The Grand Tour

Hello, and welcome to a Grand Tour special,

which comes to you from

the emptiest, most sparsely populated country on Earth.

Mongolia.

*THE GRAND TOUR* Season 03 Episode 13

Episode Title: "The Mongolia Special- Survival of the Fattest"

Now, ordinarily when we go on these adventures,

we have a vague idea about the sort of things that we might be doing.

But this time, we don't.

No, not a clue.

The situation is, we took off from

the capital city of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar,

and flew for two, two-and-a-half hours,

over terrain that was much like this.

Actually, quite familiar.

Unthreatening.

But it was completely empty.

It was like flying over the whole of the British Isles

and not seeing a town, a village, a road,

a powerline, a quarry, not even a farm.

There wasn't a shred of evidence, from what we saw out of the aeroplane window,

that man has ever existed.

Yeah, this is what the world would have looked like,

pretty much, on about page three of the Book of Genesis, I reckon.

And then we were dropped off here...

...and we don't know why.

We don't know anything.

An hour or so later, though...

That's a chopper.

- There, look. - Yeah.

Why isn't he landing?

What's he doing?

- Whoa, look at this. - Look!

Hang on a minute.

- Whoa. - Look at that.

What's he dropping?

It's got to be supplies. Firewood...

- Food. - Shelter.

Hats.

- Hats? - Well, you need a hat. It's sunny.

They're not gonna fly out hats to us.

So that... He's... That's him gone, then.

- He's not landing. - Oh.

Does that mean we're not going home, then?

Well. James, the helicopter has buggered off.

And we're alone with three boxes full of quiche or something.

Well, let's go and have a look, then.

I mean, what we really need is transport.

Yeah. That would be useful.

They haven't got cars in them.

- Could you get a car in that? - No, look, it's thin.

It's only about that wide.

- So this is the webbing that... - Well, that comes off.

Oh, hello, there's a crowbar there. So that's...

Good.

Right, lifting it here.

- That's it. - Stand clear.

Oh!

- Well... - Water.

- What's in... - The hell...

Oh, shit. Is that an engine?

That's an engine.

A TDi of some sort.

Vehicle lights?

- That is a rear axle. - It is.

That's a master cylinder.

Guys, I don't need to look in the other one.

We've an engine, we've headlights, we've a rear axle.

There's enough spare parts to build a car.

- Yeah. - Oh, come on.

What, here?

As the other two opened the third crate,

I found a mysterious bag.

OK, well, straight away, that's a windscreen.

Which confirms it.

- Yep. - Guys...

What is it, a Land Rover?

- What's that? - I have a letter.

The nearest civilisation is a town called Moron.

- Is it? - There's a surprise.

"It's hundreds of miles away.

In order to reach it, you must build the contents of these boxes.

You have enough food and water for seven days."

What's that?

- That's the town. - Moron.

- And that's the start. - We're here.

It says "Map not to scale."

There's a surprise.

This has been drawn by EH Shepard.

Look, "Rather Boggy and Sad."

"Deep River of Despair."

- "Floody Place." - "Lots of Trees."

"Wibbly Wobbly Bridge", "Very Big Crack".

Well, that's not very useful, is it?

Well, we've got to go northeast, haven't we?

But how far is that?

Well, we don't know. He said "hundreds of miles".

Yes, but first...

What?

All we need to do is assemble this lot into a car.

As there was no instruction manual,

May and I began to go through the components.

This is chassis, isn't it? But it's in two halves.

While our mechanically inept colleague made himself useful

by moaning about the camping equipment.

That's not a bed!

- It's a mattress. - In...

- It's not a mattress! - It is.

If you go to Peter Jones and say,

"Can I have a mattress?" they don't give you this.

- The heaviest bit is the engine... - Yes.

...which is over there, so we need to take the other bits over there.

- Yes, that's a very good idea. - Let's do that.

- Jeremy's pretending to be a ghost. - I'll pretend to be scared.

To be a ghost, you first have to be dead.

Nice work.

So what we should do is lay everything out.

Why not put the parachute out as a dust sheet, put it all on the parachute?

Good idea.

If we lay it out, it can be the floor of our workshop.

- If either of you have any emergencies... - No!

- Hey, Hammond. - Yeah?

It's a Land Rover engine, you'll be pleased to know.

Is it?

"Hey, Hammond. Hey, Hammond."

Why don't you do something useful? Unwrap something.

"Hey, Hammond.

Hammond."

As my colleagues fiddled about

with stuff I didn't understand...

That says "Chassis mid-section."

...I found something that I did.

Hello!

I wasn't expecting that.

However, there was a problem.

- Just pop that down for a second. - Yes.

- This is a box of rations, OK? - Yes.

Now, forgive me but I could swear...

Oh, God.

- Why would Wilman do that? - Because he's evil.

Why would he send us a car in bits that isn't a car?

I don't care about the car in bits.

He and both of you, actually, are quite capable of doing that.

This, on the other hand, is a catastrophe.

- How many of those have you found? - One.

Why don't you trouble yourself with matters food-related?

That's a good idea.

Gather it together in one place, see what we've got.

So, I see. So I become food and beverage manager of the project?

- If you want to call it that. - If you like.

A bit like Robert De Niro in Casino.

In every conceivable way.

He was the food and beverage manager of the casino.

And I shall be the food and beverage manager of our little project.

OK, from now on we'll call you Robert.

Why don't you gather all

- the food-related things... - Thank you.

- Off you go, Robert. - It's my middle name.

- Mr De Niro. - Mr De Niro, yes. That'll be great.

Whilst the raging baboon went off to sort the food and beverages,

James and I continued to unpack the components.

Oh, wait a minute, that's got pedals attached to it.

- Oh, yeah. - So that's the bulkhead essentially.

And eventually the giant Airfix kit was laid out.

That's where we will build it.

This is our workshop.

I would say we've got hundreds of components,

not including fasteners and things.

Meanwhile, in the lee of a nearby hill,

I had been very busy as well.

Right, I've got the campsite built.

Two tents here for the snorers.

One over there for me, so I can't hear them.

There's the lavatory. And now...

I'm gonna start work on lunch.

Which meant making fire.

- Yes. - Yes!

Please!

So, gearbox on.

- Yeah. - Yep.

Back at base, we were doing well...

There, that's it, whoa.

...even though James was being very annoying.

Hang on, let's just think about where all...

We haven't got the nuts and bloody fasteners ready.

Let's just get on with it. Get it lined up.

OK.

- That's quite good. - Offer it up.

Push forwards. Yes.

- Oh-ho-ho! - Well done.

- Hey, James. - 21.

I've got a metal willy.

Captain OCD, however,

was not in the mood for willy gags.

Where the chuffing hell has it gone?

This is why you put 'em back in the same place.

Where did you put it last time you had the 19?

- Oh, for God's sake... - Ratchet.

...just find any **** spanner?

With absolutely no help at all