(TRAIN WHISTLE)
(ENGINE DRONING)
(CHEERING)
Thank you very much. Thank you so much, everyone.
Hello.
Hello, everyone!
Thank you.
Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. Welcome, and Happy Christmas.
And in this show, which has a tree over there,
and nothing else festive at all...
I drive the Bugatti Chiron in Saint-Tropez.
And in the Alps.
And through the streets of Turin.
But we start with James May, who has been driving a Kia hatchback.
(LAUGHTER)
So, he drives around the best bits of Europe in a Bugatti and you get a Kia!
You can shut up, Hammond,
because, if you remember rightly,
you were supposed to go and drive the Kia hatchback,
but you couldn't, because you can't drive round corners without crashing.
Oh, yeah.
- Were you his stand-in? - Yes.
- Has he said "thank you"? - No, he hasn't, actually.
That's unbelievably selfish. You should have done, really.
- Well, I'd broken my leg! - Well, don't go on about it.
That's all we hear: "I broke my leg! I broke my leg!"
(LAUGHTER)
It doesn't matter, because the Kia hatchback
that Hammond should have been driving, but wasn't,
turns out to be not as boring as you might expect,
as I shall now explain.
To do my explaining, I've come here,
to the sunny Balearic island of Majorca,
where we find this.
Kia's first attempt to make a saloon car that's sporty, rather than sensible.
It even has a cool name. It's called the Stinger.
Check this out.
This is the little keyless fob that locks and unlocks it,
and you could see that as the button that launches a missile.
- (IMMOBILISER BEEPS) - To the Stinger.
(ENGINE ROARING)
Besides a key from Fighter Command,
the Stinger has other things designed to give you the fizz.
Power, for example. This has a 3.3-litre twin-turbo V6,
developing 365 horsepower.
Now, that's not Vindaloo-hot, like a BMW M3.
It's more Madras-hot, I think.
Say an Audi S4.
And if you're watching in America,
I'm using here the car-curry performance index.
Very popular in Britain.
If you prefer numbers, it does 0 to 60 in around five seconds.
And it has a top speed just short of 170 miles an hour.
So, again, that's not as fast as a BMW M3,
but it's probably fast enough to outrun
one of Kim Jong-un's wonky northern missiles.
And there's more sporty stuff.
I have an eight-speed, semi-automatic gearbox,
which I can control with paddles,
and that most important of sports-saloon requirements:
rear-wheel drive.
It's also groaning with equipment.
I'll run you through just a few of the things.
I've got a 15-speaker stereo. I've got a head-up display,
adaptive cruise control,
collision warning system,
driver-drowsiness warning system.
Very useful when I'm on board.
All of this in a car costing around £40,000,
which makes it £5,000 less than the equivalent Jag or Audi.
But never mind the not unreasonable price.
The Stinger's main purpose is to show that Kia can make a sporty saloon.
So, to find out if they've succeeded, we need to do something sporty.
Which brings me here.
To this road.
A challenging five-kilometre scribble of Tarmac,
spearing and snaking up through the Majorcan hills.
What I intend to do is start down there and drive as fast as possible
to a finishing point here on this bridge.
And to spice it up, I'm making it a race.
It's me and the Stinger versus some young men on planks.
Here's one of them, and here's the other one.
They both dress like bike racers, but their preferred transport
is specially modified skateboards,
which hardly sounds like much of a threat to the car.
OK. Tell us about those skateboards.
What, sort of bicycle speeds? 20, 30?
The fastest we can go is 75 miles an hour. 120K.
75 miles an hour?
On that?
Do you mind if I...?
Yeah. Knock yourself out. Not literally.
75 miles an hour on a piece of wood with some plastic wheels on it?
- You're mad. - (CHUCKLES)
Right. Just so we're clear on the rules,
I'm going to start down there at the start line
and drive uphill all the way to here, which is the finish line,
while you start here on what is my finish line, but is actually your start line,
and you're downhill all the way.
So, if you see "finish" upside down, you're at the start,
but "start" the right way up, you're at your start.
And when I see "start" upside down, it's your start, but it's my finish,
cos it says "finish" the right way up.
There's a point where we cross over, obviously, so be careful.
Let's just agree: stay right if we see each other?
Your right or our right?
Well, it's the same thing, cos you're going the other way, downhill,
and I'm going uphill towards this finish.
OK.
No. Yeah. No, the left. No, just stay... Yeah.
Soon we were in position at our respective start/finish lines.
Right. Setup.
We're going to go for the sportiest mode, which is Sport Plus.
Traction & Stability Control disabled. That's all the nannies off.
It is a hill climb. Don't bin it, May.
Here we go. Horsepower versus gravity.
Isaac Newton and dudes versus South Korea and me.
MAN: Three, two, one.
(ENGINE ROARING)
Keep the foot in. Yes.
Throttle response a bit more chippy when you've got it on Sport Plus.
(TYRES SQUEALING)
Yes. Little bit of sideways action.
I've got a limited-slip diff. That's going to look after me.
Brake. Turn it.
On the exit. There it is.
(TYRES SQUEALING)
Oh, those rocks don't look nice! Aaaarghh!
Easy right, then a bit of a left.
(TYRES SQUEALING)
Here they come. Keep right!
Jeez, those guys are going!
And for them, the remaining course was full of fast straights,
whereas, for me, the road was now becoming twistier.
(TYRES SQUEALING)
Stay out, stay out, stay out. Mind the rocks.
Apex. See the exit. Squares it. That's lovely!
Yes, there's the bridge.
Here I come! Here I come! Don't bin it now.
Aaaarghh!
Yes! Yes.
Right. Let's have it.
- Yeah, buddy. - Yeah, buddy.
MAN: OK, James. The boarders did it in five minutes and 16 seconds.
You did it in five minutes and ten seconds.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
(BELLOWING) Losers!
Losers! Losers!
Whatever. (BLEEP) ...that guy.
- (CHEERING) - Bad winner.
- He's a bad winner. - Yeah, exactly.
Appalling.
Yep.
Standard reaction from James May.
James, I am very curious.
How did you manage to go to Majorca in all that beautiful sunshine
and not catch pneumonia?
- (LAUGHTER) - Well, I mean, it's a danger.
No, it's funny you should ask, but actually, I did go
past a lot of places that sold pneumonia.
(LAUGHTER)
But I didn't go in because I had to get up
the next day early and go to work.
Let's move on, because it is now time
for us to peer down a manhole of chat on Conversation Street.
(MODERN JAZZ)
(CHEERING)
That's festive. The tree and that.
And I think we should do more festive stuff now.
- Yes. - And turn on the lights
on our motoring-flavoured tree.
Yes, and I'd like to go first, if I turn on the lights I've made
using the back lights from various cars.
Look. That's Christmassy, isn't it? Ahh!
I'd like to add my lights to the festive tree, which I've made out of indicators.
So, they're orange and they flash, and they're warm. Are you ready?
- Oh, Christmassy! - How about that, then?
- Right... - No!
Why not?
Do not switch on whatever you've made.
- Why? - Because you'll blind everybody in the tent.
Why do you always think I'll have overdone it?
Because you always overdo it.
- Ready? - Oh, dear God!
What do you think of that? Why are you grimacing?
- (APPLAUSE) - Don't encourage him.
What? It's brilliant.
It's a bit bright, I admit, but...
It is bright. You've burnt people's eyes out.
- Why is it a cross? - It's the baby Jesus.
(LAUGHTER)
It's the baby Jesus, not the dead Jesus.
What?
The cross is what he was crucified on. That's Easter.
Oh.
(LAUGHTER)
So, what should it be at Christmas?
A star.
- That's Jewish. - No.
It is. Jews don't do Christmas.
It's a different sort of star.
You've used the wrong religious symbol.
What that is is a big spoiler alert.
- (LAUGHTER) - Yes.
It is, yeah!
- I've given away the ending? - Yeah.
If you don't want to know what happens to the baby Jesus later, look away now.
Last year we looked at all the motoring-related Christmas presents
you could buy, and they were all terrible.
In fact, they always are terrible.
Actually, the most terrible of them all I've got in here. It's Scalextric.
- Oh, come on. - What do you mean?
- Well, I like Scalextric. - Ah, you're wrong.
- No, you are wrong. - How could I be wrong about what I'm like?
- You don't like it. - You think you like it.
- I do. - It's like classical music.
People think they like classical music, but they don't. Nobody does, really.
I do.
Anyway, back to Scalextric, which nobody likes, OK?
The Professor of Sweeping Statements!
Let me explain the problem, okay? This is how Scalextric works.
You take out the car. "Wow!" you think.
"Look at that. It's like a Dodge Viper."
And then throw it under some furniture.
And you have just played Scalextric.
Cos that's what happens immediately with Scalextric.
No, you get your little sister to pick it up.
Scalextric should come with a little sister. Mine did.
No, no. No, it shouldn't come with a little sister.
It did.
- Did you say that out loud? - Yeah, he did.
I was hoping to just carry on.
My sister's 12 years younger. The year I got my Scalextric,
I also got a little sister.
Don't disillusion him of it!
He thinks that's where they come from.
- It came from Hornby Hobbies. - It shouldn't arrive at all!
Two things are going to happen.
Either you go too fast, in which case the car goes under furniture,
or you get the speed right and it just goes round and round
and round and round, for ever.
Yes, you find the speed at which the cars don't come off and then just watch them.
What you're doing at that point is watching electricity happen.
- Yes. - (LAUGHTER)
I can see why you were disappointed, Hammond.
You put an electric car on a race track
and, next thing you know, you've crashed.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
Sorry. That was a bit...
That was... (GROANS)
That wasn't even in the back. That was in the face!
I have got some Bentley... espresso cups and saucers.
(LAUGHTER)
- What do you think of that? - No, no, I quite like those.
- The colours... - They're horrible.
- They're too thick. - Ah, they're not,
cos espresso cups have to be thick.
They have to weigh 147.8 grams.
- Says who? - Italian coffee scientists.
- That's a fact. - That is pretentious twaddle.
- It isn't. - Just try it in a restaurant.
Call the waiter over. "Come here, my man. Ahem.
I think you know what I'm going to tell you about this cup.
It's too heavy."
- But it isn't too heavy. - It is. It's too thick.
It could be hit with a hammer and survive.
What, and that's a bad thing?
Oh, don't hit it with a hammer.
- (LAUGHTER) - I was wrong.
I was actually going to take those home.
Ah, you can. You can, actually. There you go.
There's your set of three Bentley espresso cups and saucers.
And you get a spare saucer, in case you break one.
It's nice. Spare. It's a good present, that.
I have actually got you a present, Hammond.
- Have you? - It's in a presentation box. Here it is.
The box is broken, and I apologise for that, but there it is. Check it out.
It's a ruined watch.
Not just any ruined watch. It's your ruined watch.
- Is it? - That has been retrieved
from the wreckage of the car that you destroyed, with your incompetence,
and that survived the fire.
It's actually still... It doesn't look pretty, but it's still working.
Well, that's actually quite a nice present, in a way, isn't it?
Exactly, and they've written a little thing on the box.
"Made in Switzerland,"
and then, "Carefully perfected on 10th June 2017
by the British."
(LAUGHTER)
They don't mean "perfected", do they?
No, and by "British" they mean you.
Yeah. It's actually quite a mean present, after all.
Well, look, Hammond. I've got you something.
I have got you a pair of running shoes,
and I've added to them the logo of your favourite local car maker,
and you can't say you don't like that.
You love running. You go running every morning.
I've seen you go running in the evening, as well.
- I cannot wear those. - (LAUGHTER)
Why not?
Because I'm not allowed to run any more. I broke my leg.
Oh, stop going on about it!
It's all he talks about: "I broke my leg! I broke my leg!"
We brought you those presents. Two of them.
I've got you another present here.
Look at that. An alarm clock.
Made it myself. It's beautifully styled.
Oh, funny. It's crashed. I see. Ha-ha.
Yeah, it's a crashed car on top. That's why it's yours.
Right, I'm just setting it now. Now, pretend to be asleep.
- What? Oh, all right. - Just pretend to be asleep.
This is on your bedside table.
Yes, OK. I'm asleep.
- (BEEPING) - There it is.
Christ!
- It's going off. - (APPLAUSE)
- That's my alarm? - Yes.
- Well, that's-- - Come on!
I can't have that. That'll... That'll just set fire...
- Haven't got my glasses. - That'll just set fire to everything on my--
- Sorry. - Oh, God!
It's not me that's on fire this time!
I missed. I haven't got my glasses.
I can't wake up to that every morning.
When you're driving along and your car catches fire,
which it will, cos you'll have crashed it...
- (LAUGHTER) - ...you'll be used to it,
cos you'll have to put a fire out every morning.
Yes, I won't have slept for a year, waiting for an explosion next to my bed...
Stop moaning about all the presents we've given you!
It's traumatising!
Look. I have bought you a pair of trousers.
- There you go. - What? Oh, thank you, James. Very nice.
Not just any old trousers.
No, they've got Velcro on them. What's that about?
Well, it means the paramedics won't have to cut your clothes off you.
(LAUGHTER)
And you'll save a fortune over the coming year, you see?
(APPLAUSE)
- Have you got us anything? - No.
- (LAUGHTER) - Not a thing?
Well, I didn't know we were doing this.
What do you mean? You didn't know it was Christmas? It's in your diary.
It's in everybody's diary.
It's not like Easter, moving around. It's the same day every year.
Every single year.
You could have sent a memo, saying we're doing presents.
- Unbelievable. - (LAUGHTER)
Anyway, Jeremy Clarkson...
Not everybody is as thoughtless as Richard Hammond.
I'm certainly not, and I have bought you a present.
- Oh, thank you, James. - It's the season of goodwill to all men.
Even if you hate them.
(LAUGHTER)
I have got you, for Christmas, a T-shirt.
- Are they my lungs? - Yes, they are.
(LAUGHTER)
That was when I... It is.
A lot of work went into this, cos I had to ring up the hospital in Majorca,
and I asked the barman... Sorry, the doctor.
...for a copy of the scan of your lungs, and I printed it on the T-shirt.
- And this bit, this is the... - That was the pneumonia?
Yeah, that's the bit where your lungs were infected.
I've coloured that in pink, you know, to show your favourite type of pneumonia.
(LAUGHTER)
- Is that... Are they bubbles? - Yes.
James, I don't drink Prosecco. I'm not a girl.
Oh, no, of course. You're the Viking Jeremy Clarkson,
with his still pink wine, which you drink out of a hollow horn.
All real men drink rosé.
Thank you, James. That is a thoughtful gift and I shall treasure it.
- No, it's OK, Jeremy. - (LAUGHTER)
There is as much pleasure in giving as in receiving.
- (LAUGHTER) - I suspect more...
Leave it! Leave it.
- Leave that where it is. - Yeah.
I've got you a properly brilliant present.
- I can't wait. - No, seriously.
You know the problem with trying to open a fridge door?
- No, that's not a problem. - Yes, it is. No, it is.
No, you pull the thing and, with my fridge,
the seal is stronger than the weight of the fridge,
so you just end up pulling the fridge across the kitchen floor.
No, that's because you're an ape.
The only way of opening my fridge is to surprise it.
- Surprise your fridge? - You walk up to it backwards
and then snatch it like that,
because you have to yank it really quickly.
But I'm not joking. The other day, I did that and the fridge fell...
Actually the whole thing on top of me.
Are you sure your fridge doesn't have a push door?
Anyway, I've got you, James May... It's a big present, this one.
Right. Ready? I've got you a fridge with a motoring flavour,
cos I put a steering wheel on the door.
So... OK, it's now shut, yes?
RICHARD: Oh, thank you very much.
- (LAUGHTER) - Relax. OK?
- So, it won't open. Yes? - Right.
But then, if you turn this... It's modelled on a submarine door,
cos it's important, with a submarine, you know when a door's open or shut.
All the way over, and then it opens. Can you see?
- Yeah, I can see. - Well, how brilliant's that?
You've bought me a solution to a problem only you have.
(LAUGHTER)
That is the worst Christmas present I've ever had.
It isn't. How can it be? Why is it?
- You've bought something for yourself. - No, you did that last year.
You bought your girlfriend a Ferrari that only you were insured to drive.
- (LAUGHTER) - You did.
"Oh, I bought you this," and no-one else could drive it.
- That's chivalry. - Is it?
Well, I think that's just been a total disaster, Conversation Street.
- It was awful. - He bought us nothing.
- I bought you a present... RICHARD: I'm sorry.
Shut up. I made you presents you don't like.
No. All right. Let's move on.
Now, have you ever wondered if office lunch time could be more interesting?
- No, nobody's wondered that. RICHARD: Well, we have...
- (LAUGHTER) - ...which is why
James and I decided to take the Grand Tour to Dunstable.
(LAUGHTER)
RICHARD: This is what we're on about.
People in offices all over the world
just frittering away their valuable lunch hours
doing pointless things on their phones and eating plastic food.
But not any more,
because we're here to literally save lunch times
through the crucible of motorsport.
And you may be watching this and thinking, "Well, that's a great idea,
but how do you get all these people
to a race track during their lunch hour?"
Well, the answer is, we don't need to.
The race track is already here.
JAMES: Yes, go to any business park anywhere,
and you'll find long straights, flowing roundabouts,
sharp bends, the lot.
There's a circuit to rival Silverstone or Laguna Seca
right outside your office window.
Today we've chosen Houghton Hall Business Park near Dunstable.
So, let's see what kind of track it can provide.
This is the Kia Picanto GT line,
the hottest ship in the Picanto range.
- Is it? -80 horsepower from 1.25 litres.
Yes, just get in the bloody thing.
- I'm saying a lot, cos it takes him so long to get in. - Shut up!
So, what are we doing?
We're going down the straight towards the first roundabout, which is Froughton's Haulage.
I like the braking-distance markers. That's a nice touch. Very professional.
This is the Whitbread, extremely tight left-hander, and into Car Park A.
Now, there's a speed hump, and then the soon-to-be immortalised
Smokers' Shelter complex.
- Nice. - Which is what we're in now.
Dab of brakes. Apex it there, and we're into Car Park B.
This is Office Chair Bend. This is the chicane...
- Very nice. - ...before we go
back onto the beginning and ending straight
and head towards Mannington Plastics Roundabout.
Leaders in injection-moulding technology solutions.
Excellent. Quite the landmark.
Keep it wide. Half-throttle.
Look for the exit, and there we are... across the line.
Once you're across the line, you can slow down.
No point in continuing to go fast, cos you could have an accident doing that.
Funny.
RICHARD: With the track signed off, we selected two firms
to go head-to-head during their lunch hours.
Today, the competitors are Storage King,
"Self-storage made simple",
and Cura Technical, "Leading providers of IT support solutions".
And once their contenders had been selected,
it was time for the driver briefing.
"Each entrant from each firm does one timed lap.
Using those lap times, we'll whittle down our entrants,
until we have the best driver from each of the two firms."
Hammond, everybody in the room can read.
Shut up. "They'll then go head-to-head in the grand final,
to decide the ultimate winner of today's round."
JAMES: With Hammond's presentation over,
it was time to begin the qualifying laps that would decide
which employees would represent their firms in the shoot-out grand finale.
What we have first is Pete from Cura Technical.
He is the regional manager for Bedfordshire and the Midlands,
in his Vauxhall SRI Astra.
In three, two, one... go!
RICHARD: As the regional manager scorched away,
I commandeered the security hut,
so that I could use its CCTV feed to commentate on the action.
There's a complex of turns through here, really more than just one,
and that speed hump to deal with, as well. He's done that. He is through.
(TYRES SQUEALING)
He's on his way through the Office Chair complex. I can't see him on that camera.
Here he is. He's coming back up the straight.
200 brake horsepower. Useful now.
Going to make his way towards Froughton Haulage,
which is soon to become the ending line.
Huge amount of noise! And across the line.
(CHEERING)
After a cracking qualifying performance
from Pete of Cura Technical...
1:06.16.
...Storage King sent out their first driver,
hot-hatch enthusiast Darren from logistics.
Two, one... go!
I do like a Clio.
Oh, some sideways action.
(TYRES SQUEALING)
Oh, lovely work!
By ragging his Clio for all it was worth...
(LAUGHING)
...Storage King's Darren banged in a scorcher of a qualifier.
Oh!
- 1:05.97. - Oh, ho-ho!
And now, ladies and gentlemen, from Cura Technical,
it's Nick from Accounts,
who will be looking to... balance the books.
Oh, God. He's making puns.
In three, two, one! And he's off!
RICHARD: Despite being at the wheel of a motorway cruiser,
Nick seemed determined to top the timing charts.
Oh, this looks fast to me, towards Smokers' Corner.
However...
And he's... Yeah, that's looking...
No, that's not under control, because he's binned it!
And he's binned it.
He's binned it at Bin Corner, appropriately enough.
It is a DNF for Nick from Accounts.
The fleet manager is not going to be pleased.
There are going to be words when he gets back after lunch, I suspect.
JAMES: With the lunch-hour clock ticking away,
there followed a final flurry of qualifying laps.
Three, two, one... go!
Oh, it's a fizzy start from the little Abarth.
This is a tight little car, for a small circuit.
It's built for business-park racing. Look at that!
JAMES: It's Chris from Marketing in the Toyota GT86.
1:03.24.
And then, with the results in,
it was time for the grand-finale showdown shoot-out.
Now, representing Storage King,
in the Seat Leon Cupra R,
- from Purchasing, it's Gav. - (CHEERING)
And representing Cura Technical,
in the BMW E90 M3, from Sales,
- give it up for Steve! - (CHEERING)
And since we are dealing with the best
that South Bedfordshire has to offer:
the crème de menthe of business-park driving talent,
this final will be decided with a straight head-to-head race.
OK. Here we go. Ready. Ready. In three, two,
one... Go!
(TYRES SQUEALING)
And there they go. Steve against Gav,
Sales against Purchasing, battling down the main straight.
Froughton comes up first. They're both through.
They're both already in Car Park A, heading for Smokers' Corner.
Oh, he's gone very wide there.
And the Seat is through.
JAMES: The Seat is in front, but not by much.
RICHARD: I daren't watch. This is tight.
I would hate to have been having a fag in that booth when they came past.
Car Park B coming up. Look at this! Tailing one another through there.
I don't know how these two companies get on. Is there rivalry there?
Are they getting something out of their system?
Already coming back up. Through Froughton's for the second time.
These guys do mean business!
- Half a car's length in it. - Look at the speed they're carrying!
Oh! Close!
Both of them now up to Mannington's Plastics, and it's really tight there.
And across the line! The BMW takes the flag.
Yaaarghh!
(LAUGHS)
How about that?
(CHEERING)
Well, there we are. That's... That's that all sorted out.
And now it's time to sort something else out, as well,
as we play Celebrity Face Off!
(CHEERING)
Once again...
Once again, it is an international event,
Britain versus America.
And the question is, and it's a big one:
who is the fastest person in the world
who lives with a bear?
To find out, please welcome Casey Anderson and Hugh Bonneville!
(CHEERING)
Gentlemen.
- Hugh, have a seat. - Thank you.
Casey, have a seat.
You go here - that one. Yeah, you're that one.
Thank you for coming. First of all, I know you live with a bear, obviously.
- Obviously. - But it's not a real bear.
No, Paddington's like a CGI bear.
- (LAUGHTER) - You may say that!
And, Casey, you do live with an actual bear.
That's right, yeah. Big bear. Like, 800 pounds.
800 pounds?
Yeah, 800 or 900 pounds, depending on what he had for dinner.
(LAUGHTER)
The thing is, you rescued this bear when it was little, in Montana.
Yeah, he was literally that big when I rescued him, only a couple of months old,
and now he's 15 years old, stands about eight feet tall.
But did you know that was going to happen, or were you surprised?
"Jesus Christ! Look at the size of it."
Well, you have this cute little bear for a little while,
and then all of a sudden, he's ripping the couch up and eating the cushions,
trying to get in the refrigerator for the beer.
- You say he drinks beer? - Bears love beer.
Who'd have thought? I mean, I remember one time just cracking that open,
and they have an incredible sense of smell.
Have we got a picture of him drinking beer?
(LAUGHTER)
That's not Stella, I hope, cos you don't want a bear on Stella,
or Wife-Beater, as we call it over here.
He doesn't live in a cage?
No, he lives in the sanctuary part of the time.
He's at the house part of the time, depending on what...
He loves to be around people. That's all he knows. He can't be out in the wild.
OK, I get that... but you had him as your best man?
- (LAUGHTER) - He was best man at one of... Yeah, he was.
We actually have a photograph of the wedding here.
(LAUGHTER)
That's the sloppiest kiss I had that night.
And then he came for Thanksgiving dinners?
I think we've got a picture of that.
There - look.
- That is a big bear. - That's huge.
- Does he like turkey? - He loves turkey.
Ate the whole thing. Mashed potatoes. Everything.
Can I just ask...? You have a sanctuary, a bear sanctuary.
- Correct. - And how's the dynamic,
like, compared to his dynamic with you and the other bears?
Does he go, "Hey, I get on with humans and you don't"?
A little bit. I mean, he's the one that gets to come home
and do things that the other bears can't really do.
But it's like a soap opera.
He has different relationships with different bears.
He's got a girlfriend named Bella who's younger than him,
- and they wrestle around all the time. - (LAUGHTER)
So, that's your bear, OK? Now, yours is rather different.
Yes, thankfully! (LAUGHS)
Although yours is probably more mischievous. Paddington is.
Yes, he gets stuck in the fridge, in the film...
- Impossible. - Have you come across Paddington Bear in America?
- Yeah, definitely. - Because it very much has been a British
character for decades, really.
But he gets up to all sorts of mischief, and his favourite thing is marmalade.
And so, apart from getting stuck in the fridge...
This time round, in the second film,
he tries to become a barber, he tries to be a window cleaner.
None of these things go particularly well.
We do have a clip. I'd like to show that for you now, if I may.
I'm sorry. This is a private conversation.
Oh, it's all right, Mr Brown. This is my friend, Knuckles.
- How are you? - And this is Phibs.
- G'day. - Spoon.
- Hello. - Jimmy the Snitch.
T-Bone. The Professor. Squeaky Pete.
Double Bass Bob. Farmer Jack. Mad Dog. Johnny Cashpoint.
- Sir Geoffrey Wilcott. - I hope I can rely on your vote.
- And Charley Rumble. - (GROWLS)
Oh, it's so wonderful to meet you all.
It's a great relief to know
that Paddington's already made such sweet friends.
Would you excuse us a moment?
- What are you doing? - Talking to the nice men.
Nice men? Mary, we can't trust these people.
I mean, look at them.
Talk about a rogues' gallery! Hideous.
And as for that bearded baboon in the middle,
he's hardly got two brain cells to rub together.
We can still hear you, Mr Brown.
(MURMURS OF AGREEMENT)
That was the light you turned off.
(LAUGHTER)
JEREMY: It does look good.
I should just set up, or sort of back-set-up that clip,
which is that Paddington gets put into prison
for a crime we don't think he committed.
- I'm sure he didn't commit it. - No.
Somebody was pointing out to me the other day -
if Paddington really did arrive, and I won't get bogged down in immigration,
but he would be in contravention of Section 24 of the Immigration Act.
Cos he's deliberately avoided the immigration authorities.
- And you, as Mr Brown... - Yeah?
You would potentially face prosecution under Section 25,
for assisting unlawful immigration to a member state.
14 years in prison, that would get you.
Right. Well, there's the plot of Paddington 3 for you!
(LAUGHTER)
Anyway, we must get on to cars, cos this is... largely a car show.
Now, Casey, the thing about Montana is,
you could pretty much do anything you liked on the road there, until recently.
Yeah, not long ago, you could drive 100 miles an hour down the road,
drinking a beer, and have a loaded shotgun in your lap,
and you weren't breaking the law.
(LAUGHTER)
- What went wrong? - Yeah, I know!
Now you can only drive 85.
Cos the rule is, basically: don't crash.
"Just keep it between the fences", I think...
Yeah, between the fences, between the ditches.
As long as you don't go off the road, or maybe a little bit, you're cool.
(LAUGHTER)
It's largely gravel roads, as well.
Gravel roads, or icy roads.
I mean, I grew up with Land Cruisers, Willys Jeeps, big pick-up trucks.
When I haul Brutus around, I have a big Dodge 3500.
- Can he drive a car? - (LAUGHS)
No, but he likes to tear them apart.
There's been times when we're driving down the road to the vet,
and he's like, "What's this knob? What's this lever?"
And so the windshield wipers are going, radio's blaring,
and I'm screaming, "Get back, Brutus! Get back, Brutus!"
And he's tearing your face off.
(LAUGHS) You imagine the drivers driving by, saying...
Now, you're not particularly, I don't think, a helmsman.
No, I'm not. I'm not a petrol-head of any, you know, type.
Cars, for me, get me from A to B, I'm afraid.
In recent months I had my proper, full-blown midlife crisis
and decided to buy a convertible.
My wife said, "Don't be ridiculous.
It is only sunny in England about two days a year."
Exactly, yeah. "Don't be so stupid."
So, I went and bought a convertible, and then I thought,
"Actually, what I really want is an electric car."
- So, I said to my wife at the end of the summer... -(LAUGHTER)
"I'm getting rid of the convertible and getting an electric car."
She said, "Don't be ridiculous! We've had a great summer in that convertible.
You're not getting rid of it."
But meanwhile, I'd already placed an order for a second-hand Tesla.
So, I am now a Tesla owner, and I love it, Jeremy!
(LAUGHTER)
- Which is yours? The S? - Yes.
And my friend down the road has the top-of-the-range,
and we actually have a Tesla coffee group.
- Oh, Christ. - (LAUGHTER)
- There are three-- - How evangelical!
There are three... four of us, actually, now.
Another mate's just got one. So, in about a five-mile radius,
and we literally go and stare at each other's cars.
I've never had an interest in cars at all,
and I love my Tesla.
(LAUGHTER)
I can't imagine the electric car has caught on much in Montana.
- I'm part of a Tesla coffee group, too. - Oh, Christ.
How have we ended up with this?
Right. Now, obviously, you came here to do your laps. How did it go?
Ah, look, I'm not a driver, and I would say
that I'm probably about a minute slower than him. That's my prediction.
A minute would be something quite spectacular!
(LAUGHS) I'm like an old granny.
Well, that's cos you're from Downton.
The car had barely been invented - that's what it is.
The gravel must have been second nature for you.
Oh, when I heard that there was gravel, and I saw it,
I'm like, "Oh, I might have a chance here."
- That was my edge. - Damn!
Well, now, whose lap shall we see first? Hmmm...
We'll go with you first of all.
Who'd like to see Hugh's lap?
- (CHEERING) - Let's have a look.
(ENGINE ROARING)
There it is. Two-litre engine crackling away.
What do you mean, you need the toilet?
You've taken Paddington with you in the car. And is that a crash helmet he's got on?
HUGH: Oh, yes. - Brilliant.
You're frightened to death. Actually, that's not too bad. And onto the difficult bit.
- Oh, here we go. - Yeah, there we are.
Are we going to get some sideways action?
Oh, yes, we are.
Nearly stopped.
Virtually in reverse.
I think what they're doing is playing the film in slow motion. Let's be kind.
They did say you were very slow,
but no, that's not very slow.
Hang on. Let's have a look through here. Tail out again. That's good.
Coming back onto... Oh, no, you've got a bit of a tank-slapper!
And back on the Tarmac, where it's very slippery, but you've held that nicely.
Right. Now for the tricky bit.
- Oh, this bit was-- - It's OK. You're making it look tricky.
- (LAUGHS) - And there we are, onto the straight.
♪ Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the... ♪
Keeping Paddington happy. Were you flat through there?
Yeah...
That was leaning on it. You are good on the Tarmac.
Final corner, and tail out again.
Nicely done, Hugh, and across the line! There we are, everybody.
- Well, done. - Pretty good.
JEREMY: That's not bad!
Honestly... a couple of slow bits, but not bad.
Who'd like to see Casey's lap? Done without a bear in his car. Here we go.
Vigorous, little two-litre engine.
OK, this thing has got some power.
JEREMY: Yeah, but it is only two-litre.
I'm amazed that was big enough for you, with your big pick-ups.
Nicely, tidily done through there.
Very tidy indeed. Keeping it smooth.
And onto the gravel. Now, this is where he's at home.
Except for the beer and the shotgun.
(CASEY LAUGHS)
Oh, nicely held through there, flicking it back the other way.
Sideways on that one.
Big smile. It is funny how a fully grown man
can be made to smile by sliding a car on gravel.
That does look good in the afternoon sun there,
as the F-Type comes up now, back towards the Tarmac.
No tank-slapper going on there. This is always tricky.
(TYRES SQUEALING)
You are the master of understeer.
Yep, that looks good. Bit of dust.
Nearly stopped, but we're going again.
It's my nemesis coming up right here.
Yeah. Understeer again?
No, that was really... Oh, what are you doing?
That's a Scandi Flick, or something near a Scandi Flick.
And more understeer, and there we are, ladies and gentlemen.
- Across the line, as well! - (APPLAUSE)
CASEY: A little crazy. - (LAUGHTER)
So far, the Brits have won every single week.
- OK. - We're hoping to keep that up.
I've got the times here.
Hugh Bonneville, you did it...
And just to give you some idea...
The fastest so far is a 1:17.
The slowest is David Hasselhoff. 1:24.
You did it in one
22
.2.
- So, you're faster than David Hasselhoff. - Beat the Hoff!
- Beat the Hoff. - Beat the Hoff.
Well done.
But...
Did you beat our American guest, who's come very far for this?
Casey Anderson.
1:18.6.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Congratulations.
So, there we are - our first American winner.
First one. Sorry, Hugh.
There we are, ladies and gentlemen.
A very big thanks to Hugh Bonneville
and the fastest man who lives with a bear, Casey Anderson!
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Now, in olden times,
the furthest you could ever travel in one day
was as far as your horse could go before it died.
Yeah, and then, in the late '50s, the invention of jets and helicopters meant,
if you had the money, you could have breakfast in the South of France on a boat,
go skiing in the Alps at lunch time,
and get to Turin in time for dinner with a Contessa.
Yeah. Now, this created the jet-set,
which is all very "Where do you go to, my lovely, when you're alone in your bed?"
But I was wondering, now that cars are so fast
and roads, by and large, are good - we have motorways, for example -
do you need the jets and helicopters any more?
Yeah, you do.
Well, to find out, I took the Grand Tour to Saint-Tropez.
(EASY-LISTENING MUSIC)
(BELLOWS) Giovanni!
Ah, morning.
I've got dinner tonight in Turin with the Contessa,
but I fancy a bit of skiing.
So, could you bring the car round?
And can you make sure there are no ordinary people near it? I don't want a disease.
Good.
(ENGINE ROARING)
Soon, Giovanni arrived at the boat with my car.
And after he'd loaded the boot
with half of what I'd need for the day,
I climbed aboard and set off.
Right. What all these people are looking at
is Bugatti's answer to the Agusta 109 and Gulfstream G6.
It's called the Chiron, and there's no other way of saying this.
It's the fastest car in the world.
Obviously, it isn't the fastest car in the world right now,
because I'm sort of going round the port in Saint-Tropez,
but this, in fact, is the Bugatti's party piece.
But think about it.
This is a 1,479-horsepower,
261-mile-an-hour rocket ship.
It is engineering taken to the max, and then some.
And yet I'm doing 20 miles an hour and it feels like a Golf.
It's like Concorde.
Anyone in the sky in the 1960s
who was doing twice the speed of sound was wearing a G-suit.
But on Concorde they were doing twice the speed of sound
while wearing a lounge suit,
sipping from a glass of Château Margaux.
That was the brilliance of Concorde.
It was right at the edge of what was technically possible, but it felt normal.
That's what the Bugatti's doing here.
Eventually, though, I emerged
from the summer-long Saint-Tropez traffic jam
and joined the motorway,
home turf for the Chiron and the monster that powers it.
It's an eight-litre monster,
with 16 cylinders
and enough grunt to make kilometres feel like inches.
(ENGINE ROARING)
We all thought the Veyron was fairly amazing,
but this has... out-amazinged it.
Let me give you a few of the headline statistics.
The Chiron accelerates from 0 to 186 miles an hour
faster than a Toyota hatchback accelerates from 0 to 60.
Flat out, this will drain its fuel tank...
Ready? ...in nine minutes.
And to put that in a language the youth can understand,
it's like drinking seven shot glasses full of petrol every second.
The Chiron has ten radiators.
That's more than I've got in my apartment.
And then there's the water pump,
which sends 200 gallons of water a minute round the engine.
That could brim a bath in 12 seconds.
Firemen use less powerful pumps than that.
It's not a cheap car to buy.
In fact, it costs £2.5 million.
And it's not cheap to run, either.
The tyres, for instance, cost £13,000.
The stats just go on and on and on,
but all you can ever think is,
"Bloody hell, this thing's quick!"
(ENGINE ROARING)
Obviously, I can't show you how fast on a motorway,
because the French police
have completely lost their sense of humour about speeding.
So I had to make a call.
(BELLOWS) Giovanni!
Sir?
Yeah, could you lay on a deserted air field and...
What shall I get? ...a BMW M4 in about 20 seconds?
- Certainly, sir. - Thanks.
OK. I don't really have time to do this on my busy day,
but what I'm going to do is demonstrate to you
the difference between a really fast car
and a Bugatti Chiron.
(ENGINE STARTS)
(ENGINES REVVING)
(TYRES SQUEALING)
(CHUCKLES) 80, 96, 105, 130, 154,
163, 200, 207, 223...
(SOUND DIPPED) ...hell.
Drag-race over, I got back on the road.
There is no doubt in my mind
that this is faster than flying. It just is.
I mean, if I were to be racing Hammond today in his silly helicopter,
he'd still be sitting at the heliport in Saint-Tropez, saying,
"Requesting ILS Vector, Golf Tango Donkey Norway Shirley."
All completely unnecessary gibberish, just so everyone goes,
"Oh, aren't you clever, being able to fly a helicopter?"
Not really.
I, on the other hand, having got no clearance at all from anyone,
had turned off the motorway and into the foothills of the Alps.
And you might imagine that, on roads like this,
a mid-engine supercar would be divine.
But this is no ordinary mid-engine supercar.
A McLaren 720, or a Ford GT, they would be brilliant here.
But this... I'm gonna be honest with you. It feels heavy.
Because it is. I'm not saying it's cumbersome.
I'm not saying getting it up this mountain road
is like getting a cow up a step-ladder.
But it's not delicate or deft or dainty.
No, the Chiron, it tackles mountain roads
in a way I've never experienced before.
Imagine the tear of a newly born child.
Well, this isn't like that. This is more like...
(LAUGHS) Mount Vesuvius!
(ENGINE ROARING)
There are no straights in a Chiron.
You come out of a corner and then you're in the next one.
Pretty much immediately.
Come out of a corner... Wham!
Slow down... Blam! Oh, my God! Wham!
Most supercars would flow up a hill like this,
but this is more staccato.
Weirdly, then, the best way to enjoy this car on a mountain road
is to drive it much more slowly than it can actually go.
Is this a bad thing?
Well, not when you remember who it's been made for.
If you tell the Bugatti customer
that this can generate 2G in the corners, he won't care less.
Tell him it's got 3K diamonds in the speakers, and he'll say, "Really?"
Only, in a Russian accent.
I think they've judged this to perfection.
Soon I arrived at Les Deux Alpes,
where I removed my ski boot from the boot,
bought another from the shop...
Merci. Oui, à plus tard.
...and went off to find a glacier.
Let's do this.
It is remarkable that, in this day and age,
I've been able to do this.
Just a few hours ago, I was in the South of France,
surrounded by people in their carefully designed,
topless swimsuits.
And now I'm on an Alp, doing skiing,
with the others of the jet-set.
It took rather longer to get down the glacier
than I'd expected.
So, when I got back to the town,
I had to get my skis off and my skates on.
Not that you could actually hear that I had my skates on.
The only really odd noise you get in a Chiron
is the whoosh of the turbo-charging system.
- Ready? (SIGHS) - (RHYTHMICAL WHIRRING)
It's actually relaxing.
It sounds like small wavelets
breaking on a tropical beach. Here we go.
(WHIRRING)
What this car is is just a really nice,
comfortable place to sit,
while it gets on with the business of smashing continents.
And that's exactly what it'd have to do,
if I were to be on time for my dinner date
with the Contessa in Turin.
Happily, I soon left France,
where they rip your fingernails out if you break the speed limit,
and entered Italy, where, so far as I can tell,
speeding isn't really seen as a crime at all.
I was once pulled over by the police in Italy,
when I was driving a Lamborghini,
and they told me I wasn't driving quickly enough.
(ITALIAN ACCENT) "It's a Lamborghini. When you leave here,
you drive like the wind."
This is my instruction from the police. (CHUCKLES)
(ENGINE ROARING)
Right. It's 47 miles to Turin.
I've got 45 minutes to get there, and I'm never late.
I'm pathologically punctual.
By taking the police advice and driving like the wind,
I made it to the outskirts of Turin with 11 minutes to go.
And I had to spend one of those minutes getting changed
in the bogs at a motorway service station.
(SQUELCHING)
Right.
I have got nine minutes to make this rendezvous.
(ENGINE STARTS)
(CLEARS THROAT) This should be interesting.
There was a film called Rendezvous, made in the 1960s,
when someone tried to cross Paris in nine minutes.
(ENGINE ROARING)
Well, now it was time to put that 16-cylinder engine in Race mode
and make an hommage to that.
(ENGINE ROARING)
(TYRES SQUEALING)
(HORNS HONKING)
(ENGINE ROARING)
(TYRES SQUEALING)
(TRAM BELL JINGLES)
- 20 seconds. - (ENGINE ROARING)
Made it.
(CAR DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES)
(BELL TOLLING)
(CHEERING)
- Amazing. - Rumble.
You can feel it more than you can hear it.
Yeah, in the chest. But hang on.
Are you seriously saying
that, point to point, a car is faster than a helicopter?
Well, it's faster than your helicopter. You start yours with a cord.
Duh-duh-duh-duh! You do.
But a car is not faster than a helicopter.
OK, then, a race. OK?
You in your Moulinex Magimix versus me in that Chiron.
No, I can't. I'm not allowed to fly it at the moment.
- Why not? - I broke my leg.
Oh, here we go again! God!
So, there we are. Because of his astonishing selfishness,
there will be no race between his kitchen appliance and the Chiron.
And on that terrible disappointment, it's time to end.
Thank you very much for watching. Goodbye.
(CHEERING)