammond: i think quite a few ended up in Micras.
Clarkson: Nissan Micras?
May: i think quite a few ended up in Kia Sedonas
Clarkson: i think Korean cars in general. if i see a Korean car coming towards me, i pull over, get out, hide behind a tree until it's gone. you just don't want to take any chances. if you buy a rubbish car, what you're saying is, i have no interest in cars. if you have no interest in cars, you have no interest in driving. and if you have no interest in something, i means you're no good at it, which means you must have your driving license taken away.

Clarkson: i went on the internet this week to compile a series of clips of people having parking accidents, you know, minor bumps and scrapes. see if you can spot something that all the cars have in common.

Clarkson: we're not talking here about a good driver, are we? 'cause they've got the pedals muddled up


Clarkson: oh it's a Skoda! big gate there. oh dear, no.


May: ooh, worst car in the world. is it..
Clarkson: it is, it's a Neon. anyone who's driving that, take their license away.


Clarkson: i think this is a pontiac. yes! that's gone wrong


Clarkson: here we are, we're in Britain for this one. that's a bad driver; he's got a bus but he's made it and here is the Honda! ohhh no!


May: it's a perfectly valid theory because if you had absolutely no interest whatsoever in how the human body works, you wouldn't get a job as a surgeon.
Hammond: if you haven't got the interest, you can't do it. you shouldn't be allowed to do it.
Clarkson: exactly. it'll be like asking him (Hammond) to cook sunday lunch. could you cook a sunday lunch?
Hammond: yeah! you boil the meat and whatever.
Clarkson: you see?
Hammond: i'm not interested in food so i'm not interested in cooking.
Clarkson: you wouldn't ask me to do the washing up. and you wouldn't ask James to...direct a porn film
May: well how can you say that? i think i'd actually direct quite a good porn film
Clarkson: if you directed a porn film, it would be, you arriving at the house of the woman in the stockings and i've come to fix your boiler. and then you just fix it.
May: might do. what's wrong with that?

===================END NEWS SEGMENT=====================

May: every week we makes films in which the clouds go backwards, the supercar spins around and metaphors get tortured. and they last for what, 5 minutes, 6 minutes.
Clarkson: yes, quite. so how hard can it be for us to make a car advert which is over in 30 seconds?

Clarkson: feeling like candidates for the apprentice, the two of us got dressed up as ad men and went to the glittering West London offices of Goodyear Stickleback and Bunsen Burner. there, the ad execs showed us the car we'd be advertising - a diesel version of the new Scirocco.

ad man: at the heart of all good Volkswagen advertising, there's always a product truth. it's not sort of flim-flam, always based on a truth that comes directly from the product.
May: but you never did one that said, the new Beetle, celebrating over half a century of Europe's greatest mass-murderer
Clarkson: no, no, 'cause you pick on a truth that matters, you idiot. 'cause i think what you're saying is if you take Peugeot, the drive of your life , that line has nothing to do with any Peugeot product, all of which are dreadful.

Clarkson: we then got to the elephant in the corner. right, come on, is it fast? put your foot down. no, it's not. so that's a good 5 seconds of absolutely nothing in fourth gear.
May: but if i change to third, and then i've run out of puff so i've got to go back to fourth again
Clarkson: it's the same as all diesels, you have just a morsel and then it's gone.

Clarkson: as far as i can make out, Volkswagen Scirocco is a pretty car and what they've done is they've put an engine from a canal boat in it. and we have to somehow make that a good thing.
May: the idea of building that sort of car and putting that sort of engine in, deserves the line "what the bloody hell were you thinking of" which isn't really going to work as an advert.
ad man: you're starting from a negative way, you should actually start from the positive. you're saying, you've ruined the Scirocco, whereas you should really be saying you've improved the diesel.
May: ah!
ad man: so you've taken diesel and made it more exciting than taking a Scirocco and made it less exciting
May: Edward de Bono here has hit it on the head.
Clarkson: you see that's why he's sitting there and we're sitting here in rubbish clothes.

May: feeling like ad men, we went to the lavatory


Clarkson: and mother-in-law jokes, James
May: i'm identifying my market. they're old people. old people make mother-in-law jokes. that'll make them feel youthful.

May: so the VW Scirocco driver is deeply unpleasant?
Clarkson: children love that, old people love a bit of blood.
May: older people won't like that
Clarkson: it reminds them of the Blitz.
May: think of the customer. you're saying buy this car if you're smug and you revel in other people's misfortune.

May: action!


Clarkson: right. i bet you any money this stays intact. did it?
May: no


Clarkson has been taken sheep-herding lessons from the Stig


Clarkson: James then decided we needed a jingle
May: diesel Sciroccooo, gauge down to brocco, one fill up of diesel, a 55 mp-giesel.
Clarkson: then i decided we didn't need a jingle


May: the new Scirocco Diesel. truly biblical economy....this isn't working is it? i'm sorry.


Clarkson: the rest of the ads didn't go down that well either.
May (voicover, singing): ...common rail injection, you know that's the new direction...

Clarkson: desperate, i decided to show them our remake of one of their classics
ad man: you are showing in your ad there, a suicide. you should be able to imagine that the regulatory body does not allow depictions of suicide
May: i mean it's pretty positive - you either get shot through the head or you have a VW.

window sill of shattered dreams


Clarkson: do you know why an ad man won't look out of a window in the morning?
May: no
Clarkson: 'cause then he'd have nothing to do in the afternoon


May: job one, get ourselves a black Scirocco. i couldn't help noticing it's the petrol one.
Clarkson: i'll just dub some canal boat noises on, they won't notice.

Clarkson: take a good sniff of this onion. there we go, now cry! cry!


Clarkson: to get James out of my hair, i sent him to look for a crow. have you ever seen a funeral scene in your life without a crow in it? there'll be one in a tree or in a field.


Clarkson: that left me free to direct the graveyard scene. <to woman> you...should be in a bikini, i think to balance it out. no wait, hang on, it's a funeral...yeah, should be a black bikini

Clarkson: James! i've fallen out of the basket thing!
May: anyway..


May: we decided we'd make one more ad each. but this time, instead of taking them to Nick and Margaret to judge, because they obviously loathed everything we did, we thought we'd bring them here and let you decide which one is better. and the winner gets this pair of exquisitely slim advertiser's spectacles


Clarkson: that would work on BBC 4 where there's no commercials.

Clarkson: and now, ladies and gentlemen, behold to bask in the turbulence of my magnificence. when in doubt, use the war.


zombie Clarkson


======================COOL WALL=======================
Ford Focus RS...
audience member: don't like the colour..at all. no
Clarkson: no and that's odd 'cause he looks like he has an ASBO (Anti-Social Behaviour Order)
Hammond: that is the thing about this car. it's for the bloke who's always the first to start the singing on the aeroplane. you know the one who's holiday sombrero is too big to get into the oveHammondead lockers and that's what he drives.
Clarkson: you're wrong. nobody who's got one of those has ever been on an aeroplane 'cause they always get stuck at airport security with their ASBO ankle bracelet

Murcielago SV...
Clarkson: there is a man in here. coming in! what was that?
audience member: seriously uncool.
Clarkson: come with me
audience member: i want the ladies and gentlemen to see this
Clarkson: the Amish here. why do you think it's uncool?
audience member: it's a mad sportscar
Clarkson: what's the matter with mad sports cars?
audience member: seriously uncool
Clarkson: how long do we keep doing this before he pulls a dagger out and stabs me?
Hammond: i think this man is representing
Clarkson: he's right, ladies and gentlemen! every time i see a man - and it's invariably a man - <to audience member: go back to the audience> getting out of one of these things and i always think, that man is wearing a thong.
Hammond: sorry, is this just something you like to think about?
Clarkson: nobody with boxer shorts has ever bought a Lamborghini...shit, i bought a Lamborghini
Hammond: oh my God! you in a thong!

BMW Z4...
Clarkson: not the old model, not for wife-swappers, nobody's ever slept with somebody called Muriel, who's married to Frank, who has one of these. but, we'd like to put it in the cool section of the board...it'S actually, it's resisting. the weirdest thing in the world. and there's a very good reason for that
Hammond: the reason is, James May has said he's thinking of getting rid of his Porsche Boxster and getting one of these. well that means, that's all that can happen!


Nissan 370Z...
Clarkson: now this, as far as i can work out, is for the sort of chap who likes a stag night, me and the lads. you know the sort of bloke. he's the sort that sends you those emails that take 10 minutes to open and then they're not funny.
Hammond: you're talking about the kind of bloke who doesn't complain because you've given him the wrong species of olives on his salad
Clarkson: a man who owns this has never had any olive in his live, he just has pork itchings. he's a lager lout
Hammond: he drinks lager, what's wrong with that?
Clarkson: because he drinks Stella
Hammond: you'd be at the bar bickering saying ooh have you got anything Italian, i want the right one

Clarkson: i'm hearing a strange mooing noise but again, i'm afraid you've mistaken this for a democracy and it isn't one - it's a dictatorship. oh dear, Hammond has gone off in a huff. good!

Clarkson: i wanna talk about the Range Rover. if you ask me and you're a small boy what is the best car in the world, i will say it's a Bugatti Veyron. but the truth is...what are you doing?
Hammond: can you reach it there shorty? look at him he can't reach it, poor little fella. aww. i tell you what, from up here it is going. i reckon about there, there you go!


Clarkson: what i've just done is hit the kill switch! come on then, come down. Hammond, you see the Zonda?
Hammond: hawww!
Clarkson: your favourite car in the world?
<Clarkson walks towards the seriously uncool section>
Hammond: no! that's not right! and that! and that! look i can have so much fun! can i come down now?
Clarkson: nnnnnnnnnnnnno.

==================END COOL WALL========================


===============STAR IN A REASONABLY PRICED CAR===============

Clarkson: you recently had Obama Barrack on, which makes you...no it's the other way around isn't it?
Jay Leno: well i'm somewhat dyslexic so that was alright with me
Clarkson: if people are going to choose their names from scrabble tiles

Clarkson: we're never more than 60 miles from the Queen here
Jay Leno: that's got to be comforting isn't it?

Clarkson: it's not just speed cameras here. there's cameras to monitor everything you do, everything you've done since you've got here. i'm talking about at the urinals, i'm talking about in bed sometimes. Mr Brown's been recording that
Jay Leno: well i hope he has enough tape!

Clarkson: normally at this stage when we've got people on here, i get to the point of the interview where i say, "talk about your cars." and they go, "got a Honda Accord, wife's got a Toyota Prius." i just need you to understand how big a petrolhead we have here. so this is just his cars. Dodge Viper, Packard Carribean, Chevrolet Corvair, E-type Jaguar, Bugatti Type 37, Lamborghini Espada, Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, Lamborghini Countach, Brough Superior, Bentley Turbo R, Shelby Mustang 350GT, Citroen XM, Fiat Millecento, Corvette Z06, Bugatti Type 57, AC Cobra 427, Lamborghini Miura S.
<pause>
Clarkson: Dodge Challenger SRT-8, Lagonda V12, Bentley Speed 6, Ariel Atom, Ford Model T, another Lamborghini Miura, Dodge Challenger RT. that's page 1. there's page 2. do you want to see page 3? how the hell do you decide what to go to work in in the morning?
Jay Leno: but see i only have one wife. i have one woman and 150 cars. wouldn't you prefer your man coming home reeking of transmission fluid rather than cheap perfume?

Jay Leno: i had my McLaren F1 out, and i took it to a show, and i see these two LA gang members - scary guys, tattoos - and they're looking at my car and i'm thinking, "oh boy." one of them says, "hey, Gordon Murray designed this right?" and i went, "yeah" and the other guy asks about David (Peter) Stevens. i realise, now i'm pre-judging people. i assume because they look different from me, they're criminals or gangsters. i felt so bad about this. i said to these guys, "you ever been in one of these? you wanna go for a ride" and he said "yeah!" and i realise "well maybe this is a mistake." as big as they were outside, they were enormous in the car. so we're driving along, the guy goes, "go up in the hills, there's no traffic." alright, it's not good at this point. so there's a place called Kanan Road which goes above Malibu. there are some tunnels that go through the mountain. so i said, "tell you what, i'm nailing it through the mountains, you guys gotta hear the F1 McLaren." i fly through the tunnel, 125. as i come out of the tunnel, police car right here. pulled over and now i got two gang guys, they're gonna run a check on these guys, they'll be drug deals and my McLaren will be towed, they'll put a hook on it and drag it to impound, i'll be arrested for going 125. cop pulls over, highway patrolman goes, "what are you doing!? you know how fast you're going?" the two guys go, "we're police officers, it's alright."

Jay Leno: race car driving's like sex - all men think they're good at it.

Jay Leno: the Stig is quite a good instructor, considering he doesn't talk.

Clarkson: you are between Dr Who and Will Young.
Jay Leno: actually i did that once in LA.

=============END STAR IN A REASONABLY PRICED CAR==============

Clarkson: wellll, it's an Aston Martin Vantage with a V12 engine. so what do you think it's going to be like? it is fantastic. it's wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. what it makes me feel though, is sad. i just can't help thinking that thanks to all sorts of things - the environment, the economy, problems in the Middle East, the relentless war on speed - cars like this will soon be consigned to the history books. i just have this horrible, dreadful feeling that what i'm driving here, is an ending. goodnight.