(ENGINE REVVING)
(TRAIN WHISTLE BLASTS)
(CHEERING)
Hello, everybody! Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Greetings, everybody. Thank you so much.
Thanks, everybody. Thank you.
Thank you so much. And, yes!
-We're back! -(CHEERING)
We are!
Now, a lot of people have been saying,
"Why has it taken so long? What have you been doing?"
Well, hopefully we can answer that with this short montage
of what you can expect over the next...ahem...13 weeks.
♪ ROXY MUSIC: Do The Strand
♪ There's a new sensation ♪
♪ A fabulous creation ♪
♪ A danceable solution ♪
♪ To teenage revolution ♪
Is that barrel gonna...
♪ Do the Strand, love ♪
♪ When you feel love ♪
Fire everywhere!
♪ It's the new way ♪
♪ That's what we say ♪
He's gone!
♪ Do the Strand ♪
Look, hang on a minute.
♪ Tired of the Tango? ♪
"The nearest civilisation is a town called Moron.
In order to reach it, you must build the contents of these boxes.
You have enough food for seven days."
♪ Dance on moonbeams ♪
Oh, God!
♪ Slide on rainbows ♪
♪ In furs or blue jeans ♪
Were this not such a serious situation,
it would be a good laugh.
♪ Do the Strand ♪
Bear, it's a bear!
-(GROWLS) -Aargh!
There must've been 30 or 40 people in the room when the police arrived.
-(THUDDING) -Whoa!
Clarkson!
Jesus Christ, I'm too close to the edge.
Oh!
JAMES: Let's sing a song. -No.
I am sitting where Jim Clark sat!
Going in hard and hot!
(ENGINE REVS)
-We're fleeing! -OK, flee.
Well, he'll be using a pistol, won't he?
♪ Do the Strand ♪
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
I think...
I think you're gonna like this series.
And I particularly think you're going to like how it begins.
Because even over here, on this side of the pond,
we recognise that Detroit is the spiritual home
to anyone whose communion wine is petrol
and whose heart beats like a big, lumpy, wet V8.
Which is why this week, and it's long overdue,
The Grand Tour is off to the Motor City...
with an idea.
JEREMY: Of course, the whole world knows that Detroit
is now a shadow of its former self.
But we also know that efforts are being made
to bring life back to the ruins...
...with urban farms.
Local people are being encouraged to grow...
kale and beans and seeds,
in plots like this where houses and businesses once stood.
(SIGHS)
It breaks your heart.
I mean, this is Detroit.
It shouldn't be a help-yourself, pop-up street allotment
for organic vegan peace hippies,
when it could be a pulsating playground for the petrolhead.
It has the roads, it has the space,
it was built by the rumble of a V8
and it should rumble to that sound once more.
(ENGINE STARTS)
So that's what we've come here to do...
...make some noise.
(ENGINE REVVING)
These are the toys we'll be using.
Three American muscle cars,
all of which have been tuned to a tyre-shredding DEFCON one.
I have the Ford Mustang RTR Spec 3.
Mr Slowly has what's called The Exorcist.
And in his whining Dodge Challenger Demon...
(ENGINE WHINING)
...Hammond has an erection.
Ah-ha-ha!
To make this, they took a Hellcat -
I drove one before on the show -
and just made it "more".
-More of everything. -(ENGINE GROWLS)
I have 840 horsepower,
a massive supercharger...
(SUPERCHARGER WHINES)
...and on the bonnet there, or hood,
that's the biggest hood scoop ever fitted to a production car.
Ever.
(TYRES SCREECH)
-Yeah! -(SUPERCHARGER WHINES)
Noise!
Noise in the city!
(HEAVY ROCK PLAYS)
(ENGINE ROARING)
Bloody hellfire!
This car is tuned by Hennessey.
They've taken a standard Camaro
and they've given it 1,000 horsepower.
(ENGINE REVVING)
Jesus Christ!
They haven't touched anything else, only the engine.
Wheels are standard, brakes are standard,
suspension is standard, bodywork is standard.
It's all standard.
Except the power.
Jeez, I can't even steer it.
It's idiotic, honestly.
And yea, though I walk in the shadow
of the valley of death, I will fear no evil.
Because I am The Exorcist!
(TYRES SQUEAL)
This may look small and delicate
compared to the other two,
but be in no doubt,
it has the muscle car credentials.
Oh, yeah.
(CACKLES)
The fact is that the engine in Hammond's car...
...is a push rod, two valve, iron museum piece.
And May's car, yes, it has 1,000 horsepower,
but it's running on standard brakes.
This... This is just a little bit cleverer.
They haven't just put a supercharger on it and left it at that.
They've stiffened up the suspension and lowered it
and stiffened the anti-roll bars.
So it can do this.
Jesus H Christ!
And it can do this.
-(TYRES SCREECH) -Yes!
This, then, is the Anthony Joshua of muscle cars.
Big and brawny, but it has brains as well.
Then there's its name.
It's the RTR, which stands for,
and I'm not making this up, Ready to Rock!
(LAUGHS)
These three cars, then,
they're the perfect fairground rides
in our perfect petrolhead theme park.
RICHARD: I mean, people travel all the way to Florida
to look at a man in a mouse suit
and watch an implausible train have an unrealistic crash.
Why not come here in your car and do this?
Whoo!
(CHUCKLES) What a day!
I just can't get over James May is The Ex-cre-cist
(CHUCKLES)
I am surprised to see you two so upbeat about this trip.
Why do you say that?
Well, you're always saying how much you don't like muscle cars.
Yeah, I just say that to annoy you.
Oh, right.
Nobody intelligent admits that they like muscle cars,
but secretly, deep down, everybody does.
They're like power rock ballads.
I mean, if you're driving along with friends
and Don't Stop Believing by Journey comes on the radio,
you say, "This is rubbish," and you huff and puff and turn it off.
If you're on your own and it comes on, you turn it up and you sing along.
You do.
Chaps, did you know mine only comes with one seat as standard?
-Really? -What?
As standard, you get one seat in a Demon.
You can opt to have the others put back in
and it costs you a dollar.
Which seat do they put in as standard?
(LAUGHTER)
JEREMY: Eventually, we decided to pull over in our motoring theme park
to see which of our fairground muscle rides
would be the fastest...
...in a street drag race.
So what I'm thinking is here, when the lights go green...
What's a quarter of a mile, just beyond the church?
JAMES: Yeah, something like that. -Perfect.
-What if the police come? -Well, he won't. He's in Beverly Hills.
-I've seen the movie. -Why can't we just do this
on a racetrack or a runway like we usually do?
Because we're here to prove that this is a racetrack.
Detroit is empty now and should just be used for this sort of thing.
Yes, yes, but it isn't a real race, an actual racetrack.
-No, it is! -It is!
This is where the muscle car was born.
-I can't do it. -Why can't you do it?
Because Dodge only lent me that car
if I promised not to do any drag racing on the road with it.
What? That's what it's for!
-I know. -That's literally what it's for.
Yes, I know, but that's the way it is. Sorry..
D'you think it's an insurance...?
-It is, because it's him. -No. It's not.
-Don't want it on the roof. -"Who's driving it?" Richard Hammond.
-You can't drive it. -It's just what they said and I'm really sorry.
-So, we can't do it, I'm sorry. -We can.
You're not gonna do it without that--
Uh...let me think. Yeah, we are.
Just right... Just right the way, right the way off.
One for all and all for yourselves, that's how it goes, isn't it?
JEREMY: Having decided to make the doorway of a barber shop the finishing line,
James and I prepared for the race.
(ENGINE IDLING)
I'm only doing this to annoy Hammond. I mean, I can't possibly win.
Yes, I've got a supercharged V8,
but it only produces 720 horsepower.
That's 280 less than The Exorcist.
I don't wanna sound like you, but the launch control in this car
is so complicated there's a YouTube video about it.
And I have watched it, but I've forgotten.
Why don't we have a gentleman's agreement to not use launch control?
Well, that might save my clutch, so...
Yes, right. We won't use launch control.
-I've got a manual gearbox. RICHARD: You can both do it naked for all I care.
Just get on with it.
Oo-ooh, look at Captain Cheerful over there!
Air con is off.
(ENGINE REVVING)
(TYRES SQUEALING)
May got a good start.
Come on, come on, come on, come on,
there's only a one-car length in it!
Easy!
JEREMY: Bloody Nora, that was close!
But I got a terrible start, so we gotta do it again, May.
(RICHARD GROANS)
Put it in first gear.
(TYRES SQUEALING)
Whoa!
I can't do it. It's spinning its wheels.
Woo-hoo, hoo-hoo!
(SIREN BLARES IN DISTANCE)
You do know you're both too old for this, don't you?
JEREMY: What, for driving muscle cars up and down the public roads of Detroit?
Because nobody else is using them.
Well, Richard Hammond certainly isn't using them.
(LAUGHS)
Since it was one-all and we were having enormous fun annoying Hammond,
we decided to go again.
RICHARD: What is this, best of 30 now?
What else are we gonna do?
Keep going till one of you wets yourselves.
JEREMY: For the next 17 runs,
the result was always the same.
Thank you very much.
Come on! Come on!
Give up, buddy.
(GRUNTS)
I'm angry.
I'm not giving in, James. One more.
Oh, for God's sake!
I gave him my word I wouldn't use launch control.
I'm simply going to go back on that and not tell him.
(TYRES SCREECH)
That was a good gear change. So was that.
But there's just nothing I can do to get up with that 1,000 horsepower monster.
Finally, I waved the white flag.
And then we took a closer look
at the savage beating heart of The Exorcist.
And that's the standard Corvette engine, basically.
-Z06, yeah. -With a supercharger plonked on the top.
-That's there, yes? -Yes, 2.9 litre supercharger.
So the bit they've bolted to your engine
is bigger than most European engines?
-Yes. -So is the one on mine. It's 2.7 litres.
Yeah, not as big. The point is, Hammond, this is The Exorcist.
The job of The Exorcist is to vanquish the Demon.
It's like, you remember in the '60s, I think,
De Tomaso made a car called the Mangusta,
which is Italian for mongoose.
Yes, and a mongoose can kill a cobra, can't it?
-That's why they did it. -Yes, but this hasn't vanquished the Demon.
-It hasn't beaten it. -Tell you what.
Why don't you find a racetrack or a runway somewhere, OK?
I'll gracefully bow out.
And we can have a race between good...and evil.
First, though, we decided to find out which of our cars makes the loudest noise.
There were, of course, many possible locations
for this important test.
But eventually, we found one that was absolutely ideal.
RICHARD: What is this place?
Well, it obviously was a theatre.
They built it on the site
of Henry Ford's first ever workshop.
-And when I say theatre... -Oh, wow!
So it was in 1925 they built it,
when Detroit was just about the richest city in the world.
-You can see that. -They can just build that.
And then in the '70s, it was converted into a rock venue.
So, I mean, look at these tickets I've got for it.
RICHARD: ZZ Top. -ZZ Top and T Rex.
-What a gig that would've been! -It would've been fantastic.
Sly And The Family Stone, Spencer Davis.
Steve Winwood has performed in here.
David Bowie performed in here.
-Blue Oyster Cult, Bob Seger. -This was a serious venue.
Oh, serious venue.
And then, there were some credit card companies
in the offices which are behind that wall.
And they said, "We need some parking."
And just bought it and turned it into a multi-storey car park.
-That's amazing. -Takes the romance out of it.
It's sort of staggering.
It's the birthplace of Henry Ford's business.
RICHARD: Yeah. -Then a theatre.
It's a car park.
We can bring some theatre back with our noise test.
Actually, there's a kind of poetry to it, it's beautiful.
-Precisely. -Not just bringing the poetry,
also bringing the decibel-o-meter.
JEREMY: Oh, perfect. -So you can go and uh... go first.
Why am I going first?
-I just said you can go first. -He did. I heard him say it.
RICHARD: Since the owners feared the noise
from our engines would bring down the crumbling roof,
we were given protective clothing.
We have to put this on because there may be dust.
There will be dust.
Traction off.
I'll just make wheel spin.
Wheel spin, that just makes a huge amount of noise.
-Are you ready? -Yes.
(TYRES SCREECH)
Oh, yeah, check it out!
I can see jack shit. (LAUGHS)
(THEY BOTH COUGH)
-God, that's pretty horrible. -How loud?
-Well, at its peak... -Yeah?
125.2.
Well, wait a minute, you don't know, you haven't...
-You're the first to go. -125?
Yes.
The Who.
Widely regarded to be the loudest rock band of all time.
-Yes. -126 decibels.
Deep Purple, a mere 117 decibels.
That car is louder than Deep Purple.
But probably a lot quieter than my Demon.
Any minute now, a paramedic will be cutting his trousers off.
He should've taken them off before he got in.
I don't know why he wears trousers.
Here we go. Ready in three, two...
(BLEEPING)
Oh, wait a minute, it hasn't done it.
(BLEEPING CONTINUES)
Easy mistake.
We've all done it - forgotten the key when you're doughnutting
in a Detroit theatre that's been turned into a multi-storey car park.
Everybody's been there.
OK. In three, two...
(ENGINE REVS, TYRES SCREECH)
(JEREMY CHUCKLES)
-125.2 to beat. -Yeah.
Doesn't make a lot of noise.
118.8, tiptoe boy.
It's got a 2.7 litre capacity supercharger on it!
Yeah, but, it doesn't make any noise.
They didn't build it for this, they built it for drag racing.
-And they wouldn't let me do that, so... -Oh, did they?
-How do we know? -Well, they did.
RICHARD: Before this sore point became even sorer,
I sent James off to have a go.
JEREMY: Don't think he's ever done a doughnut.
-No. No. -In his life.
We are about to witness James D May losing his virginity.
Popping his doughnut cherry.
(ENGINE ROARS)
JEREMY: James May, are you ready?
Fire it up in three...
(ENGINE REVS)
-(ENGINE STOPS) -Cock.
(RESTARTS ENGINE)
-(ENGINE STOPS) -Bollocks.
(LAUGHTER)
JEREMY: It took him a little while, but eventually he got the hang of it.
What's my score?
Why don't we just go?
-Come on, James, gotta go. -Yep, moving on.
-What was it? -Oh, I've wiped it.
-No, you haven't. -It was 12.
Come on... Why've I got this on my face? What was it?
It was 128, so just 2.8 more than me.
-So more? -Yes.
-Hold that. -Why?
Please just hold that.
Oh, I hate the victory dance!
-I hate the victory dance. -Good, right, let's move on.
How much is your car? How much?
-98, something like that? -£98,000.
-Yes. -£40,000.
Yeah, but mine's better, so it's more expensive.
-£40,000. -It's faster and louder.
720 horsepower, £40,000.
Am I the only person here who understands muscle cars?
That's a ridiculous thing to say!
JEREMY: Having had a very busy morning,
we were now hungry.
Which, in this part of town, was a problem.
Not an abundance of restaurants around here, is there?
RICHARD: I haven't seen any.
JAMES: I just noticed a Coney Island Restaurant
but I'm afraid it's been shut for 30 years.
JEREMY: Having failed to find even a takeout,
we started to look for a hotel.
But there wasn't one of those either.
So we decided to buy a house.
Let me show you what we've got.
Handsome vestibule, feature tiled floor, front room here,
feature fireplace, loads of light from all these windows.
This, I would say, use as a dining room because it's adjacent to the kitchen.
Needs the appliances refitting, not a big job.
In there, I would say that's a really handy games room,
TV room, overlooking the garden and the double garage.
Here, perfect for a home office, maybe a snug.
Upstairs four bedrooms, and here's the kicker.
An independent granny flat with its own kitchen,
so Jeremy can live up there semi-independently for as long as he can manage.
And the price? $2,200.
Is that really only... What was it, $2,200?
-Yeah. -1800 quid.
Amazing, isn't it?
Shall I show you something else amazing?
Captain Slow has fallen for this eco-allotment claptrap.
I haven't fallen for it, and it's not claptrap, it's just a vegetable plot.
-It's only a bit. -Buy food, don't grow it.
-Why not? -That's a farmer's job.
Turning a city into a vegetable garden is ridiculous.
No, who's turned a city into a vegetable garden?
That's what they want to do and you're encouraging them.
Detroit should be for petrolheads.
It should be for massive V8s like our cars.
JAMES: It's a great idea by a city that's having a bad time
and trying to use its initiative. What's wrong with it?
It's not as if there's any vegetables in the shops.
-New is better. -I am not listening to any more of this.
I am going to go off. I'm gonna find a shop.
I'm gonna come back with burgers.
Well, you can have some curly kale in them.
Bloody allotment!
(CAR ENGINE STARTS)
Just because he's become a vegetarian
doesn't mean that absolutely everybody has to be one.
-Don't be a moron! -Well, I can't get out, he's parked in the way.
(ENGINE REVVING)
Well, on that terrible disappointment, back to the tent.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
You asked for it. You asked for it.
We never got the burgers either.
No, we didn't.
We uh...
We shall pick that up later on.
But now it is time to drop the car keys of chat
down the drain of debate...
on Conversation Street.
(MELLOW JAZZ)
(LAUGHTER)
That's a little weird.
-How'd you do that? -Don't know. Can't remember.
Can I just begin by saying that I think the very concept of incongruity
was defined in that film in Detroit by James May,
the slowest moving man in history,
driving around in a car called The Exorcist.
Yeah, it just doesn't work. "James May is The Exorcist."
No, I mean, if he's gonna have a car, it should be called The Florist.
-(LAUGHTER) -Or The Organist.
-Simple change to that, The Onanist. -Nice.
-I think The Onanist would work well. -Have you quite finished?
-Uh...yeah. -Good, actually I'd like to talk about Motor City.
More specifically, what's happening to it.
I'll tell you what's happening to it.
It is being slowly ruined by vegetable-ists.
-Oh, God. -It is!
There are two million acres of land in Detroit, OK?
Would anybody like to guess how many acres have been given over to allotments?
MAN: Six. -(RIPPLE OF LAUGHTER)
-1,000. -No, it's three.
Three acres.
-And he's driven over two of them. -Exactly.
Yes, and rightly so. It's like cancer.
-It's not like cancer! -It is!
If you said, "I've got two billion cells in my body
and only three are cancerous so I shall do nothing..."
You don't, you cut them out.
Yeah, but cancer is a serious threat to your health.
Well, so are vegetables. They are.
You do know you're mad?
No, I'll tell you what I'm mad about.
I'm mad as hell about Detroit.
Because in 1960, that was the richest city in America.
The richest. And now it is the poorest.
And no other city anywhere in the world has collapsed that quickly.
What about Hiroshima?
(LAUGHTER)
Apart from Hiroshima.
Pompeii.
Yes, apart from Hiroshima and Pompeii,
no city has collapsed as fast as Detroit has.
-It's unbelievable. -Incredible the scale of it.
There used to be 43 car factories in Detroit.
43.
Now two. Just two.
I actually think it's because America won the war, weirdly.
-Vietnam. -Really?
No, I was lying. They lost that one.
Not in all the films, they didn't.
They won in the films but when you add up all the battles they won,
-weirdly they lost the war. -Did they?
No, I'm actually talking about World War II.
At the end of that, Japan had lost its empire, so it lost all its resources.
So they were forced to make compact, economical, efficient cars.
And then the oil crisis hit in 1973,
and the Americans, with their big V8s,
were forced to buy small, compact, economical cars from Japan.
And then realised they were better.
No, I think it's because American cars are too cheap.
-Too cheap? -It's a business thing. That's the problem.
Sorry, everyone, I fear we are about to get an economic lecture from...
-...Chancellor Hammond here. -(LAUGHTER)
-Well, no. -The other Chancellor Hammond.
No, you are... Now concentrate, let me put this into context for you.
A lot of supercars have arrived on the scene recently.
I've got pictures of them. This is the McLaren Speedtail,
that's 1,000 horsepower.
Costs £2.1 million.
-And its wheels are odd. -They are. They don't match.
This is the Aston Martin Valkyrie, that's 1,000 horsepower again.
£2.5 million.
This one, that's the Ferrari FXX-K Evo,
1,000 horsepower, £3.5 million.
Best looking Ferrari of all time, that.
-It does look amazing, yeah, -It is absolutely staggering.
However, they've all got 1,000 horsepower,
which means they will all be undriveable.
Yeah, whereas my Exorcist has 1,000 horsepower
and is undriveable for under £100,000.
Yes, and that's... that's exactly my economic point.
They're selling them too cheap.
They're just giving it away.
If American carmakers doubled the price of the cars that they sell,
bear with me, they would double the money that they make.
It's not that complicated when you think about it.
If you follow the logic.
I've said before, the wrong Hammond is in charge of Britain's--
Yeah. It is incredible.
You've got a supply and demand graph.
If you take away the demand axis,
life becomes much easier when it's all just supply.
Precisely. The Hellcat that I was driving
was priced at £67,000.
-Yeah. -People are now selling them,
that same car, second-hand for £120,000.
And one bloke has advertised one for half a million.
So that means they were too cheap and I'm right.
-It is hard to argue with that. -Unassailable.
And we don't have time, so let's move it on.
Because you may remember in the very first show
of The Grand Tour in the first season...
I was blown away by a McLaren P1.
Yeah, I do remember. You said it would be faster
than the Porsche 918 and the Ferrari LaFerrari.
-Mm-hm. -And, no, wait a minute, it wasn't, was it?
And as a result, the only thing that got blown away was your house.
-That's undoubtedly true. -Yeah.
But the thing is, it remains to this day the most exciting,
most brutal, most visceral car I've ever driven.
And I didn't think it could ever be topped,
but McLaren have given it a bash.
And I thought, "Well, if they've built a car that can out-P1 a P1,
I'd better test it somewhere a bit less...
narrow and a bit less tree-lined
and a bit less covered in deers and badgers than the Eboladrome.
(LAUGHTER)
So I took it to the fastest racetrack in Europe,
which is... Actually, anyone wanna guess which it is?
MAN: Monza? -No, not Monza.
-Spa. -Not Spa.
-Do you know? -What?
-Do you know? -(LAUGHTER)
Of course I know!
-You know? That's unusual. -Why is it unusual?
You didn't know any of the answers on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, did you?
I mean...
I'm just saying.
You didn't.
No. But, no.
No.
They didn't ask me any of the questions I knew the answers to.
-That's what it was. -No, but it's not called
Who Wants To Know Things Jeremy Happens To Know, is it?
-It's Thruxton. -What is?
Thruxton is the fastest racetrack in Europe.
So that's where I took the new McLaren.
NASA ARCHIVE: Engine's beginning throttling down now.
(indistinct radio chatter)
And lift-off.
..clear of the tower.
Go with throttle up.
JEREMY: This is the car in question.
And let's begin by giving you some of the headlines.
There's no hybrid drive, like there was in the P1.
But even so, the 4 litre, twin turbocharged V8...
...produces 789 horsepower.
And that means it's still pretty fast.
OK, right.
Left foot on brake.
(ENGINE REVVING)
Push launch.
Full throttle.
Boost building, boost ready, we're gone.
0-60 in 2.7 seconds.
That's 120...150.
Jesus H Christ!
It'll actually do 186 in 18 seconds,
and flat out is 208.
And that's really alarming.
I'm gonna be sick. Ohh!
Whoa!
The thing is, though, that lots of supercars are as fast as the McLaren these days.
Some are even more powerful,
and even more dramatic to behold.
But this is called the Senna.
It's named after Ayrton Senna,
and Ayrton was not a man who spent his evenings
cruising around Harrods at nine miles an hour.
And nor was he a man who spent much time at drag strips,
doing the standing quarter.
No.
Ayrton was a man who made his name at places like this.
Racetracks.
This is what the Senna was built to do:
get round any track, anywhere,
faster than any other road car ever made.
To do this, they had to make it light.
And they have. The doors, for example.
Even though they have windows in them here,
so passers-by can see the driver's trousers,
they only weigh nine kilograms
and that's less than one of Kate Moss's arms.
And then there's the seats.
They only weigh eight kilograms.
I've eaten puddings that weigh more than that!
NASA: Go with throttle up.
JEREMY: Having got the weight out,
the Senna's nearly a quarter of a ton lighter than the P1.
They had to think about grip.
They started with a new type of Pirelli tyre
that clings on like a panicky child on a fairground ride.
And then there's this moving rear wing,
which is somehow road legal.
It actually hangs from these pylons,
rather than sits on top of them,
because that improves downforce.
I asked James May to explain why,
but I'm afraid, after three hours, I went into a deep sleep.
The next most import thing when it comes to lap times
is how well it slows down.
I was once in a 24-hour race at Silverstone,
driving a terrible old diesel BMW
and yet I could keep up with a supercharged Jaguar XKR
because I had better brakes.
I'd look at him getting to the end of the Hangar Straight,
thinking, "Why are you braking now, you idiot? You don't need to."
And that is this car's party piece.
To show you how well this car stops,
I've organised a little test.
Right, I'm currently driving alongside a Jaguar F Type...
...at 100 miles an hour.
When we get to that cone down there...
...we're both going to brake.
Ready?
(TYRES SCREECHING)
(CHUCKLES)
How can you stop from 100 miles an hour to nothing in that distance?
So, it stops like it's run into a wall...
...it's pressed into the road by witchcraft...
...it weighs the same as a bag of whippets...
...and it has nearly 800 horsepower on tap.
Put all that together and...um, well...
Oh, my giddy aunt! (LAUGHS)
It doesn't have the savagery of the P1.
The P1 was so scary,
it took me two months to get used to it,
to discover its little foibles.
This, though, even though I'm now in hunkered-down,
tightened-up, vicious race mode,
with the traction control wound right back,
I'm not frightened at all.
I'm starting to push the envelope after 20 minutes.
(ENGINE REVVING)
But you see, through there, the P1 would have understeered.
This just doesn't because
there's no weight to push it out of line.
It's like you're driving using nothing but telepathy.
(TYRES SCREECH)
And I'm loving it! (LAUGHS)
In the past, I've described various Ferraris
as feeling beautifully delicate.
But compared to this, they're like elephants!
Criticisms?
Not many, I mean, the usual McLaren stuff.
When you try to change it from comfort to track to sport to race,
it's all far too complicated.
And I know they saved 15 kilograms not fitting air conditioning,
but on a hot day like today, it's quite sweaty.
But who cares?
Honestly, this thing is rewriting the supercar rule book, in my mind.
-(CHEERING) -Unbelievable car, that.
I'm actually proud to be British with that.
What?
-Yes, definitely. -What?
Well, just...while the film was on we've just been online and checked.
Thruxton is not the fastest track in Europe.
-What? -It's not.
-Why isn't it? -Well, it isn't the fastest track.
Well, it's the fastest racetrack in Wiltshire.
-It's in Hampshire. -You don't even know--
-It's in Hampshire. You don't know where it is. -You don't even know that!
They described themselves as the fastest track in the South of England.
-Not Europe. -After Brexit it'll be the fastest in Europe.
Anyway, whatever, back to your film.
You said "rewriting the supercar rule book".
Those are big words.
Yeah, and they're correct.
-Are they? -No, they are. No, for once, I am actually...
First time this show I'm right.
Because that car... You remember the Lamborghini Huracán Performante?
-I loved that car. -OK, that blitzed our track.
Absolutely blitzed it, fastest road car ever round there.
I can guarantee the Senna will be quicker.
-Guaran-- -Here we go again. Good.
I promise it will be.
I promise.
If it isn't, can we blow up your house?
(LAUGHTER)
I haven't finished building it yet.
Well, when you've finished building it, can we blow it up?
Yes.
No, I am so confident the Senna will be faster,
that if it isn't, when I've finished building my house, you can blow it up again.
You do know that we will? We will do that.
-We will do that. -We will.
We'll wait till you're in.
Let's play the tape, come on. Let's have a look.
There's Abby, and she's off,
flying away from the line like a stabbed rat.
And coming onto the Isn't Straight.
Already carrying some serious speed.
Looking busy at the wheel on the bumpy surface of our track,
but those hydraulically interconnected dampers are doing their job
of keeping it all tied down.
Oh, that is flying!
She's already dropping down into Your Name Here.
(TYRES SQUEAL)
Some squeal from the Pirelli P Zero Trofeos
as she carves round there and then it's back on the gas
to unleash that mighty twin turbo V8
for the return run down to the Isn't.
I am feeling confident here!
Right, now hard on those incredible carbon ceramic brakes
for the tight, and technical, Old Lady's House.
No excess weight to drag the nose wide.
And now, on the fast run to Substation,
riding the ruts and lumps with ease.
Two corners left.
More tyre squeal through there,
rear wing doing its thing.
And now a bit of oversteer and across the line.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Looks good, it does look good.
But...
Got everything we need to blow it up?
There it is, there's the Huracán Performante.
1.16.8.
And I have guaranteed it'll be faster
or you'll blow my house up.
And you're doing well on facts this week, so far, aren't you?
How are you feeling?
-Totally relaxed. -Are you really?
-(MOUTHS) -(LAUGHTER)
Thing is, we haven't got far to go to blow it up, have we?
It's just gonna be over there.
Come on, let's see how fast it was.
RICHARD: Oh, oh...
(AUDIENCE CHEERS)
-Damn! -1:12!
JAMES: That is serious.
That's four seconds quicker.
That's quicker than the Vulcan, and the Vulcan isn't even road legal.
That's absolutely amazing.
That is astonishing and we can add it to the list of things that you know.
(LAUGHTER)
-Anyway, we must now get back to our film. -Yes.
Earlier on, we decided that Detroit should be
a big sort of petrolhead theme park,
so we went over there with three tuned muscle cars.
So far we've staged a drag race, done some doughnuts
and Jeremy has driven over some vegetables.
And then the next day, we decided that what Detroit really needs is a racetrack.
Yeah, even though it already has two.
Yes, but we wanted something more earthy.
So we headed for the city centre.
(ROCK MUSIC PLAYING)
As we headed for the downtown area,
I decided to do a bit of muscle car housekeeping.
Can I just ask everybody what your average fuel consumption
has been since we got to Detroit?
Overall, over the whole trip, eight mpg.
Yeah, mine is a healthy 3.9 miles per gallon.
You're joking? 3.9?
Yes, siree Bob.
13 mpg from the Mustang.
Is it a hybrid?
(LAUGHS)
If it had been a hybrid, it would have fitted in very well
with what the centre of Detroit has become these days.
Florist...cafés...
Oh, for heaven's sake, Urban Ramen!
No, no, no, no!
In 1997, in downtown Detroit,
someone put a gun against my head.
Now it's just all hipsters with dogs and bicycles.
If you want to start a tech business, bugger off to San Francisco.
Oh, for God's sake, have you seen this little urban garden?
Oh, no.
Why has he got such a problem with gardens?
Look down there, it's just all greenhouses
full of little artisan...soaps.
There's a Tesla!
There's a bloody Tesla in Detroit!
If only the world were full of people like Jeremy Clarkson.
Then we could have slavery and witch burning.
JEREMY: Right, well, we've established one thing.
The centre of Detroit... that ain't a racetrack,
that's a wholefood market.
We need to get out of here, this is the enemy.
Having returned to the rundown suburbs,
we eventually found the perfect place to build a racetrack:
Cadillac's old Conner Avenue Factory.
For over 60 years, they stamped out the body panels here
for icons, like the Eldorado, the Fleetwood,
and the Coupe de Ville.
If it were up to James, this creaking monument
to the Motor City's decline would be turned into a shrubbery.
But it wasn't up to James.
So it would become a Monte Carlo-style tunnel feature
on our Detroit-themed racetrack.
Right, so what I thought we'd do is
we'd name all of the corners and all of the straights
after various musicians who are from Detroit.
So, for example, put that there, and then this would be Alice Cooper Corner.
-Yeah, nice touch. -And I've got all the faces.
I've got Glenn Frey from the Eagles, Jack White, Madonna,
Aretha Franklin, Bob Seger, Ted Nugent.
What's that stick for?
Oh, that's um... that's Iggy pop.
-Oh, yeah, it's like he's here. -Yeah, exactly.
Then as we go into the back section over there,
you've got Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Eminem, Diana Ross,
Sonny Bono, Martha Reeves,
Anthony Kiedis, Smokey Robinson.
You look in the book and you just go...
"They can't all be from Detroit!"
Did you know Madonna was from Detroit?
No.
Because building the track involved heavy machinery
and manual labour,
Hammond insisted on doing everything himself.
That is gonna be a fast corner.
(BLEEPING)
Despite this, though, he soon had everything ready.
Sadly, though, he had got a bit confused about
naming the corners after local musicians.
-What? -Why have you... Why have you got The Edge?
Well, you said there was Sonny Bono.
Yes, Hammond, Sonny Bono
and The Edge from the famous Detroit rock band U2.
Exactly.
Because the track had been built by the world's most accident-prone driver,
we thought it best that the God-fearing Exorcist
should christen it.
(ENGINE REVVING)
So bumpy!
What the hell is this?
What's that, some sort of chicane he's put in there?
Whoa, slippery, that's slippery as hell!
What? That... That's unbelievably narrow!
What's he thinking of?
Oh, hello.
Here he comes.
After his run, James couldn't wait to give Hammond some constructive feedback.
I just wanna say, Hammond, you witless dishcloth!
That is the worst racetrack I've ever been round.
It's slippery, it's full of holes, it's full of obstacles for you to crash into.
-It's narrow. -It's challenging, isn't it? Technical.
It's not challenging. It's only about that much bigger than the car
and it's made of butter.
And...it appears to be full of asbestos waste.
Oh, it is full of asbestos.
-Sorry about that. -Well, thank you!
Close your window.
JEREMY: All of us then set about our practice laps,
on Hammond's death trap.
Thin bit! Oh, God!
(TYRES SCREECH)
I can't see a bloody thing.
My own car doesn't fit round my own racetrack!
What have I done?
JEREMY: Despite the peril, though,
we gave it everything.
And by the end of the session,
there was nothing in it between The Demon and the Exorcist.
The Mustang, though, that was in a league of its own.
(TYRES SCREECH)
♪ I'm not gonna take it any more ♪
56.4.
Yes, you're fastest.
Well, of course it's the fastest,
it's a muscle car that handles.
However, these were just unofficial practice laps.
Now it was time for the one-shot,
winner-takes-all real thing.
In three, two, one...
-Begin! -(ENGINE REVS)
Brakes for that bit. Bit of downshift.
Massive bump.
Oh, God!
Hammond.
Slippery.
JEREMY: And here he is. Here he comes.
-I've pooed myself. -Funny noise.
JAMES: However, the trouser accident had clearly been worth it.
You've just broken your own record.
-That's remarkable cos-- -59.66.
-Really? -Yeah.
I'm happy with that and I haven't hit any famous musicians
or bits of old car factory.
JEREMY: Next it was the turn of Corporal Crash.
Where's the fire engine gone?
Fire engine's over there, ambulance is...
Oh, we're all comedians today.
Remember, if you lose to James May...
It's more humiliating, It's worse than death.
In three, two, one, go.
Looking for grip.
Turn in neat, crisp by The Edge. Whoa!
(TYRES SCREECH)
Oh, he's gone over The Edge!
-Again. -(LAUGHTER)
Oh-oh.
-Hammond's lap's going well. -Yeah, isn't it?
(SIREN WAILS IN DISTANCE)
So which corner is that he's gone off on?
I mean, obviously it is him.
Amazingly, it wasn't.
Is that Madonna? That's Madonna. I dunno.
Now we're in the open.
Oh, Christ!
Yes, no, Beelzebub's got a bit of understeer there.
That felt good. It felt like a quick one.
Ah, I don't know how to put this to you but...
(GUFFAWS)
-No, no, no, no, no. -Yeah, yeah.
Point four of a second slower than James May!
This is what death feels like.
OK, get out of the Demon,
we've done the Demon and The Exorcist.
It's time for the Blue Nun.
-Blue Nun? -Yeah.
(ANGELIC SINGING)
JEREMY: Totally pointless waste of time this.
We've established the Mustang is the fastest by an enormous margin.
Um...I'd better go and do it, I suppose.
RICHARD: Jeremy smug in My Little Pony. Are you ready?
In three, two, one, begin!
Ohh, yes!
This is a properly sorted track car.
That's what we're looking at here.
JAMES: Properly sorted it may be.
But I had a plan that would spoil its afternoon.
-You're running! -I know, but you'll see.
Gotta get down to this corner before he gets back.
Help me tip this over.
-What is it? -It's organic palm oil.
Very slippery.
It's the revenge of the urban farmer.
Into the blind bend. There is Stevie Wonder.
You do know it's palm oil that's ruining life for the world's orangutans?
Only this one.
JEREMY: Come on, come on.
Short shifting into third.
-Ohhh! -(JAMES LAUGHS)
And on that terrible disappointment...
-For him. -It's back to the tent.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
-You! -What?
-I thought it had been you. -Oh, no.
You ruined my lap.
You said Detroit had to be a playground
and that's what I was doing, I was playing.
Listen, can my practice time stand?
Cos that was still the quickest.
That's not how it works.
You can't just say that because you were the quickest in qualifying,
you would have won the race if you hadn't crashed.
-Well, I can say it. -You can say it.
I could say I'm the captain of the English cricket team.
I wouldn't be any good at it.
(LAUGHTER)
Ah, well, moving on.
I know where he was going with that.
Anyway, look, in part one of that film,
we said that we would have a race between the Demon and The Exorcist,
a drag race, yeah?
And then it never happened.
Except it did.
Yeah. You see, Dodge said we couldn't drag race it on the street.
But they didn't say anything about airfields.
So after we'd finished at our track, we found one of those.
I bowed out of this, like I said, cos the Mustang
in a drag racing environment's never gonna win.
It became a two-horse race between Sir Crashalot and the Onanist, OK?
-(RICHARD LAUGHS) -But we have a problem.
See, we only have time left in the show, realistically, for one more thing.
We've got the guest segment. This week I should tell you,
it's between Howard from the Halifax adverts...
...and Adrian Chiles,
to find the fastest person you don't really hear from much any more.
We'll have a vote, I think.
Who here would like to see the celebrity segment?
(LAUGHTER)
There's one over there.
And who'd like to see the drag race?
(CHEERING)
-Does that mean they're not coming on? -Very much so, James.
So here it is, then, the race between good and evil.
Right, here we go, viewers.
It's either salvation or a world plunged into eternal darkness.
OK, this is it: the race between good and evil.
Are we ready, gentlemen?
-We ready? -No.
What's happening?
I've got a couple of things to do before we start.
Are you saying you can't just drag race this now?
Well, you've gotta do it properly, this is a proper drag racing car!
What is he doing?
This is what you get when you buy a Demon.
Costs you an extra dollar and you get this crate.
Oh-ho-ho!
It's like a picnic hamper for men.
Then, underneath, and to either side,
I've got boxes with the new EC - I've everything I need.
-ECU? -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-(GRUNTS) -Look at that!
(ELECTRIC MOTOR WHIRS)
He's got this enormous crate and some bags
and tins...full of tools,
with two space savers and...
Space saver wheels?
Hang on.
Why are you putting space savers on it?
They're drag racing tyres, they're lighter.
I don't need grip at the front, just got to steer.
JAMES: What else does he have to do, apart from change the wheels?
Um...he's got a new ECU to fit.
-Are you serious? -Yes.
So it's not really a drag racing car at all?
It will be once he's completely rebuilt it.
(DRILL WHIRS)
This is an old-fashioned view of television but I think we've lost the moment.
I think I agree with you. This was gonna be the big end of the show,
good versus evil.
I could have walked to the end by now.
I've gotta take back tyre pressures down to 20 psi.
Nice fat, squishy contact patch.
(AIR PUMP HISSING)
Exactly 25 minutes so far it's taken him to do his quarter-mile run.
Oh, so, this is where it breathes through its eye.
Look at that! That goes at the back of its eye.
So...
Hammond, that is a significant component. What is it?
-Air filter. -Does it not have an air filter?
Yeah, but this is a performance one. It's gonna gulp through air.
-Right, so that's it, good. -Now I've gotta do the ECU.
Which goes in here, I believe. I'll have to take that out.
So he's now got a different ECU just telling the engine to be powerful.
Right, why didn't they just put that in from the start?
That's good to go.
JEREMY: Sadly, though, it wasn't.
He's now refuelling his car with a special... How many octane?
It's ethanol and gasoline mixture...um...104.
JEREMY: After the refuelling, we hoped he was done.
But, no.
Right, hang on a minute. I've got to put it
in neutral to get that in the middle.
Hammond, you're taking the whole dashboard off.
This has to come out because I'm gonna put in a new control panel here.
I get a new button on it.
He's taking the whole centre console out, the whole of that.
He's had to put it in neutral to lift it all off.
What for?
Because you can then fit a button, that enables him
to select what sort of fuel he's running on.
Why don't they just put that in from the start?
This all goes back in here, with my new switch gear in.
It's an hour and seven minutes.
Actually, you're right, it is. It's over an hour now.
God!
-There we go. -(BLEEPING)
JEREMY: Finally, the rebuild of the Demon was complete.
It was time for the drivers to warm their tyres.
In three, two, one, burn out!
(ENGINES REVVING)
Right, your tyres are warm. Are you now ready?
-What? -Are you ready to come to the start line?
-No! -What do you mean, no?
-No, that was just a celebratory burnout. -Oh, jeez, he's got out.
I've done all the building work, now I've gotta set the car up.
I've gotta get in the right modes, there's stuff to do, mate.
Oh, I've had enough. I'm sorry, I've had enough.
Bye.
(SIGHS) We're never gonna do this.
So, I need to go into Drag. Drag Mode Activating.
Excellent. Drag Transmission, Drag Traction, Power.
So Power needs to go up to 840.
We are now in High Octane.
Ho-ho!
I've never known anything like it.
JAMES: With our starter on his way back to London,
the traffic lights were brought in,
and finally we were ready to go.
I'm gonna bust your ass, evil boy!
Oh, yes.
What are you gonna do with it now?
Cos I've seen the film and I wouldn't do it.
(ENGINES REVVING)
I'm getting ahead! I think I'm getting ahead!
Come on, Demon!
Argh, so annoying!
Urghh!
Aha! Evil wins!
Evil wins! Woo-hoo!
-(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) -Ye-e-e-s!
Yes!
Victory for the Demon.
Thank you. Ha-ha!
-Cos I won. -Yes, you won.
-You did win. Well done. -You noticed, then?
-Yes, I noticed it. -That I won?
At the end of the race, my car
was in front of your car, which means I won.
Can I just point out, first you had to spend half a day
rebuilding half your car, and then you had to run it on fuel
that you can't buy from a normal petrol station.
Wait a minute, your Excrement runs on that clever fuel all the time.
I was sort of banking on you not knowing that.
-Yes, well, I do know. -Gentlemen, gentlemen.
I think we have to agree, the Mustang is the only car
here that ticks all the muscle car boxes.
It's cheap, it's powerful, it runs on fuel you can buy,
and you can have it with the steering wheel on the correct side.
You don't get it, do you? You just don't get it.
A muscle car is supposed to have 1,000 horsepower,
be undriveable and have a stupid name.
It's called Ready To Rock! That is a stupid name!
Listen, Hammond, not only are you the fiscal brain of this operation...
I am.
...you're also the resident muscle car enthusiast, yes?
So, and I know the answer to this, cos you told me on the plane on the way home.
Of the three cars, which would you actually buy?
-Buy? -Buy.
-With my own money? -Yes.
-Buy? Myself? -Yes. Yes.
-It's the Mustang. -There you go, the Mustang.
And so on that terrible disappointment for you...
-Snowflakes. -...it's time... it's time to end.
Now, next week it is a Grand Tour Special,
where we attempt to become the first ever television show
in the history of television
to go to Colombia and not use the C-word.
See you then. Goodbye.