The Grand Tour

Hello and welcome to The Grand Tour,

which is not coming to you this time from the top

of a volcano or the bottom of the sea.

No. We are in Berwick-upon-Tweed,

the most northerly town in England.

And our mission is to set off across the border

and then drive all the way across Scotland

to the Outer Hebrides.

Now, this promises to be

one of the most beautiful drives we have ever done.

And on the way,

we will be attempting to answer a very important question.

Yeah. It's this...

In Europe we listen to American music,

we buy American clothes, we drink American beer,

we wear American sunglasses.

But American cars have never caught on.

Why?

To try and find out, each of us bought an American car.

And this is what I chose,

a 19-foot-long Lincoln Continental Mark V.

Remember Jock Ewing out of Dallas?

He had one of these.

Fat Frank Cannon, the TV detective,

he had something very similar,

a Mark IV, basically the same.

And what this means is, is that when I was growing up,

I would see a Lincoln on TV every week

and then I'd turn to my dad and say,

"Dad, can we have a Ford Cortina?"

Why didn't I want one of these?

Why didn't he?

Ooh, hello.

It's a... a Buick Riviera.

Oh, yeah!

With a... with a self-opening boot. Shall I shut that?

When did that happen?

- Just now as you pulled up. - Yeah, okay,

that's a feature of the model. This is the legendary

1971 Buick Riviera, the boattail.

What?

No, I'm just... I'm just... I'm stunned.

Well, no, the thing is, is we said,

"Why did American cars not catch on in Europe?"

Yeah.

Did this even catch on in America?

Well, that's the thing. You see, the Riviera

was Buick's answer to the Ford Thunderbird.

So from '63 they were making Rivieras. And it was doing well.

They were selling quite a few,

- not as many as the Thunderbird. - Yeah.

So in '71 they said, "Let's make something really striking."

Really new, really out there.

And they made this and everybody hated it.

Literally!

Their advertising material said, "It's like nothing else."

And Americans went, "Good."

But... Jock Ewing, Fat Frank Cannon, celebrity all over it.

Clint Eastwood.

- Really? - Jeff Bridges.

- Really? - Yes.

What, they both had this?

- Bruce Willis. - Bruce... Really?

- So, Frank and Jock? - Yes.

Bruce, Clint and Jeff?

Yes!

And we still ran around in Europe going,

"I don't know, shall we have an Allegro or..."

We had an Allegro Estate, when this existed!

What do you suppose May's got?

No, let me rephrase that.

What sort of Cadillac do you suppose May's bought?

Eventually...

after 20 feet of waiting,

we got the answer.

The car now arriving at platforms four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten...

- May? - Yes, sir?

We guessed you'd have a Cadillac.

Not just a Cadillac. This is a Cadillac Coupe DeVille.

- Is it? - -The Cadillac of Cadillacs.

Honestly, driving this, I feel like Elvis Presley.

What, dead on a lavatory?

Oh my God, how much burgundy can you get in one car?

It's like an American motel room.

They must have scraped out all the burgundy mines in the world.

"What color shall we make the seats?"

- Burgundy. - "What about the dash there?"

- Burgundy. - "Ooh, good idea."

But... the switch, the button on the end of the cruise control stalk...

- Burgundy -...is burgundy.

I was hoping you wouldn't notice that.

Has it fallen off?

Well, I'm gonna have to admit to being a bit of a clot.

I was driving here and I noticed in my mirror

this piece of debris flying away down the road.

And I actually thought to myself, "Do you know what?

That's remarkable.

That piece of debris is the same burgundy

as my car."

But without actually thinking,

- "I wonder if it came from it?" - Oh!

I tell you what we should do,

have a game of Top Trumps.

Engine?

- Yes? - Mm-hmm?

6.6-liter V8.

- Aw, that's cute! - 6.6...

- What? It's not cute-- - What does it use to drive the car along?

Is that what starts the engine?

Well, how big's the engine in yours?

7.5.

- 7.5 liters? - 7.5-liter V8!

Whooph!

Go on!

8.2.

Eight?

8.2 liters.

This is the biggest V8 ever fitted to a production car. 8.2 liters.

All right, then.

This is more efficient, obviously.

How many horsepower?

- Mine? - Mm-hmm.

Hundred and ninety.

I don't think horsepower matters.

- How many horsepower? - One hundred and eighty-one.

- That's it? - Yes.

From 6.6 liters.

- I don't know how they did that. - My seven-and-a-half-liter V8 lump

developed 250 horsepower.

- Two hundred and fifty? - Yeah.

So that's a rocket ship.

Eager to begin our important journey of discovery,

we fired up the 10,000-pound Lincoln,

the 17,000-pound Buick

and Mount Burgundy

and set off.

This is it.

Scottish border. We're entering McScotland.

This is a homecoming for this car

because Mr. Buick of Buick was Scottish.

You're going home!

Jeremy Clarkson, are you aware

that your car appears to be talking as it goes along?

No, I'm unaware of that.

The front bumper is 17 miles in front of where I'm sitting.

We powered along, dumbstruck

at what we'd missed out on in our childhoods.

I seem to remember that in 1970,

the heater was an optional extra in an Austin.

The heater was.

Whereas this has got electrically adjustable seats,

electric windows, electric quarter light,

cruise control... I mean, the Starship Enterprise didn't have cruise control.

I mean, look at this, automatic climate control.

You can set it on economy settings

or an auto setting, or bi-level.

I mean, bi-level.

We wouldn't have even known what that meant.

I mean, if somebody had showed me a window

that moved about using electricity in the 1970s,

I'd have fainted.

Check out my lights!

I've got garage doors for my headlights.

What would my childhood have been like

if I'd wafted about in the back of one of these

instead of a Ford Anglia with a hole in the floor?

My dad would have been my absolute hero.

I'd have had a bright and sunny outlook.

Yeah...

As we approached the outskirts of Edinburgh,

we were honored with the traditional local welcome.

McRaining now. That's predictable. We've been in Scotland

for, what, 20 minutes?

Presumably the Scottish police can't say "You're nicked, sunshine"

because nobody would know what that meant.

Not good. The news is not good.

We then decided to head for the city center

to see how our cars would cope

with the steep and narrow cobbled streets.

Wait a minute.

Oh, my God!

This cannot be done.

The issues with my bovine differential soon caused another problem.

That's me. That's me boiling over.

Chaps, I am boiling over.

Crikey. It's like John in Mongolia.

After I'd finally conquered the hill,

Hammond topped up with some precious Scottish water.

And wondering how Frank Cannon ever solved anything,

we resumed our journey through the city center.

Oh, God above. You see what's ahead of us here?

Yep. Right.

Mm, that is a bit bum-squeaky there, Clarkson.

How close am I to that wall?

About that.

Um, right, I'm going to admit,

my car's a little bit too big for Edinburgh.

I think we can put this down

to Edinburgh's fault rather than the cars.

No chance.