Top Gear: The Perfect Road Trip Page #3

Let's count them, it'll pass the time.

One, two... Oh, I'm going too quickly,

might as well make it last.

Three... Oh, hang on. Oh!

You must be feeling now...

- What?

- ... that you brought the wrong car.

Let me read you something, if I may.

Talking about this.

"The car's cornering balance

is near perfect,

"neutral but unerringly predictable

on a balanced throttle

"and biased ever so slightly

towards understeer

"if you throttle up

before you begin easing

"the lateral load

out of the front tyres.

Not my words, the words of

Autocar magazine.

Wow! What do those words actually mean?

- I've no idea.

- Me, neither.

But I'm going to go back

out there now and throttle up

before I've eased the lateral load out

of the front tyres and see what happens.

- Yeah!

- That's what I'm going to do.

I have no idea what any of that means.

I haven't a clue.

Right! Throttle up.

Oh, now you see?

Now, that's just a spin.

Now, you see, Autocar, that's oversteer.

Sometime you read road tests and you

do think, "What are you on about?"

It's a really nice car

and you can get the arse out.

Finally.

- Still pretending to have fun?

- Yeah.

- Will, uh, will Poo be like this?

- Will what?

Poo, when we go there.

Oh, Pau?

Do you know my favourite bit?

Yes. Yes.

- You could...

The Porsche through there,

it's just a streak of lightning.

Nothing is faster than that.

Nothing is.

Nothing's faster... Or through there.

Yes, you're getting a bit carried away.

It's fast. It's a quick little car.

To be honest,

it's more at home in this bit here.

You could "Oh, look!" past the shops

and "Oh, there's a school

and a supermarket. "

And that's really where it belongs.

Not here.

- You're wrong.

- I'm not wrong.

Hammond, I bet you anything you like

that around here the Porsche is faster.

Jeremy, that's...

- Okay!

- Whoever loses has to say,

"I love James May. "

They have to say that

on television to a camera.

Fine.

You actually have to go up to the camera

and go, "I love James May. "

All right. Well, I look forward

to hearing you say it.

Oh, they're lesmos.

I thought there was lesbo one and...

It's lesmo...

Martin Brundle must have had a cold.

Right.

And we are away.

Oh, God! This is just embarrassing

because where's going to be my sense of

achievement when I thrash him?

There is a point with cars

where they become

so powerful and so fast

they become too hectic

and too frightening.

That's the problem with the...

Huayra.

Through the first of the lesmo corners,

as it turns out.

I know it sounds silly

but once you go

beyond 500-550 horsepower,

you end up driving the car more slowly.

It's weird but it's true.

Never has there beem

a more stark example of

bringing a knife to a gunfight.

The Porsche, around here,

I'm absolutely pinning it everywhere.

It doesn't worry me,

it's not frightening, it's easy.

That thing, though...

Well, we shall see.

My case will be proven and he will be

saying, "I love James May. "

That's 270 I saw there.

He won't see anything like that.

Oh.

I hear the sound of

an approaching midget.

Fully on the power.

Ready, steady...

And across the line!

Two minutes, 14.8.

We'll call it 2:
15.

Then it was the Cayman's turn.

Really, I am taking no pleasure in this.

But he does need to learn a lesson,

that you can't just go making

stupid claims about a car

just 'cause you like it.

No, seriously, that thing round...

I could be using an egg timer.

How does he imagine he can

possibly make up enough time?

No matter how good

he thinks he is in it.

Clearly, it's not going to... Anyway.

- You what?

- Mate!

Where... Why aren't you...

I didn't say I'd be driving it.

Well, who is?

Well, some say it's The Stig, and it is.

Did you at any point say

I had to drive it? No.

Did you at any point say

you were going to use The Stig?

Why would you not?

Because I think

in every possible definition,

in every set of rules, it's cheating.

Oh, here he is.

2:
13:2.

- 2:
13:2.

- Yes.

You were 2:
14:8. So he's one point...

So, there you are, ladies and gentlemen,

the Porsche is, as I said,

faster than the, uh...

Huayra.

And therefore was a more

sensible choice of car.

- No. The Stig is faster than me.

- What?

But The Stig is faster than everyone,

that's the point of The Stig,

if he wasn't he'd explode.

As we left Monza

in the Mercedes and the Ferrari,

the mood was glum.

It's cheating.

The next morning, however,

Hammond cheered up

when he discovered the name of the town

where we'd stayed the night.

From Bra to the French Riviera,

we could've used the motorway.

But we decided instead

to use the finest switchback roads

in the world.

This meant ditching the Mercedes

and the Ferrari

and opting for these instead.

On a road like this,

you need something small,

you need a hot hatchback.

And if you're going to get

a hot hatchback,

why not get the king? This one.

The Golf GTI.

I loved the Mk1

and the 16-valve Mk2 wasn't bad, either.

But since then...

I mean, they weren't bad

but the magic went missing.

With this one, though, the Mk7,

it is back.

This car can do everything.

It's well made, it's sensibly priced.

It's economical, it's well-equipped.

It seats five, it's got a big boot.

But strip all that away and underneath,

its DNA is hot hatchery.

Two-litre turbo engine, 220 horsepower

and no torque steer.

Now, watch this. Foot hard down,

going around a hairpin bend.

It's just astonishing.

The front diff on this is beyond belief.

Whoa! God, this is good.

He's got it wrong again.

The Golf GTI, it's a brilliant car,

it's probably the best all-rounder

in the world.

But that's... That's the point,

an all-rounder is exactly

what you don't need.

An all-rounder

is inevitably compromised.

I just want pure distilled

essence of hot hatch.

And that means only one thing right now.

The Fiesta ST.

When Ford put this car together,

they assembled all the right bits

and thought, "Yeah, I reckon

that would be good. "

I don't think they could

possibly have known

quite how good

it was going to turn out to be,

because it's astonishing.

It's down on power

compared to the Golf, yes.

But it's smaller, that's more hot hatch.

And it's lighter,

which means the power-to-weight ratio

is pretty much the same.

And it's beyond nimble.

You start to just take

liberties with it.

Deliberately running a line

a little bit wide,

so you get the pleasure

of turning it back in.

It's superb.

It's the biggest grin-maker

I think the world has ever seen.

In the next village, though, inevitably

Jeremy decided we should

get something to eat.

Why aren't you eating your lunch?

I don't like pesto.

- What?

- I don't like pesto.

- Why not?

- It's just bits.

There was, however,

a very good reason why we'd stopped.

You've got to say it.

You lost the bet, you've got to say it.

I'm not saying it.

You've got to say it.

I beat you fair and square.

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