Top Gear

Tonight, we get very cold and wet...

I re-enact the Battle of Britain...

Oh, nuts.

And there's a Blur in a reasonably-priced car.

Hello. Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you.

We will begin with track days. The idea behind them is simple.

During the week, when there is no actual motor racing going on,

the owners of race circuits allow people to rock up

and spend the day whizzing around in their own cars.

This is now so popular,

you can even buy cars specifically designed with track days in mind.

We decided to go down to the Simply Sausages Donnington race track

to sort out which one is best.

This is the original track-day car and, in my opinion, still the best.

It's... the Caterham 7. But it is no ordinary Caterham 7.

This is the R500 Superlight. It is less heavy.

It has no frills, adornments, garnish, apart from a few stripes.

It is simple, pure.

It is an unadulterated driving experience and I absolutely love it.

But - and this is a weird thing...

Jeremy Clarkson believes he has come up with something better.

Woo-hoo!

Yes, I have. This is the KTM X-bow.

Part insect, part terrain-following missile.

Wait a minute. What?

I thought you were bringing that new thing they were making in Cheshire.

What, the BAC Mono?

Yes. It broke down. Where did it break down? In the factory.

It broke down while they were still building it?

It really did.

This is my second choice

and, despite that, it is still better than yours.

Is it? Yes. Why is that then?

Because yours is from the 1950s and this is from this morning.

Carbon-fibre panels, mid-engined, pushrod actuated double wishbone suspension.

How much is it?

49,000. You see, £41,000 so it is cheaper. And it is better.

This was fine in 1961. It is not the same car any more.

It has a better engine, suspension, materials,

it has been made slightly wider.

It has modern instruments.

A sequential shift.

'At this point, we were joined by our colleague.'

What in the name of all that's holy...?!

You see, if you want a car built purely for fun, you want this.

It is made largely from aluminium which is mixed with wood,

but that is the way Morgan build their cards.

Why does it have RAF roundels on it?

It has been styled to look like an aeroplane.

It hasn't got wings! It has aeroplane-style gauges.

Why is the engine not in the car? Because it is an air-cooled V twin.

It needs to be outside because that is where the air is.

What's in there? Oil tank. And the battery.

I think, move to the back, Hammond. I have another question.

The question I am going to ask is it doesn't have any back wheels.

It has one in the middle, there.

So it is a tricycle? It is a three wheeler.

It is reminiscent of the original Morgan three wheeler.

Ask me what it weighs. What does it weigh? 495 kilos.

Less than 500 kilos. It is only half a car.

If I sawed my leg off, I would weigh much less than I do now.

I would keep falling over.

You could pick this up and put it in your pocket.

It looks like a coal scuttle.

I have got to ask, how much? With taxes and things? Yes. £30,000.

£30,000?! It would be 40 if it had four wheels.

Did you say it is made from wood?

That's how Morgan build cars. Traditional.

I reckon if you went to Morgan and said would you like some diphtheria?

They'd say, "Yes," cos that's traditional.

Wood is light and flexible and endlessly renewable

and an excellent material to build cars from.

People don't do it cos you need craftsmen.

You cannot have some oik pressing a button and stamping them out.

The Nissan GTR would be worse if it was made of wood.

The early aeroplanes were made from wood but the Boeing 747 isn't. There's no wood in it.

Eventually, the producers told us to stop arguing about wood and get on with the first challenge.

A simple straight-line race from nought to 100 then back to nought again.

Sadly, this led to another dispute.

What do you mean, "a Le Mans start"? On go, we run to our cars, jump in, start them and drive off.

Running? It is not a school sports day. Will you have an egg and spoon?

It is two against one. Be ready. Three, two, one, go.

This is stupid.

We could have been finished by now.

Hammond has already begun.

The 1.9 litre V twin!

'Sadly, my elderly colleagues were struggling to get going.'

Very complicated starting procedure.

Mode.

'Eventually, James was belted in place,

'a bit too tightly as it turned out.'

Oh, bloody hell!

Why don't you start?

Stop saying ready to race!

Out of pity for their incompetence, I decided to abort.

Can I make a suggestion? What? We are here to test the cars.

We're not here to find out who is the fattest.

Or which has the most complicated starting procedure.

Or whose belts are badly adjusted.

Let's do it normally. But with the Le Mans start, I won.

Yes, but that is just because you are the fittest.

I won the Le Mans start. Let's do an old man's version.

Do I have to have my feet on the break? Yes!

I should be all right here. I have the best power-to-weight ratio. I have the fastest car.

Sequential gearbox, good view ahead.

And three, two, one...

Great start into second.

Boy, did they get away!

100.

Jeremy has stopped on the way. I will have to go past.

I am not sure that is miles an hour. That might be fuel pressure.

It was, so we went back to the start line to try again.

Three, two...

No!

James went on two.

This is ridiculous.

So we lined up for attempt number four.

How hard can it be for three grown men to see which is the fastest from nought to 100 then back again?

Three, two, one.

God!

Why has that happened?

Is that 100 already?!

100.

Why did he break so soon?

Ow!

As it turned out, James' celebrations were premature.

He had been reading his speedometer in kilometres an hour.

Oh, cock!

Still, it could be worse.

95. Now there is a corner and going to have to do... Oh!

70, 80, oh, a corner.

This is impossible.

James decided that rather than do the test again,

he would show his car was the fastest using maths.

I have a sheet of all the facts.

Yours weighs almost twice as much as mine. Yes. Hang on.

He is still not doing 100.

75, 80, 85. Aah!

Now the speedo has died.

It has a better power-to-weight ratio than the Bugatti Veyron.

517 horsepower per ton.

I was forced to agree with James' conclusions.

So I came up with a new test.

Cornering is everything and with pushrod-actuated suspension,

I will go round corners faster than you can.

And there is no arguing with that.

There is, actually, because I have had these photographs printed and they are all

photos of X-bows just after they have done some cornering.

That one is parked in a tree. It is hanging from a crane near a tree.

That is just outside a bend there.

A ditch near a bend.

Near a corner. Look at that.

Even though there was evidence

to suggest I would be killed by a cornering test...

Richard would not fare much better either - the producer said

we should see which car would be fastest through the old hairpin.

Because we were having such trouble reading our speedos,

they set up a police style radar trap.

Why is everything breaking today? I do not know.

Why doesn't that happened to the police? It doesn't.

The NHS computer would not work.

There is a man who can print out a receipt for us.

He will tell us the cornering speed.

With the speed equipment working, I set off to disprove James' photographic evidence.

It is not just the pushrod-actuated suspension,

it's the tyres that will put me in good stead.

Very sticky tyres.

I doubt he has a clue what pushrod suspension is. No idea.

And the time is? 69.419 miles an hour. Is that good? I have no idea.

Then it was James' turn.

Listen to that. He has gone right up nearly to the red light.

Where does it go? Yes, down here. Here we go.

He went the right way.

He was going the right way

but did you see how far he was from the apex?

How fast was he? 59.

What do we call him? What's his nickname?

Captain Quick.

It isn't that.

Finally, Richard took a brave pill and stepped into the tricycle.

I am so screwed here.

The wheels! Those are not wide tyres.

What do they do, the pushrods?

Many things. They must do something specific.

They don't make the engine go. What do they do in the suspension?

Everything better.

Suspension. Yes, yes.

I have some. Some there and some there.

And a bit back there.

More than that.

They're better. Why? They just are. Yes, but why?

Many reasons.

Come on, my little three-wheeled friend.

Here he comes. Doff your hats.

Roll out the barrel.

I am going to give it the full Stirling Moss. Ya-a-ah!

Did you see him clinging on with his elbow?

You could see the sinews in his arm.

The sound is from the 1930s.

Did the picture go black and white as he went past?