(Some of) Top Gear's Craziest Experiments

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]Now, now did you know that in this country more people are struck by lightning than are crushed by reptiles or injured as the result of a prolonged stay in a weightless environment? Yep.

[00:00:12]It turns out lightning really is a hidden menace.

[00:00:15]>> Your point being >> Well, this what happens if you're struck by lightning in a car.

[00:00:20]>> Oh, you'd be all right though cuz you got rubber tires. Ah, >> not necessarily, you see, because car makers don't test for this sort of thing. So, after I've been pelted by golf balls, Top Gear arranged for a car to be struck by lightning with me in it.

[00:00:38]There are very few places in the world that have the technology to blast a car with lightning. Two of those places are in Holland and Germany. But only one of those nations is laid-back, liberal, and fun-loving enough to let me actually sit in the car whilst they hit it with 800,000 volts. Yep, it's those zany Germans.

[00:01:04]This is the Seaman's high voltage lab in Berlin. Normally, this place builds and tests high voltage equipment for power stations and the national grid.

[00:01:16]These transformers can generate almost 2 million volts of pure electricity. But today, they're going to use that electricity for something else. To make lightning.

[00:01:30]They're going to zap me and this car with 800,000 volts, which is a lot.

[00:01:35]Stuff in your house runs on 240 volts.

[00:01:38]If it hits me directly, they'll clear me away with a shovel. You might be thinking that the tires are going to protect me by insulating the car from Earth because they're rubber. Now, if the electricity can make it from the sky to the car, it can make it from the car to the ground. What's going to protect me is this, the body shell itself. Like all cars, the new Golf's body forms a Faraday cage. And a Faraday cage is something that attracts electricity and then sends it shooting around the outside so that whatever's inside shouldn't be harmed. But the problem is this isn't like brakes or airbags. Car firms don't test for lightning strikes.

[00:02:19]So I've no idea how it'll go. Right. My life is now in the hands of Alevel physics.

[00:02:27]The lightning will come out of these transformers along the wires and then shoot down to the car.

[00:02:37]>> What was that?

[00:02:43]>> Okay, I was about to raise voltage.

[00:02:48]>> He's starting to raise the wattage.

[00:02:54]>> 200,000 volt.

[00:02:59]We did have a briefing with the scientists and he said, "Keep my hands together towards the center of the car and away from any metal objects." But it's a car. It's made of metal.

[00:03:12]>> 400,000 volt.

[00:03:15]>> I can hear a noise. I hear a buzzing now.

[00:03:22]>> 600,000 volt.

[00:03:26]It's really buzzing there. I don't know what's going to happen when it does come. I'm about to be hit by lightning.

[00:03:32]I know I am.

[00:03:34]It's building. It really is building. It builds a tension with it. It's quite a strange.

[00:03:40]You can almost feel the tension.

[00:03:50]Oh, that's scary.

[00:03:57]I'm being hit by lightning.

[00:04:03]My hands are buzzing.

[00:04:06]HEY.

[00:04:11]OH, now it's doing stuff to my car. I've got error up on the dashboard.

[00:04:17]Handbrake light flashing.

[00:04:29]So, it works. Assuming I'm not now talking to you with wings in a harp. I'm alive.

[00:04:36]Question is, is the car well the electric windows work? Obviously, uh, lights, they work. Stereo, that's nice.

[00:04:45]Lovely. Indicators, I mean, everything.

[00:04:49]And it starts. It still works amazingly.

[00:04:56]Last year, we showed you how you can run your car on chip pan fat. Well, I got wondering, what about poo? Could you run your car on one of those?

[00:05:09]There's a lot of frightening stuff talked about the world's energy resources. Oh, they'll all run out tomorrow and we'll have to live in caves and eat soil. That sort of thing.

[00:05:20]Thankfully, Top Gear has the answer, and she's called Mabel.

[00:05:28]Cows are amazing creatures. Not only do they give us milk and burgers, but every day, a single cow produces 50 kg of poo.

[00:05:40]And poo gives off methane. It's a cheap, endless supply of energy. It's a basic fuel. And in theory, it can be used to run a car.

[00:05:52]>> I think you can see where this is going.

[00:05:56]>> We needed to find out if you can run a car on number TWS, which is why we're here at a slurry farm. Here's how the process works.

[00:06:06]>> The cow does a poo.

[00:06:10]The poo is scooped up and put into a special tank called a digtor. It's a bit like a brewing kit and it turns the poo into compost for spreading on fields.

[00:06:22]Whilst it's in the digtor, the poo generates lots of methane gas. And normally the methane given off by this process goes to waste, but not today.

[00:06:33]We're keeping the gas and feeding it into this compressor, which squashes it to make it more dense so that it'll fit into a car tank.

[00:06:44]Now, the car has already been converted to run on compressed natural gas, which means it should go for this methane probably.

[00:06:55]So, here it is, the world's first cowpoo powered car. And to see if it works, we're going to have a drag race against this identical rover running on old-fashioned petrol.

[00:07:07]We've also got a third car, one which runs on methane extracted from human waste. Are mankind's number twos faster than cow flatulence?

[00:07:18]In theory, methane should be methane.

[00:07:20]But never let it be said that we're not thorough in our science.

[00:07:26]This is it. In just a few moments, we might be about to change the world. Here we go.

[00:07:38]That's it. It works. We are running on poo.

[00:08:01]Come on. Blue power.

[00:08:06]I'm second. Oh no, Petrol's romping away.

[00:08:15]People poo is beating cowpoo.

[00:08:19]No.

[00:08:21]Come on.

[00:08:23]It's just cow.

[00:08:45]I am frankly amazed that no big oil company has built a refinery to harness the power of cowpad.

[00:08:51]>> Well, they haven't. So, >> right. So, if we want to do this, we have to do it in a sort of self-sufficient good life way. Yeah.

[00:08:56]>> Well, yeah, if you want to. Yeah, you would.

[00:08:58]>> Okay. How much is a cow?

[00:08:59]>> About 700 quid.

[00:09:01]>> Okay. Now, I'm going to need about 1,500 lers of fuel a year. How many cows do I need?

[00:09:04]>> You'll need about four cows. Okay. Okay.

[00:09:06]Times four.

[00:09:07]>> To be honest, this is ridiculous, James, because cows cost a fortune to run. It's about 545 quid a year. And then you need land, 6 acres, which is about 300 quid.

[00:09:16]And then you'd have to buy the digesttor and all the rest of it, which is about 1,500. Oh, trust me, it doesn't. It was just a joke. I was >> actually beginning to look pretty expensive.

[00:09:23]>> Yes. And then you've got depreciation.

[00:09:24]>> No, cows don't depreciate.

[00:09:27]But I'll tell you what they do do though. They make milk. How much milk do you get from a cow? You're a yoko. Come on.

[00:09:32]>> About 1,200 quid per cow per year.

[00:09:34]>> All right. It's It's not that simple to be honest, mate. It is a sensible idea.

[00:09:39]>> Right. 1,500 L of petrol costs now 1,500 quid.

[00:09:43]>> Yes.

[00:09:43]>> 1,500 L of poo power. You're only 30 quid down. You are a genius, mate.

[00:09:49]>> You got it all wrong because you have to have a milking parlor and somebody to milk the cows and then you're going to have a field full of cow pats that you got to gather up and put it. It doesn't work, mate. It was a joke. I'm sorry.

[00:09:58]Leave it.

[00:10:00]>> How much is four humans?

[00:10:01]>> Leave it. It doesn't work.

[00:10:03]>> This is a canoe or kayak to be precise, and it's rubbish because it doesn't have an engine. But where there's a will, there's always a way.

[00:10:16]This is the world's first enginepowered canoe. It took 2 and 1/2 years to make.

[00:10:23]And it's got a jet at the back powered by the world's flattest two-stroke motor, which sits here, right where your bottom goes. So, where ordinary canoes can be overtaken by ducks, this one blasts across the water like a jetpropelled eel.

[00:10:43]This amazing machine is the brainchild of Sha Baker, ninetime British whitewater freestyle champion and holder of four world records, including one for kayaking 65 ft down a sheer vertical waterfall.

[00:11:01]Now, obviously, we wanted to find out if this jetpropelled canoe kayak is any good, which is why we've come here to Iceland.

[00:11:22]In fact, we've come to one of the most incredible parts of an already generally amazing country, the ice lake. It's formed where a giant glacia meets a lagoon and then breaks apart to form a sea of well, massive ice cubes.

[00:11:38]So, we're going to have a race starting at one end of the lake and running roughly two miles to the finish line at the bridge where the lake meets the sea.

[00:11:46]I should be using the roads along the edge.

[00:11:50]Now, those roads are very tough and Icelandic. So, I need a vehicle that's very tough and Icelandic.

[00:12:01]It's called a Tomcat. And it's what happens when you take British engineering and garnish it with Icelandic levels of lunacy. It's got plastic body panels for super lightness, a 4 L TVR V8 for super power, and a Range Rover chassis for super strength.

[00:12:22]Put all that together and you've got a 1 and 1/2 ton 4x4 that can outrun a Subaru Impreza rally car.

[00:12:32]So Sean, talk to me about danger. I'm presuming there's well quite a lot of it.

[00:12:36]>> Well, when we're bombing around, the wake from the back of the boat's obviously snapping off little bits of ice, and that starts to float in the water. And if that gets sucked up in through the intake grate on the bottom of the boat and jams into the prop, it's just going to cut the engine out. And of course, it doesn't float, >> which isn't good.

[00:12:49]>> That's And this isn't going to help.

[00:12:52]>> No, I'm going down. So really the biggest danger facing the jetpropelled kayaker is ice. Is ice.

[00:13:14]As I sat at the start, I still didn't quite believe that a jet powered kayak would work.

[00:13:30]It did.

[00:13:35]It's a bad start. On the way now.

[00:13:40]The car is sacheting around. It's like a fine layer of stones on volcanic ash, which is very interesting on a geography field trip, but bloody scary to drive on.

[00:14:01]I've had to come such a long way from the length now to find a path.

[00:14:10]He's got to go so much less distance and be Sha has his problems, too. He's negotiating a maze of floating ice in search of open water, but the ice is constantly shifting and blocking his path.

[00:14:31]Basically, if there's ice, he's had it.

[00:14:36]I hope there's ice.

[00:14:45]Oh, that hurts.

[00:14:50]Come on.

[00:15:00]Surely Sha must be tiring. His buttocks are being roasted by the engine and the constant course adjustments are straining his arms.

[00:15:12]I'm right back down by the water again.

[00:15:25]Come on.

[00:15:34]I don't know where he is. I don't know where he is.

[00:15:39]He's there.

[00:15:41]Come on then, canoe boy.

[00:15:47]How fast does that thing go?

[00:15:59]I can't lose this.

[00:16:03]This is it. This is it. This is the bridge.

[00:16:21]No, >> I don't believe that. See you.

[00:16:31]>> Where's an iceberg when you need one?

[00:16:36]>> Honestly, >> space is a neverending racetrack. The thermal shock region on the prow of our solar system, for example, is screaming through the heavens at 490,000 mph.

[00:16:49]Earth is hurtling around the sun at 67,000 mph.

[00:16:54]God, it seems, is a complete speed freak.

[00:17:00]And this is what I'm pitting against him. the new Jaguar XJ.

[00:17:10]And already there's a problem because which one do I take? The supercharged V8 is fast and exciting, but thirsty. The diesel could do the journey easily on less than half a tank, and not having to fill up will save time.

[00:17:28]In the end, though, it was a simple decision. I went for the fast one.

[00:17:38]Stopwatch sat. This is it then for your Sunday night delation. A big jag versus God.

[00:17:48]It's like songs of praise with a supercharger.

[00:17:53]At 9:36, the sun sank below the horizon and the race was on. Here we go. Now, that is what the mysterious uh sunset green flash is all about. Obviously, it's God's starting light. He wants to race us. He likes racing.

[00:18:15]Okay, here are my issues. The sun will rise over East Anglia at 4:30 in the morning. That gives me 6 hours and 54 minutes to do 432 mi.

[00:18:31]That means averaging averaging 62 m an hour. At this stage, Dawn still had 4,200 m to go before it reached Loweristo, but it was doing a massive 610 m an hour.

[00:18:49]One hold up, one red light. God wins.

[00:18:55]And already he was playing dirty.

[00:19:01]GET OUT OF THE WAY. They've all been to watch the sunset at Land's End and now going back to the hotel.

[00:19:10]Oh, this is bad. 30 m an hour. Half what I need to be doing. But then the road straightened out and the Jag pounced.

[00:19:21]Are you overtaking?

[00:19:28]Holy cow, this thing is fast.

[00:19:35]But then it kind of would be because the supercharged V8 that's holding me along produces more power and more torque than the 6 L V12 in an Aston Martin Rapid.

[00:19:50]I am going to thrash God.

[00:19:57]But then he enlisted the services of an unusual ally.

[00:20:03]THE DEVIL'S WORK.

[00:20:06]>> The LZ Bub's cones went on for miles and my average speed collapsed.

[00:20:12]I'm in Cornwall doing 50 because of average speed cameras to protect the workforce who aren't here. And the sun has already risen in Sydney.

[00:20:22]God was winning.

[00:20:27]This is a quick car, but there's a bit more to it than raw speed.

[00:20:34]Sitting in an old Jag, even the last one, was like sitting in a country pub.

[00:20:38]You were cramped. Were beams you half expected to be steering with a wagon wheel. This though, with the blue lighting around the vents and the blue glow in the door pockets, they've even lined this cubby hole and the glove box.

[00:20:54]As you can see, with purple velvet.

[00:20:59]That's like lifting up the queen's skirt and finding she's wearing a thong.

[00:21:04]Love these. Stroke the lights to make them come on or off.

[00:21:09]There are other thoughtful touches, too.

[00:21:12]Oh yeah, it's hard. Oh yeah. Lower.

[00:21:17]Lower. There. There. There.

[00:21:21]>> Yes. As I'm sure you realized, that's the seat massager at work.

[00:21:25]>> It's like needing me and all that in the seat.

[00:21:34]>> Then there's the stereo system. In the last Jag, you got a gramophone with a dog sitting on it. But in this, I've got 1,200 watts, and it will play anything.

[00:21:46]Anything.

[00:21:48]Uh you just you push you push that.

[00:21:55]Um um by the time I realized I didn't understand iPod connectivity, the sun was over Thailand and I was facing a decision made by thousands of holiday makers every summer.

[00:22:14]M5 and M4 or A303 past Stonehenge.

[00:22:20]The motorway is 20 mi further, but probably better for fuel consumption.

[00:22:28]But the A303 is more fun in a car like this.

[00:22:35]Yeah, A303 it is.

[00:22:40]This was a good call.

[00:22:45]There's a whiff of NASCAR about this car.

[00:22:51]And now I'm going to give it a bit more because I'm going to engage dynamic mode. Look, the dials glow red.

[00:23:01]What this does is firms everything up.

[00:23:04]Gives you more punch.

[00:23:06]Also, because the XJ is made entirely from aluminium, it's much lighter than any other big car, it feels like a sports car.

[00:23:18]On good roads like these, it's not far short of a masterpiece.

[00:23:32]The Jag set about chewing up the miles.

[00:23:49]Druids.

[00:23:57]By 145, I figured I was in the lead, but I'd reached the M3, which was boring.

[00:24:04]So, I decided to let the car drive itself.

[00:24:08]>> Right, cruise control on. Very good system this. Set the speed at 70. And the road ahead is scanned by microwaves.

[00:24:18]I'm going to hook on now to the back of our camera car. There we go. So, now if he speeds up, I speed up. If he slows down, I slow down. I don't have to do anything.

[00:24:28]And I can even choose what sort of distance I want to follow it at. There's the uh safe distance there. Right down to the full Audi.

[00:24:39]Yes, there we are. That's the Audi following distance.

[00:24:46]It was now late. The motorway was monotonous and my thoughts turned to the business of staying sharp.

[00:24:53]Production team, as usual, has provided me with a CD to keep me awake on this long and difficult and perilous voyage.

[00:25:02]But it was while working at Radio Lancaster that I experienced a revelation. I took over as producer and presenter of the weekend midm morning shows. I reported on roadblocks, barn breakouts, carol concerts, jumble sales, >> Hammond's adventures in local radio weren't helping.

[00:25:20]>> Record-breaking attempts and sponsored swims.

[00:25:22]>> But soon something else did.

[00:25:27]>> Fuel one light is on.

[00:25:30]I'm only on the M25.

[00:25:33]No, >> a splash and dash pit stop cost precious moments.

[00:25:41]Here we go. And then Bezub decided to cost me even more.

[00:25:46]No, no, no.

[00:25:50]This is exactly the sort of holdup I can do without. Is anyone going to be working on them? I mean, really. So you have to drive along at 50 mph glaring at your speedometer, not looking at the road ahead. That's very dangerous. I mean, it raises money for the government obviously, but it's very dangerous.

[00:26:10]>> By the time the road works finished, God was back in the lead. He was now just over an hour from Lowisto.

[00:26:18]Okay, 65 miles to go. And I would say that the inky blackness of night has become sort of royal blue.

[00:26:28]I suppose the sun will be early, will it? Can it do that?

[00:26:38]There is a smudge in the sky. A big one.

[00:26:43]The mother of fire, it seems, is coming back. That is daylight.

[00:26:53]I have 39 minutes.

[00:26:58]There were still 34 miles to go, but win or lose, I was glad I'd done this race in the Jag. An S-Class may be a comparable limo to this, but an S-Class doesn't go and stop and steer anything like as well as this.

[00:27:19]If you're a keen driver, this is the only big car you can have.

[00:27:27]The sun was now over Amsterdam and would appear in Suffukk in just 12 minutes.

[00:27:33]4.9 mi.

[00:27:41]Right. Where am I going? Where is England's most easterly spot?

[00:27:51]Come on, I'm lost.

[00:27:56]No red light now.

[00:28:04]Come on.

[00:28:08]This is it.

[00:28:31]Easy.

[00:28:42]Right, there's the car in question, the new Fiesta. And what I thought I'd do is break the road test down into segments.

[00:28:49]So hopefully we'll cover all the bases.

[00:28:58]Well, behind the extremely pretty body, I'm sorry to report there are one or two small problems.

[00:29:07]The back seats, for instance, do not fold flat. And other cars in this price range do have bigger boots. However, despite this, there is still room in the boot for a zebra's head. Put the neck in first.

[00:29:23]There we are. So, if you're sort of mafia game ranger, that goes very nicely. And then in the back seat, there's room for the traditional 2.2 children.

[00:29:41]I should say so. This new car may be the biggest Fiesta yet, but it's a whopping 40 kg lighter than the last model.

[00:29:50]That'll help at the pumps.

[00:29:54]There's even a 1.6 L diesel model called the Econetic, which produces such a small amount of carbon dioxide, you pay no road tax on it at all.

[00:30:05]I wouldn't bother with that particular model though because it'll almost certainly be sh.

[00:30:15]Ever since the Ford Focus came along in 1998 or whenever it was, all Fords have had a driving feel that you just don't get in other cars of the same size or price.

[00:30:31]And this is no different.

[00:30:34]Here as I go through the hammerhead for example, I can feel that it has a sort of Volkvagen feel of solidity and a Lotus feel of sportiness.

[00:30:44]Rare to get that combination.

[00:30:52]Yeah, the steering has a linear response under steer well tamed. No tread chuckle.

[00:31:04]It feels fabulous. And if you go for the 1.6 L TVCT engine that I have in this test car, it's pretty fast as well.

[00:31:14]Certainly, it will easily do 70 mph, which is what I'm doing now. And that's the maximum speed that you can go in Britain. So, that's good.

[00:31:23]Is this thorough enough for you, Mr. Needam? I hope so, cuz I think it's going well.

[00:31:34]Hopefully not. Quite apart from the fact it's made by Germans, most of the equipment on this car has been fitted to other Fords for years, and we've heard no horror stories.

[00:31:47]If you are worried, there's an entry- levelvel version which has no equipment on it at all. So, there's nothing to go wrong.

[00:31:55]>> Do you want that one though? really honestly a basic model cuz I bet that's also of course it's easy to park. It's got windows. It's got a steering wheel.

[00:32:14]There we are.

[00:32:16]Next This can happen.

[00:32:36]Oh, and it just has. Here we go.

[00:32:44]Good grip.

[00:32:48]Alan, I am now breaking the speed limit indoors.

[00:32:56]He's right on my tail. This is where frontwheel drive comes in.

[00:33:03]And the palm tree. There we go.

[00:33:09]He's taken out past coffee.

[00:33:12]The baddy has made the classic bad error.

[00:33:16]He's got too much power. I've got 120 horsepower in this. You don't want any more than that on Marvel.

[00:33:32]The handbrake.

[00:33:36]Does he have to hit absolutely everything?

[00:33:41]>> Steering is light. The turning circle is good.

[00:33:45]I was once chased through a shopping center in Putney actually in southwest London by Baddies. I had an original mini and I must say that was very good.

[00:33:55]Just cut through British home stores.

[00:33:58]Dab of the handbrake and there we go.

[00:34:08]The Corvette is stuck IN BRITISH HOME STORES. TURNING CIRCLES NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

[00:34:21]OKAY, I'M GETTING AWAY.

[00:34:24]YEAH, this is the room.

[00:34:27]6,000 RPM. Come on.

[00:34:31]Instruments are superb and they're really sharp.

[00:34:36]Ambry.

[00:34:42]The headlamps are brilliant. Excellent range on full B.

[00:34:49]Look at him. Look at him.

[00:34:53]Will you ever follow me if I go through here? Oh, he he is doing The upshot is that after half an hour I got out of the shopping center and the vet didn't Yes.

[00:35:42]Very.

[00:35:51]Well, prices start at around £85,000, but you need £11,000 to get a decent mid-range model. So, if you have £11,000 to spend on a car, then yes, you can.

[00:36:03]But if you've only got 40p, then no, you you can't.

[00:36:20]Although it is quite large for a super mini, very large in fact, it still fits on the Marines LCVP Mark 5 landing craft with room to spare.

[00:36:32]And now um if you'll forgive me, we are approaching the beach. The gunfire has started. Lad, do you want to mount up?

[00:36:44]>> That gunfire can be quite loud, can't it? You get that door shut.

[00:36:49]Barely hear it now.

[00:36:55]>> Hey, look at that. The smoke grenades fit perfectly in the cup holders.

[00:37:01]I'm really >> What about the glove boxes? How much ammo can you get in there? Just two mags.

[00:37:08]>> The windscreen is heated but not bulletproof.

[00:37:14]>> Stand by the beach.

[00:37:18]>> He's cold.

[00:37:19]>> Yeah, I am.

[00:37:28]NO, let's go.

[00:37:51]Come on.

[00:37:54]COME ON, FIESTA.

[00:37:57]OH, that's quite a lot deeper than I thought.

[00:38:00]Look at this for a beach ass.

[00:38:05]>> Oh, yeah. You've got a bit of water coming in now. Come on. We need cover, boys.

[00:38:27]Do you want to just shoot from in here?

[00:38:29]Is that would that be more comfortable?

[00:38:32]Electric windows. I'll just quietly put Go, go, go. Shoot the enemy in the middle in space.

[00:38:47]>> Carry on. There's a package. Well done.

[00:38:51]>> These carpets are excellent. No evidence at all of the Marines muddy boots.

[00:39:01]>> So there you are, Mr. Most thorough test of a car ever undertaken on British television.

[00:39:09]Fiesta's come through with flying colors.

[00:39:13]Drive safely.