Top Gear

'Tonight, I use a machine.' Agh!

James writes on a blackboard...

And Richard lobs fruit into a caravan.

APPLAUSE Thank you, everybody.

Thank you, thank you so much.

Good evening, hello. Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much.

Now, in the not very olden days, Jaguar had a worldwide reputation for...

I was going to say quality - not quality, but quietness, comfort,

restrained good looks and value.

Now, though, they've introduced a new car which seems to be only about one thing.

Speed.

120. 130.

140.

Into fifth.

150.

160.

170. In a Jag! Come on!

Apparently with a long enough runway, it'll hit 186.

Woah! This isn't long enough. Help, help!

So, welcome to the new XKR-S,

the most powerful road car Jaguar has ever made.

The supercharged V8 has been re-calibrated and the exhausts beefed-up

so that it now fires 542 horsepower at the rear wheels.

That's on the edge of Ferrari territory.

As a result, it feels and sounds

as though it's being fuelled by a blend of plutonium and wild animals.

It's very fast.

And very, very loud.

And then in the corners,

it'll get its tail out more readily than George Michael.

There you go. Hit the throttle...

A lot of smoke. Ha-ha!

It's mad! A mad car.

It's like Terry Thomas with a sub-machine gun.

To make sure deaf people don't mistake the S for an ordinary XKR,

the body has bigger sills, a bigger rear spoiler,

and snowshoes on the bonnet.

It's also got this new downturned nose which makes

it look rather disapproving, like a 1950s seaside landlady.

And I'm sorry but red brake callipers on a Jag...

it's like fitting Camilla Parker Bowles with a vajazzle and rings.

I'm saying this out loud, aren't I?

Inside, we find leather designed to look like carbon fibre,

and blue ambient lighting.

The walnut from Jags of yesteryear, gone.

The gentleman's club has been turned into Grant Bovey's gym.

There are other issues, too.

The ride is a bit harsh.

Run over a pheasant, and you'd be able to tell if it was a cock or a hen.

Then there's the price, it's not what you call cheap.

In fact it's what you'd call £97,000,

and that's what you'd call nearly 100 grand.

So, Jag has sacrificed subtlety, good looks, comfort, silence

and value - all its core values - in the pursuit of speed.

But if all you're interested in is speed, I wonder,

would you be better off with the Nissan GTR?

This is the new model.

More powerful, more aerodynamic and unbelievably even more grippy.

We're told it's a masterclass in what's technically possible right now.

Built in a hermetically sealed factory, it's the last word

in precision engineering.

Every single piece - the brakes, all four wheels,

the 3.8 litre twin-turbo engine,

the steering, the new double clutch gearbox,

they're all electronically linked to sing the song of speed

in perfect harmony.

Let me give you just one example.

The tyres on this car are filled with nitrogen

because ordinary air is considered to be too unstable.

It expands and it contracts too much.

And I know what they mean, air drives me mad.

It's too big, it's too little. Rrrrr! Air!

But can this OCD special really be faster than the bonkers Jag?

The Jag has 20 more horsepowers and 50 more torques,

and I know this is lighter and it has launch control,

which is what I'm engaging now, but on paper this can't win.

Three, two, one! Oh, my God!

That was 0-60 in three seconds.

The Jag is just a speck.

It's funny, the Jag is surprisingly fast because it's a Jag.

This is surprisingly fast because it's surprisingly fast.

That was not a win, that was a demolition.

I don't think I've ever been in a car that has launched itself quite like that.

And don't think the Jag can get away on the corners either.

Here it is now coming through the follow-through as fast as it can.

That's 84.8mph.

And here is the Nissan...

same corner, same conditions, same driver.

That's 93.3mph.

So it's 8.5mph faster and that explains why at the Nurburgring,

where there are 147 corners, the Jag takes nine minutes to do a lap

while the Nissan can get round in seven minutes and 24 seconds.

That's faster than almost anything else with a tax disc.

This is an incredible car. The new gearbox is spectacularly good.

The engine... Well, it's not an engine, it's just a bomb.

The turbo is crisp and fantastic,

and if you have the chassis and the gearbox and the traction control set in race mode, which they are now,

the grip...

is just mind-boggling.

As I shall now demonstrate graphically with my face.

Bloody hell!

All I've got is the PlayStation G reading

telling me how much damage this car is doing to my internal organs.

Just driving a Nissan.

And yet, despite everything, this car produces fewer carbon dioxides than the Jag.

It has seats in the back you can actually use, a bigger boot,

and at £69,000, it's nearly £30,000 cheaper.

So the conclusion is easy.

Why buy a brogue that has been converted into a training shoe,

when for much less you can have something that was designed

to be a training shoe in the first place?

Astonishing.

Outstanding. What the GTR is, it's an instrument of speed. An instrument. I like it.

What about the Jag, not so good?

I don't understand what Jaguar were thinking of because they must have looked at Aston Martin and thought,

"right, they make nothing but a range of hardcore front-engined GT cars so we'll do exactly the same."

But you know what the problem is, don't you?

Jaguar now have a permanent testing facility at the Nurburgring.

Where they should have a permanent testing facility

is between the two mini roundabouts in Chipping Norton where I live because that's the bumpiest stretch

of road in the known universe and it's been dug up again by that...

what's that construction company called that you can't pronounce?

Chlamydia, no, not chlamydia.

Clancy... Whatever it's called. I know the one you mean.

It would just be intolerable in a car like that. So hang on, let me get this straight, you're saying

Jaguar should tailor their cars to the Chipping Norton set. Yes.

What's the point of that? Aren't they all going to be in prison next week? LAUGHTER

Thank you, nice to know my friends can count on you for your support.

Now, though, it's time to find out how fast the Nissan goes round our track and that means handing it

over to our tame racing driver.

Some say

that he once hacked into his own helmet,

and that he thinks Harper Seven is a convicted terrorist cell.

All we know is he's called the Stig.

And he's off. A tiny chirp from the back tyres, then a crisp smooth

slingshot up to the first corner like a precise Japanese missile.

Turns in.

Predictably tidy all the way through and still tidy on the way out.

Stig enjoying Rock the Casbah in Algerian there.

Wow! Right, another laser-guided line

through Chicago, hammerhead, the one place where the Nissan's four wheel drive might bring understeer.

Not a chance.

Tiny drift towards the exit, then through.

Cleaner than James's tool bench.

Just kisses 7,000rpm and up a gear.

Fires it into the follow through.

Ballistic, through the tyres. Two corners left.

Here we go, getting a bit squirrelly and wiggly in there.

Back under control now for Gambon, and drifts it through, and across the line.

OK, now, earlier on...

Thank you, earlier on in the day,

we went around in the jag and we recorded a time of 1.23.3,

so that goes there, and that's not bad, it's faster than the DBS

and faster than any other Aston.

However, in the GTR, he did it in not 1.23.3, OK?

Little bit higher than that.

Little bit harder than an R8V10.

Or a 599.

Or a 599GTO.

Past the old GTR.

Still higher, past the Enzo.

Higher, higher, higher!

There!

Unbelievable! 1.17.8.

So, that's as fast as he's gone there,

which cost four times as much.

Yes. And it's faster than a GTO Ferrari, by a big margin,

which is four times as much. Anyway, we must now do the news.

Before we get into the news properly, can I just say that, sticking with the Nissan,

it's very difficult to get a four-wheel-drive turbocharged car like that off the line quickly,

except that the Nissan has a thing called launch control, which

is basically just a computer that sorts everything out for you, so that you get a perfect start every time.

Yes, there's just one problem with the launch control.

It is the stupidest thing ever fitted to a car. Why?

No, seriously, when you think about it, what you have to do to engage it, right, a series of switches.

You put your left foot on the brake, plant your right foot hard down on the accelerator, and

when the lights go green you take your foot of the brake and it goes.

The computer sorts it out, as you say.

So, OK, you're at the lights, MEHHHH!

And everyone's looking at you thinking, what an unintelligent man.

It makes a bit of a scene. It does, really. The most uncivilised thing you can do with a car

is use launch control at a zebra crossing.

Hnnnggghh! Come on, old lady! It would hurry 'em up!

Can we just say one other thing as well, about launch control?

Only one of us has it fitted to our car.

Is it, it's him!

James May has launch control.

Yeah, I don't use it. You don't say!

Are you sure? Every time you're in the pie shop, "Thanks for the pies, I'm off! Hnnnggh!

Can anybody think of a device

fitted to modern cars that's more stupid than launch control?

You're fitted to quite a lot now.

Has anybody got any ideas?

What, like a gizmo? What? Cup holders!

They're useful, you stupid idiot!

Cup holders are brilliant things, for if you need a drink - it won't fall, no, but,

actually, I have a really good one.

Mercedes and BMW now fit a night-vision camera,

so you can drive along at night, and the dashboard's got this screen,

showing you what's on the road ahead so I was driving up a country lane the other day, single track, OK?