The Not Very Grand Tour

Hello, viewers, and welcome

to The Grand Tour, the Glory and the Power,

a general celebration of the excellence of the engine.

Yes, you see in recent years,

the internal combustion engine seems to have become

something of a whipping boy for all the world's ills.

It has, and for that reason, it is possible that within our lifetimes,

you will no longer be able to buy a new internal combustion engine car

in Britain, or, for that matter, in the US,

or Belgium, or the Netherlands, or Spain, or Portugal...

Are you going to name all the countries?

I can.

Can you still do it if I drop that Cosworth DFV engine on your neck?

Er, no.

The point we're trying to make is that everybody does have a bit of a downer

on the internal combustion engine,

but Hammond and I think it's worth pointing out

that the engine is also rather brilliant.

We'll illustrate this by showing you clips from films you've already seen.

Um, stuff like this...

The internal combustion engine really is a remarkable... Um...

Device?

Invention?

Thing!

Yeah, alright, Shakespeare.

The thing is, we believe nothing sums up

the wonders of internal combustion better than a big, lumpy V8.

And this brings us to the time we went to Detroit, to Motown,

and while we were there, we had a bit of a rummage around

in the modern muscle car toybox,

and then we hit the streets of that great city to make some noises.

These are the toys we'll be using.

Three American muscle cars,

all of which have been tuned to a tyre-shredding DEFCON one.

I have the Ford Mustang RTR spec 3.

Mr Slowly has what's called The Exorcist.

And in his whining Dodge Challenger Demon...

Hammond has an erection.

To make this, they took a Hellcat, I drove one before on the show,

and just made it "more".

More of everything.

I have 840 horsepower.

A massive supercharger.

And on the bonnet there, or hood,

that's the biggest hood scoop ever fitted to a production car. Ever!

Yeah!

- -Noise!

Noise in the city.

Bloody hellfire.

This car is tuned by Hennessey.

They've taken a standard Camaro

and they've given it a thousand horsepower.

Jesus Christ.

They haven't touched anything else, only the engine.

Wheels and brakes are standard, suspension and bodywork are standard.

It's all standard.

Except the power.

Jeez! I can't even steer it.

It's, it's...

It's idiotic, honestly.

And yeah, though I walk in the shadow of the valley of death, I will fear no evil.

Because I am the Exorcist.

This may look small and delicate compared to the other two,

but be in no doubt,

it has the muscle car credentials.

- - Oh yeah.

The fact is that the engine in Hammond's car

is a push rod, two valve, iron museum piece.

And May's car, yes, it has a thousand horsepower,

but it's running on standard brakes.

This, this is just a little bit cleverer.

They haven't just put a supercharger on it and left it at that.

They've stiffened up the suspension and lowered it

and stiffened the anti-roll bars.

So it can do this.

Christ!

And it can do this.

Yes!

This then is the Anthony Joshua

of muscle cars.

Big and brawny, but it has brains as well.

Then there's its name.

It's the RTR, which stands for,

and I'm not making this up, Ready to Rock.

These three cars then,

they're the perfect fairground rides

in our perfect petrolhead theme park.

People travel all the way to Florida to look at a man in a mouse suit

and watch an implausible train have an unrealistic crash.

Why not come here in your car and do this?

Woo!

What a day.

I just can't get over James May is "The Ex-que-cist".

I am surprised to see you two so upbeat about this trip.

Why do you say that?

Well, you're always saying how much you don't like muscle cars.

Yeah.

I just say that to annoy you.

Alright.

Nobody intelligent admits that they like muscle cars,

but secretly, deep down,

everybody does.

They're like power rock ballads.

I mean, if you're driving along with friends

and "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey comes on the radio,

you say "This is rubbish," you huff and puff and turn it off.

If you're on your own and it comes on,

you turn it up and you sing along.

You do.

Chaps, did you know mine only comes

with one seat as standard?

Really?

What?

As standard, you get one seat in a Demon.

You can opt to have the others put back in and it costs you a dollar.

Which seat do they put in as standard?

Full of love for our thunderous muscle cars,

we decided to find out which was the noisiest.

There were many locations we could have used for this important test,

but eventually, we found one that was absolutely perfect.

What is this place?

Well, it obviously was a theatre.

They built it on the site

of Henry Ford's first ever workshop.

And when I say theatre...

Oh wow.

It's the birthplace of Henry Ford's business.

- Yeah. - Then a theatre.

It's a car park. We can bring some theatre back with our noise test.

Actually, there's a kind of poetry to it, it's beautiful.

-Precisely. -Not just bringing the poetry.

-Also the decibel-o-meter. - Oh, perfect.

So you can go and go first.

Why am I going first?

- I just said you can go first. - He did. I heard him say it.

Since the owners feared the noise from our engines

would bring down the crumbling roof,

we were given protective clothing.

We have to put this on because there may be dust.

There will be dust.

Traction off.

I'll just make wheel spin.

Wheel spin, that just makes a huge amount of noise.

- Are you ready? - Yes.

Oh yeah, check it out.

I can see jack shit.

- God, that's pretty horrible. -How loud?

Well, at its peak...

- Yep. -125.2.

Well, wait a minute, you don't know, you're the first to go.

-125? - Yeah.

The Who,

widely regarded to be the loudest rock band of all time.

-Yes. -126 decibels,

Deep Purple, a mere 117 decibels.

That car is louder than Deep Purple.

But probably a lot quieter than my Demon.

- -

Any minute now, a paramedic will be cutting his trousers off.

He should've taken them off before he got in.

True, I don't know why he wears trousers.

Here we go. Ready? In three, two...

Oh, wait a minute, it hasn't done it.

Easy mistake.

We've all done it, forgotten the key when you're donutting

in a Detroit theatre that's been turned into a multi-storey car park.

Everybody's been there.

Okay. In three, two...