Top Gear (series 2)

Series 2

May 11th, 2003 [2.1]

[During the opening sequence.]

Jeremy: On tonight's Top Gear: Richard Hammond in a V8 tumbledryer; The classiest way to bankrupt yourself; And we turn up the heat on the world's dullest car!

May 18th, 2003 [2.2]

[During the opening sequence.]

Jeremy: On tonight's Top Gear: Jamie Oliver's meals on wheels; a German sledgehammer in a velvet bag; And which is the fastest political party?

[during the news]

Jeremy: I was driving through East London this week and I got shot. OK? Now the thing -

Richard: Eh?!

Jeremy: I was shot.

Richard: At last!

[audience laughs along with Jeremy]

Jeremy: Well, they didn't hit me, but they hit the car - no, honestly, the windscreen. So now I've got -

Richard: What with?

Jeremy: [casually] An AK-47.

[Richard laughs]

[on Jeremy being told by his auto glass repair people that his Mercedes-Benz had to stay at their shop overnight so the glue on his replacement windscreen could set]

Richard: Did they by any chance try telling you that the glue will set better if it's left parked outside a nightclub all night, maybe?

[on the Lexus LS300's colour rear-view video camera]

James: You have to get a more expensive television licence to reverse that car.

[on the English translation of an early 1970s Datsun owner's manual]

James: And then in the index, under "H", it's got "How to open the bonnet".

Jeremy: I had a good one with Daihatsu. They once flew me first-class, before I was working for the BBC, they flew me first-class all the way to Japan, via Hong Kong, and then back through Maui and San Francisco. And I arrived in Japan to drive their new Charade - this was, oh, I don't know, late '80s. I did half a lap of the track and crashed it!

Richard: Oh, well done! Well done!

Jeremy: And the guy said, "Oh, don't worry. We make one every 23 seconds."

May 25th, 2003 [2.3]

[During the opening sequence.]

Jeremy: Tonight: A new take on the world's worst BMW; A Starsky, in our reasonably priced Hutch; And the world's finest supercars, head to head.

[during the news]

Jeremy: I get confused with 911s. I don't know where they all go. Is that a turbo?

Richard: No, that's not. That is normally aspirated.

Jeremy: So wait a minute, the GT2's a turbo...

Richard: Yes.

Jeremy: ... and the Turbo's a turbo, obviously...

Richard: Yes.

Jeremy: Why is a GT2 not a Turbo if it is a turbo?

Richard: But it is a turbo.

Jeremy: Yes, why is it called a GT2 and not a Turbo?

Richard: Because the Turbo's called the Turbo. You couldn't have a -

Jeremy: You see? Does anybody here understand the 911 range? [silence] No? They're bored, aren't they.

Audience: Yes.

Jeremy: They've been making the same car for a hundred and twenty-thirteen years, and all they think to do is, "Well, we'll call that one a GT3 and that one a GT2, have a Turbo, the GT2, have a GT1, a 959, put the engine in the back." God, it must be fun going into a Porsche dealership, "Can I have a 911?" Be like ordering breakfast in America. [face in hands] "I just want eggs!"

James: Now for some more trouser action.

[on the Alpina Z8]

Jeremy: It must be said, this looks just as good as the original, and it's just as left-hand-drive as the original. But: does it go any better? Well, after much careful deliberation, the simple answer is... no.

[...]

Jeremy: Getting it round a corner is like trying to get my wardrobe up a fire escape. It's very hard work, and it's hard to see where you're going.

[...]

Jeremy: This must be the first-ever tuned car that's slower than the original.

James: What would you say if I said, Perodua Kelisa?

Richard: Bless you?

James: [reviewing a Perodua Kelisa] This [holds up food close to camera] is a bacon sandwich. And this [taps dashboard] is a car.

June 1st, 2003 [2.4]

[During the opening sequence.]

Jeremy: Tonight: A Member of Parliament in our reasonably priced car; A nice relaxing smoke in a new Aston Martin; And a mad Jag, gone bad.

Richard: Roy James, who was the Great Train Robbers' getaway driver, was very particular about his Jag Mk 2s. He'd always steal a 3.4 rather than a 3.8 just 'cause he preferred the handling. Not a lot of people know that.

[discussing the Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale]

Jeremy: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, everybody - have you driven this car?

Richard: I have, yes.

Jeremy: And what happened when you drove this car?

Richard: Well, I crashed it, technically.

Jeremy: Tell the nice ladies and gentlemen about what happened.

Richard: Well, I was going round a corner, and the next minute I went round lots and lots of corners very quickly. Span it several times.

James: Actually, this is why it's called the F360, this model. Because you drive along and you go "FFF - !" and then you do a 360.

[mocking the overly ambitious plans announced by the MG Rover Group in 2000]

Jeremy: They said they were going to make a space shuttle...

James: Yes, a space station.

Jeremy: Yeah, well, they were going to build a space shuttle to get to the Rover space station.

James: The Rover space station would be fab, actually, wouldn't it? It would be dark metallic green, and it would have a grille on that would sort of appear every 24 hours as it rotated, and sort of glitter in the sky.

Richard: And a really nice, a really nice clock somewhere as well.

James: I have to say I'm very disappointed in it, because when I joined Top Gear I thought, "Here we go. French film festival, Kristin... " No. I've been invited to the opening of a car park. And it says, "Yes please, I would like to come to the opening of the car park. I will be arriving, A, by car; B, on foot."

[during the news, Richard is talking about a reliability study]

Richard: I think this reliability index, gets a bit weak here. Third most reliable make of car...Fiat. [audience laughs] I mean then it's got you know Honda, Volkswagen, Mercedes, Toyota, BMW, Volvo, all the people you'd expect, but in third place, Fiat?

Jeremy: What have they got as being the most unreliable?

Richard: Well this is good fun, because according to them the second least reliable make, least reliable make is....Subaru! Where did it go wrong? They're the most reliable cars imaginable!

Jeremy: Let's try Radio 4.

Melvyn Bragg: [on the radio] Society has not always valued originality.

Jeremy: Ooh, it's Melvyn Bragg's philosophy show.

Melvyn: To what extent is originality about perception, rather than conception? And is originality a concept without meaning today?

Jeremy: I'm not quite with you there, Melvyn. I... I don't really understand the question.

Jeremy: I'm now playing what I like to call Fuel Light Bingo. The rules are very simple. You let the fuel light come on; then you let the needle go all the way through the red until it's bent like that [holds up crooked finger] round the bottom of the gauge. Then, when you see a sign saying "services 1 mile and 27 miles", go for the furthest one away, and when you get there, go past that one too. If you win, you make it home, the next day your wife drives the car, and she fills it up for you. I think it's a great game! My wife doesn't like it very much, but I think it's brilliant. If you lose, you run out of petrol.

Jeremy: [After stopping at John o'Groats at the end of the XJR test] Oh dear, I seem to have run out of country.

Jeremy: For the last few years, the DB7's been an aging rocker, still trying to cut it in a Coldplay MP3 world of Porsche 911s and Foo-Fighter Ferraris. But now, thanks to a cocktail of Botox and Viagra, it's up there with the best of them.

June 8th, 2003 [2.5]

[During the opening sequence.]

Jeremy: Tonight: A man sized blast from the past; Renault puts a V6 rocket in your pocket; And which takes longer to change: a gearbox, or a woman's outfit?

Richard: Now, this is really quite simple, OK? Understeer works like this: [moving a model of a Ford Focus in a straight line] you drive down the road, turn the [steering] wheel, but the car goes straight on, crashes into a tree and you die. OVERsteer works like this: [moving a model of a BMW 3-series] you drive down the same bit of road, turn the wheel, but the back of the car comes round like this [showing how the car fishtails 180 degrees], and you go off the road, crash into a tree and you die. Now, oversteer is best, because you don't see the tree that kills you.

[on the Porsche 911 Turbo]

James: So you spun it, then.

Jeremy: I spun it slightly.

James: What do you mean "slightly"? How can you slightly spin? That's like saying "I slightly fell off a ladder this morning."

Jeremy: This is Sharon, okay? She's all woman, she is the 911 Turbo. Now, standing next to her is Vicky. Now Vicky, on the surface, appears to be exactly the same, but this is a body kit. Vicky's been enhanced, and so, consequently, is the C4S. And, moving along, we find Amanda. Amanda is the Carrera 4. Enough of a handful for most people. Your choice.

Richard: You know what, I've always been a bit of a turbo man myself...

[discussing a man who built a race car in his kitchen, eventually having to tear down an exterior wall to get it out of the house]

Jeremy: I presume there's no wife involved in this.

Richard: No. Well... there was, but unlike the car, the wife did fit through the door quite nicely. Fairly early on.

Jeremy: Right, the news! And, um, we're feeling a bit remiss this week, because we like to think on Top Gear we're across what's happening in the world of cars, and then out of the blue, Ford wrote to us and said, "We're introducing a new Mondeo." We didn't know it was coming! Who'd like to see it?

Richard: Yeah!

Jeremy: OK. Here it is.

Richard: ... That's the old Mondeo.

Jeremy: No, that's the new Mondeo. They say it's got 1500 new parts!

Richard: Yes, presumably they're all exactly the same shape as the old parts, so it looks exactly the same.

James: It's got a new radio, hasn't it.

Jeremy: It has got a new radio.

James: Well, there's hundreds of bits in that.

[on the Vauxhall Vectra 48-hour test drive program]

Jeremy: So if you just want to go and see Granny, or a girlfriend in Manchester, and it's a 60-quid rail fare, you can just ring them up, drop a car at your house, drive it up there and back -

James: Yeah, well, what if you want to do a bank job?

[...]

Jeremy: I wonder how many they've got?

Richard: Well, I don't know, because presumably this is the launch of their campaign, it's quite an important moment, somebody spent an awful lot of time planning this and working on it, and the worst thing we could do is give out the number. Which is 08456 775 775.

[on Honda's tips for avoiding road rage]

Richard: It says here as well, "Do not rise to any challenges while you are driving." What, like a duel? "Sir, your driving has angered me! I demand satisfaction!" I can't see that happening.

[testing the Daihatsu Copen's man-compatibility with a member of the audience]

Richard: Oh my Lord.

James: What do you reckon?

Jeremy: He was fine... until the door slammed, and now he looks like a berk.

[Jeremy and Richard are agreeing that middle-aged men can't drive convertibles]

James: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm going to have to stop you there. I hate to interrupt, but this is quite honestly the biggest load of limp-wristed twaddle I've ever heard in all my five weeks in television. These two - these two are not men, OK? This one, Richard Hammond, every morning sticks his head in a bucket of hair product, right? He's got a dog, but it's a poodle! And I don't know what you're laughing about, Clarkson, because you won't drink brown beer and this is the man who says, 'flatulence? Oh, it's not funny!' when clearly it is! Right. I am actually the only proper bloke on this programme, OK? I live in a tumbledown house full of old motorbikes. And I think a bloke can drive a convertible, but... it has to be the right one.

[on the Triumph TR6]

James: What a squarehead! Look at it! Blunt at both ends, thickset - I reckon if this car went to the lavatory, it'd leave the seat up.

[...]

James: Good job they didn't give it to a Frenchman, eh? We'd all have handbags by now.

[On a comparison between a rally team changing most of the underbody of a rally car vs. girls getting ready for a big night out]

Jeremy: So the rally team got the car changed in...

Richard: Twenty-seven minutes.

Jeremy: Twenty-seven minutes - and the women took...

Richard: Don't know, got bored, we left. To be honest, we packed up everything, stuff in the van, off, still going, talking, things like that.

Jeremy: I don't think men and women should be allowed to go out with one another.

Richard: I don't think it works!

Jeremy: Men should go out with men.

Richard: You're making me nervous. Stop it!

[On the Renault Clio V6]

Jeremy: Imagine watching the entire French air force crash into a fireworks factory. That's how much of a laugh this car is.

[...]

Jeremy: Oh, and it's the least maneuverable car on the road. Oil tanker captains have been heard to say that their ships have the turning circles of Clio V6s.

[...]

Jeremy: I think the problem is that it's... French.

[later, with overdone French accent.]

Jeremy: I don't want to go around this corner fast. I want to go home and make love and make cheese. That's what I like doing most of all 'cause I'm French!

June 15th, 2003 [2.6]

[During the opening sequence.]

Jeremy: On this week's Top Gear: The Driving God does a track day; a foie gras car with a luncheon meat badge; and we try to set a new land speed record.

[on the Mitsubishi Evo VIII and Version 8 Impreza WRX STi

Jeremy: And yet, they're both relatively inexpensive Japanese saloon cars. So they've both got four doors, they've both got big boots, and they're both as reliable as... [hesitates] a Swiss... bus driver's Austrian pacemaker! What more could you possibly want?

[...]

Jeremy: Look at the scoop on this bonnet. And they seem to have given the Evo so many steroids it's started to grow out of its own body. You know what these cars should be called, don't you? The Mitsubishi "Did you spill my pint?", and the Subaru "You. Outside. NOW."

[...]

Jeremy: Trying to decide which is best is hard. They're both spoonbendingly, hallucinogenically, lawbreakingly mad and absurd.

[on the Lexus RX300 ad slogan "It Changes Everything"]

Jeremy: I don't want to go home tonight and find my front door's moved, and that all my children are badgers and that I'm married to Frank Bruno! I don't want it to change everything.

Richard: And this'd be a gardening program and we shouldn't be talking about that anyway.

Jeremy: Well, exactly! And do you know, the thing is, that - you know those advertising standard authorities? They always say you've got to be, what are they, truthful... ?

James: Hang on, it's: [ticking them off on his fingers] Decent, honest, legal, truthful.

Jeremy: So that advert must be true.

James: That would be great! You could buy the Lexus, and then you'd wake up the next day and it would've changed into a Jaguar! With a bit of luck.

[on Jaguar being the last car maker to put diesel engines in the cars]

Jeremy: That is not going to work, and do you know the worst thing about this is? That Jaguar was working, we know, on an F-Type, a two-seater modern day E-Type and they cancelled that project, because they'd spent all their money on a diesel engine!

Richard Whiteley: They echo, these prisons - have you been in one?

Jeremy: Yeah, a French one. Well, we won't go there...

Whiteley: So we were looking around, the great and the good of Leeds, and from the galleries high up, someone yelled down - can I do this? Can I yell down?

Jeremy: Yeah! Yell!

Whiteley: They said, "NOW THEN WHITELEY, YA FAT ----! WHERE'S CAROL?" And one of prisoners who was accompanying us, he said, "Oh," he says, he says, "That's Jed. That's Jed up there what cried down at you, that's Jed. 'E's a real 'ero in this prison." I said, "Why, what's he done?" How many people has he killed, raped, murdered, drugs has he laundered, money, all that kind of stuff. I said, "What'd he do?" He said, "'E were the lad what nicked your car two years ago!"

Jeremy: Listen, I want to play a game with you, okay? This Countdown thing, okay? This rearranging letters, yes? [Points to a bloke in an FCUK shirt] What do you reckon? Got any ideas on that one?

Whiteley: I'm short-sighted. I can't see that, thank goodness!

[consigning a photo of Hammond's actual Porsche 911 to the Uncool section of the Cool Wall]

Jeremy: And it's left-hand drive, which means you're a cheapskate. The thing is -

Richard: [laughing] That is so true.

Jeremy: He's never overtaken anyone. "Is it safe? Is it safe?"

Richard: That's what passengers are for.

[on the Vauxhall VX220]

Jeremy: You'll notice all these things and you'll think, "That is a really pretty, pretty car. Well done, Vauxhall. I'll have the Lotus."

[trying to break the land speed record for towing a caravan]

James: Right. I've been looking in the Guinness Book of Records. It doesn't actually say that I have to use a car to tow the caravan. So instead I've decided to rely on the most powerful engine in the universe. Gravity.

June 22nd, 2003 [2.7]

[During the opening sequence.]

Jeremy: Tonight: A man behaving quickly in our reasonably priced car; A piece of monument valley with wheels; And the world's best looking car, in our hangar.

[On the Koenigsegg]

Jeremy: For instance, it's made from autoclaved epoxy pre-impregnated carbon fibre, it's a true semi-monocoque: the front end is mounted on a chrome molybdenum subframe, and the engine sits on top of a machined aluminium dry sump that's also a supporting beam for the rear subframe. That's interesting. And there's more, too, because none of this behind-the-scenes technology has interfered in any way with what Koenigsegg call the general ichthyomorphic design principle, these are the... the aesthetics. And the best bit of those aesthetics are the dihedral synchro-helix actuation doors.

[On the Koenigsegg]

Jeremy: You could drive this thing to the gym, turn around, go straight home again; you'd have had more exercise than if you'd done a workout!

Richard: [On the Renault Mégane's interior] Mothers will be fishing kids out of obscure cubbyholes for years!

[On the price of a Hummer H2]

Jeremy: And it seems like quite a lot, when you peel away this amazing body and find out what's underneath. Yep, underneath the abs and the pecs is a GMC Tahoe, which is ugly, big, slow, and is completely flummoxed by snow, mud, gravel, soil, grass clippings, drizzle, or even a light breeze. It's rubbish.

[On the Aston Martin V8 Vantage]

Jeremy: Going on sale in 2005, so have you just ordered a Porsche 911 recently? [sniggers, audience laughs].

[On the Hummer H2]

Jeremy: It's a Roman orgy, a Hawaiian barbecue, a Viennese waltz, and a helicopter gunship attack on Las Vegas, all rolled into one... it's fantastic!

[Regarding Clarkson's review of the Hummer H2]

James: You're not seriously suggesting that this... revolting, plastic fronted piece of pig-iron is a serious alternative to something like an X5?

[...]

Jeremy: Size is important in these things. [beams]

Richard: That's a little harsh.

Richard: This is the Talon riot control vehicle. Big, innit?

Richard: Now that is what I call a control panel. Grenade launcher. Impulse generator! Lovely.

Richard: Well, if things get really nasty, I can always get stupid and just headbutt stuff.

[crashes the Talon through a portacabin]

July 6th, 2003 [2.8]

[During the opening sequence.]

Jeremy: Tonight: Richard and James enjoy life under canvas; an Alfa Romeo waving its arms around; and Darth Vader, in a Honda Civic TIE Fighter R.

[on the Nissan 350Z]

Jeremy: [voiceover] Well, to be honest, I think it looks a bit of a mess. But then it would, because it's a Japanese car designed in America. And the head of the whole project was a chap called Ajay Panchal, who's an Indian. From Leicester. And the engine? Well, that's French. Incongruously, it's the three-and-a-half-litre V6 from the Renault Vel Satis.

Jeremy: [at the wheel] We've had fusion food before, but this is the first time that I've ever encountered a fusion car. Think of it as being a raw-hamburger curry served in a disinterested way on a bed of garlicky jus.

Jeremy: I could go very, very berserk at this point. But - two things are stopping me. One, the noise. It's driving me mad. And secondly, it was on this very road that the drummer with a band called Def Leppard crashed his muscle car, a Corvette, and as a result of that he now has to drive with a knob on his steering wheel.

[causing various bits of the 350Z's internal trim to rattle]

Jeremy: I've seen better build quality on an allotment shed.

Jeremy: The thing is that Nissan have now said, "Aha, but the car you drove was sort of for a, I don't know, a small market in the south of France or somewhere." The British ones, which are going on sale in...

Richard: 'Bout, September, autumn sometime.

Jeremy: Yeah, September, October - are going to have better suspension, bigger fuel tank, different aerodynamics, better interior trim, traction control as standard - going to be completely different.

Richard: Which rather begs the question, why did they say "There's our new car! See what you think. It won't be anything like that, obviously, but there it is anyway."

James: It's a terrible shame Jeremy didn't like the 350Z - I wondered if he might be interested in the 350Z watch. It's a very large watch with a very small face. What do you think of that?

Jeremy: It'll probably go TICK TOCK! TIIIICK TOCK and be very heavy.

James: This is a true story and I am ashamed of it. I was driving along, Ford Galaxy, magnolia leather, curry on the passenger seat. A drunk bloke walked into the road. Instinctively, I braked. I saw the curry tip, I thought, "That's my dinner," I not only took my foot off the brake, I put it back on the throttle! Anyway, if anyone here is interested, I've developed a special new car sticker that says BHUNA ON BOARD.

[on the Volkswagen New Beetle cabrio]

James: All they've got to do is make it in the shape of a proper car and it'll be terrific.

[driving the New Beetle with the top down in the rain]

Richard: I'm not sure this was such a smart idea.

James: Why, do you think they just think we're a pair of screaming -

Richard: Well, exactly.

James: Yes.

James: What we want in Britain is a convertible car for sunny days, and a hardtop for the other 364.

James: [Commenting on the Audi A4 convertible] No, it's just not right. A diesel cabrio is like a supermodel smoking a pipe.

[testing the flappy paddle gearshift in the Citroën C3 Pluriel]

Richard: It's hopeless. I'm changing gear, right, I'm going to put it in second to go round this corner, that's OK, now I'm going to wait for third... and now it's changed. And I'm going to select fourth... no... oh! Now I've got it. [addressing the car] Wha - HAVE YOU GOT SOMETHING ELSE ON?!

[on the Daihatsu Copen]

James: You're not going to get this, I know, but that car, it's small, it's silly, all it does is make the rest of the world massive. You know like the Incredible Shrinking Man in that film, where the telephone keeps getting bigger in his hand?

Jeremy: No.

James: All right.

Jeremy: But I'm sure it happened, I'm not saying it didn't happen, I just don't remember it.

James: OK, well, it's a bit like that. You sort of drive around amongst these massive road signs and huge hatchbacks, it's absolutely brilliant.

Richard: Can't say I noticed it myself, I thought it was all right, but, um...

[...]

Jeremy: It's not so much a car as a shoe.

Jeremy: I have three donkeys at home.

Jodie Kidd: Do you?

Jeremy: Geoffrey, Eddie, and Kristin Scott Donkey. I do! I adore my donkeys. They are my life, they're everything. I just think they're fantastic.

Jodie: Very noisy.

Jeremy: Depends what you do to them.

July 13th, 2003 [2.9]

[During the opening sequence.]

Jeremy: Tonight: Captain Jean-Luc Picard at warp point nought nought nought one; the Dutch have made a car!; and be still my beating heart! A new Vauxhall saloon.

[on the Volvo S60 R, the test model of which has orange leather seats]

Jeremy: It's only when you really concentrate that you start to pick up the clues. The big alloy wheels. The blue engine cover. The seats, which seem to have been made out of David Dickinson.

[...]

Jeremy: It's very relaxing. I can just sit here listening to the excellent stereo and speculate on whether or not these seats aren't really David Dickinson at all. They might be an offcut of Dale Winton. A choice cut of Dale.

[during the news]

James: All right, look, here's a proper piece of British ingenuity: a bloke called Geoff, he's made a steam-powered bicycle after 30 years' work. He started work on it in 1972. Roughly 250 years after the steam engine was invented.

Richard: It's not really on the cutting edge, is it.

James: Well, what this bloke has done, he has taken one old technology, one outdated technology, he's combined them to create something genuinely useless. It's brilliant!

[on the Rover Streetwise]

Jeremy: They're saying it's an "urban on-roader". If we analyze that, an "urban on-roader" is a car designed to go on the road in town. So... it's a car. Isn't it.

Richard: Essentially, yes.

[...]

Jeremy: [consulting press release] They are saying that: it has got a split folding rear seat...

James: Like a car.

Jeremy: Yeah. It's available with a selection of petrol and diesel power units...

Richard: Well, that is clever.

James: Like a car.

Richard: Yeah, yeah.

Jeremy: ... various transmissions, three trim levels...

James: Car-like.

Jeremy: Yup, very car-like... "It's fun to drive, handy in traffic, easy to park and and able to shrug off hard use by active individuals and young families."

Richard: They've put some thought into this, haven't they?

Jeremy: "Has elements of the SUV appeal," no it doesn't, it's not four-wheel-drive, "with good ground clearance and ruggedness but without the cost and complexity of 4x4 transmission."

James: It's a car.

Jeremy: It's a car. "At the same time it offers good all-round performance and capability out of town, from motorways to farm tracks!"

Richard: [impressed] So you can drive out of town as well!

Jeremy: It's not just an urban on-roader, it's a motorway on-roader as well! And it can do farm tracks, but nothing too difficult, OK?

Jeremy: [whilst driving a Segway] They're made in America, of course, so that fat Yanks can go to the fridge without expending any energy.

Jeremy: You're the most famous guest we've ever had on.

Patrick Stewart: This must be a terrible show, then.

[Patrick Stewart has objected to Jeremy's pro-cell-phones-while-driving stance]

Jeremy: This, bear in mind, is a man who managed to talk on his communicator while being assimilated by the Borg!

Patrick: But I've had a lot of practice at that, you see.

[on Stewart's Jaguar XJS]

Patrick: It's actually named in my will, I told my son that he was going to get it - he's getting sod-all else, mind you, and the car isn't actually worth that much.

[on Sir Michael Gambon]

Patrick: He's a colleague and an excellent actor, but I would like to see him eat my dust.

Jeremy: How did you find the car?

Patrick: Ordinary.

Richard: [Regarding Jeremy Clarkson, with exaggerated Dutch accent] He is my partner, and also my lover! (a catchphrase of The Dutch Coppers, characters from Harry Enfield's Television Programme)

Richard: Aw, mate, I'm never going to be able to get that out of my mind! What I've just been: jammed between Jeremy's thighs in a Dutch three-wheeler! Ooh, yeah!

Jeremy: First thing I do when I move into a new flat or a new house, forget the curtains and the carpets and the cooker - you get your television, your stereo, and your PlayStation up and running. It's why I understand this car. It's perfectly reasonable to have a fridge-cum-DVD player instead of a seat. It's the obvious thing to do. It's fantastic!

Jeremy: [voiceover] Mumsy cars have lots of seats and are as sensible as big knickers, but this has lots of gadgets. So it's the world's first dadsy car.

July 20th, 2003 [2.10]

[During the opening sequence.]

Jeremy: Tonight: A £65,000 car for the people!; a Range Rover at 45 degrees; and the new Bentley coupé comes to our studio.

Richard: Now normally driving a TVR with any sense of purpose is like chatting to a bloke in the pub and, you know, he says "Well, yeah, we went on 'oliday, took the missus, in the caravan," and then boomf!, punches you in the face, no warning. This, though... it's got understeer! It's telling me, it's saying, "I gotta let you know, you're gettin' on my nerves a little bit." It hasn't lost the lairiness, but it's just been to anger management.

James: Right, the news, and we begin today with a, well, probably the best piece of news I've ever heard since I was born. An event, in fact, which eclipses the very miracle of my birth.

Richard: Hang on, the best piece of news you've ever heard ever?

Jeremy: What is it?

James: [beaming] They're going to stop making the Beetle.

Richard: And that's it.

James: That is fantastic. No, the old one. They're still making it until the 30th of July and then it stops forever.

Richard: And why is that so good?

Jeremy: Why do you hate it so much?

James: Do you really want me to do it?

Jeremy: Well, no, just... I can't imagine...

James: OK. It's a rubbish car.

Richard: That's incisive.

James: That's the first thing, it's a rubbish car. Secondly, it was a scandal. OK? That car was stolen from a Czech bloke called Ledwinka, I think, by Hitler and his henchmen, they put it into production, they stole money off the German people to build it and to build a factory, they never got a car, instead they used the factory and slave Russian labor from the Eastern front -

Jeremy: You can't blame a car for Hitler!

[Jeremy is reporting on the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where, as he previously noted, he was waved to by Elle Macpherson]

Jeremy: I went up the hill in the - there's a hill that you basically drive the, all the cars go up - and I went up in the McLaren Mercedes.

Both : [in unison] The SLR.

Jeremy: The new SLR.

Richard: Yeah. Stunning thing. And?

Jeremy: Well, I was still a bit drunk, so I have - there it is, look - um, I think... I have... I dunno.

James: So hang on, it - so you're probably the first UK journalist to get in that car.

Jeremy: Yeah.

James: We've been talking about it for what now, two years, probably?

Richard: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James: And you went up the hill... drunk... waving at MacPherson Strut or whatever her name is out of the window.

Jeremy: I wasn't driving it, I was slumped in the passenger seat.

James: Oh, well, that's all right, then! Who was driving it?

Richard: Can you tell us anything about it?

Jeremy: It made a jolly loud noise in the condition I was in, that was for sure. It sounded like a Messerschmitt had mated with a Spitfire.

Richard: To your drunken brain at the time.

Jeremy: [imitates engine noise], only louder than that.

Richard: You wouldn't make much of a war correspondent, would you, standing there in war-torn wherever with a desolated landscape, "So, Jeremy, what happened?" "Dunno! Drunk, missed it. Found it like this."

[on the Volkswagen Phaeton]

Jeremy: [voiceover] This is the first-ever recorded example of a German joke: a Volkswagen that costs £65,000.

[mimes wiping tears of mirth from his eyes while a sitcom laugh track plays, then becomes serious]

Jeremy: But actually... it isn't funny.

Jeremy: Apparently, Piëch insisted that you should be able to drive the Phaeton all day at 186 miles an hour, when it's 120 degrees outside, and the air conditioning must be able to maintain a temperature in the car of 71.6 degrees. My! I bet he was fun to go out with of an evening.

Jeremy: And round at the front, things get even more... German.

[on the Cadillac Sixteen]

James: I like luxury. It's the new performance.

[...]

Jeremy: Now this is what I call shock and awe.

[on the Overfinch-modified Range Rover]

Jeremy: It's a bit like sliding down a black run in a wardrobe. It's a giggle, but you've got no real say in your direction of travel.

Jeremy: If you have any thoughts or opinions on what you've seen in the last ten weeks, do please keep them to yourselves.

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Top Gear (series 2)