Top Gear

Tonight, James gets wet.

An actual or spin doctor on our track.

And the Stig laps a Reliant Robin.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Hello.

Hello. Good evening. Hello.

Now...

Now, as we know, as we know, track days these days are very popular.

The idea is that you drive your own car to a race circuit,

wearing some horrible branded shirt...

LAUGHTER

Like, for example, this one.

And then you drive around as fast as possible all day and then you go home.

Today, track days are such big business

you can even buy specialised track day cars like this KTM Crossbow.

Thing is, this costs L45,000, which is a lot,

especially as you can't exactly take the kids to school in it.

No, so, to address this, the producers gave us each a budget of L5,000, and they told us to buy

four-door saloons that could be used every day but that would also be good on a track day.

And because the challenges they had in mind were quite serious,

they told us to meet up in the world's the least amusing city.

Yup, it was Berlin.

I was the first to arrive and as you would imagine,

I had done everything properly.

This is a Mercedes 190 Cosworth

and Martin Brundle, the former Formula One driver,

said that this car had one of the best chassis ever fitted to a four-door saloon.

It is, if you like, the thinking man's BMW M3.

Talking of which...

Hammond. Oh, yeah. Take a look.

Yes. BMW M3, 3.2 litres.

So you've bought the wrong one.

No, I haven't, because the original one is now considered a classic.

So you can't get a good one for less than 15,000.

This, the series two of the M3, is bigger, faster and better.

So this is the famous Mercedes 190. It is. 2.3.

Cosworth. Known for being the slowest performance car of all time.

At that moment we were interrupted by the arrival of Clarkson.

Predictable, predictable...

For good reason.

The only reason you two didn't buy a Ford Sierra Sapphire Cosworth is cos you forgot about it.

No. It's because when you think of high-performance four-door saloons you naturally think of Germany.

It's what they do here. Exactly.

And where was yours made?

Well, it was designed by a man called Uwe Bahnsen, who is German.

And where was it built? Belgium.

Ah, Belgium, the meccafor the performance motorist. Yeah.

Belgium is home to everything. Tennis players, chips...

It's not the first place you think of going for a performance saloon car!

You two are going to lose his and you will end up in ze cooler...

'At that moment, a challenge arrived. '

Oh, hello. Thank you.

"You will now leave Berlin, and head down an unrestricted autobahn. " Good.

"Points will be awarded for every mph more than 130 that you can or, should we say, dare achieve. "

Still won't be out of second gear when they're going down...

What's the top speed? Top speed of that? Yeah.

151.

Mine had to be LIMITED to 155.

This is when they introduced limiting.

They realised it's too fast. It's a monster.

Fair enough, becausethis had the six cylinder engine,3.2 litre. It did.

James, I seem to remember this was not that fast. No.

What was its top speed? 143. 143?!

So not really a performance car.

But I reckon mine will still do that because it is a Mercedes...

What? Oh, my God!

Ah, the interior, yeah.

Have you seen the inside of his car? Toffee and caramel, that interior is.

It's not! Oh, and he's gone for the fake wood door-pull.

That's a quality touch. Right,we've got to get out of Berlin. OK.

What's that?

I don't know. Wasn't there this morning.

You don't think it fell out of James' luggage, do you?

HE LAUGHS Fell out of my what? I missed that.

Ooh, yes. Straight six.

That's a proper engine.

This is the Wall.

What this car has, that the other two cars don't have, is a dog-leg first gear. I should explain this.

Normally, first gear is away from you and forwards

but here it is away from you and backwards.

That means that second and third and then fourth and fifth are in straight lines,

which is what you want for racing,

so that is a sign that this car has a proper motor sport pedigree.

You have to remember that in the late '80s, early '90s,

the Germans were all drunk, running around celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall.

And that showed in the sloppiness of the cars they were making.

The Belgians, on the other hand, they never have anything to celebrate.

They just get up, go to work and do a good job, as we can see here.

Those are his reversing lights.

Oh, BLEEP!

James, what was that?

Er, nothing.

Look, I've had 30 years of it being left and forward.

It's a difficult habit to get out of.

HE CHUCKLES

On the outskirts of Berlin, we pulled over so our cars could be fitted

with super-accurate speedometers.

And then we hit the autobahn, to see which one was the fastest.

Right, for Belgium!

Two-litre. 16 valve. Massive turbo.

5,000rpm.

5,500. Into fifth.

120.

Come on, come on!

125.

6, 7...

Ooh, it's pulling to the right.

Gone floaty.

128... 9.

Come on, let's have 130!

Traffic.

Lot of trucks. A lot of trucks.

117.

121.

Feeling good.

128...

132.

135. Traffic.

Oh, God!

Clocked now at 114.

Concentrate.

122. A bit of a weave.

Oh, bloody lorry.

Achtung! Schnell! Schnell!

It turned out that while you're allowed to reach the top speed of your car

on the autobahn, it's not easy.

You get these German trucks... Yes, look, he's doing it. He's doing it.

You just get these East German trucks and they just pull out when they want to pull out.

Eventually, though, the traffic did thin.

So we went for another run.

Here we go, again!

Don't pull out.

Do not pull out.

132...

3, 4, 5...

Go! Come on!

136.

Smelling pretty bad.

138... 9...

140 miles an hour!

Oh, yes!

Engine temperature's shooting up.

Well, that was 142mph.

'Not bad for a 21 year-old Ford. '

Woo!

135, yes!

Give me 140! Give me 140!

There it is.

'Just three more miles per hour and the German Cosworth would beat the Belgian Cosworth. '

Come on, come, come on.

It's not going to do it. Sorry.

I did my best.

'Now, watch and learn. '

Come on now, come on now, come on now.

138.

144...

47. 48...

49.

50...

152!

Traffic. Slowing.

This thing will do 155 pretty easily I've just hit traffic every time.

Yeah, yeah... This will do 180.

It will!

'With round one going to the BMW, we pulled over in the next town and were given another challenge. '

"So far, we've established the speed your cars can go.

"To see how practical they are, for the next bit of the journey,

"you'll take it in turns to carry some passengers. "

That's all right.

As it turned out, it wasn't all right.

OOMPAH BAND PLAYS

If we do crash, it will take some explaining.

Come on. I'm the tallest thing here.

It's not as bad as you'd think, actually.

I'm trying to bekilled by lightning. What?

I'm trying to bekilled by lightning. Sorry?

Are you deaf? Sorry?

In you go.

'Sadly, I wasn't killed by lightning, so I went next. '

Oh... I might just move these.

It's my light reading over here.

OOMPAH BAND PLAYS

'Almost immediately, I realised that there WAS enough space in the back

'and that the rear suspension was coping fine.

'So, I decided to pull over as quickly as possible... '

Kill me.

'.. and handed the band over to James. '

Ready, James? Ja.

Forwards!

Scheisse. HE LAUGHS

'After a while, it became apparent James wasn't coming back. '

BAND CONTINUES PLAYING

Oh, hello.

This looks like trouble.

'While waiting for the Mercedes to cool down,

'we asked the oompah band which car they thought was the most spacious. '

Is it the Mercedes? No.

Definitely not the Mercedes. What about the BMW?

It's the best.

Ha-ha! You see? You see? It's our favourite.

Why?! It's smaller than the Ford.