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The eighth and final episode of the eighth series of Top Gear aired on the 30th of July, 2006. It was presented by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May and The Stig, with Top Gear Dog in the studio. Jenson Button & Ray Winstone were the guest stars.

Synopsis[]

Clarkson begins this episode by asking a question; how many vans were sold in the UK the year prior? Hammond clearly knows the answer to this by cheekily replying "322,000" before corpsing in a brief fit of laughter. This is indeed correct, and is more than twice the amount of the best selling car that same year. As a result this leads into the trio being made to choose a brand new van with which they are to go on tour with The Who as a roadie.

Tonight...[]

  • Noble's difficult third album comes to our track...
  • The art of being a white van man...
  • And the Suzuki Liana is back with some bloke called Jenson Button!

Segments[]

Film(s)[]

Following the first van challenge, the trio were then each given a £1000 to buy a van, signwrite the side with their company name and take part in a series of challenges.

Power Test[]

Richard heads to the track to drive the Noble M15.

SIARPC[]

Jenson Button tries his hand in the Lianna whereas Ray Winstone has a go in the new Lacetti.

Cheap Van Challenge[]

Following the poor film made by the trio when being roadies for The Who, the producers set the three a challenge where they had to buy a van and then meet up at the track to take part in a number of challenges. Jeremy having so little knowledge of Vans copied Hammond's earlier idea by playing it safe and buying a second gen Ford Transit for £800, James kept to his theory that biggest is best and for £950 purchases an LDV box van. Hammond was the last to arrive and to the ammusement of his colleagues had purchased a Suzuki Super Carry (Bedford Rascal).

For their first challenge the three were told to take part in a drag race to see who's van was the fastest. Hammond's van being so light combined with the power from the engine compared to his colleage's allowed him to easily win the race. Jeremy and James's vans both shared the same engine but Jeremy's van was lighter allowing him to take second place with James finishing in a noisy last place.

For their second challenge they had to load their vans with a selection of cargo and deliver it to the dropoff point & they would also be racing each other. Their cargo included vases plus expensive works of art and from double mattress's to illegal immigrants. The size of Hammond's van being so small combined with the amount of cargo which needed to be loaded gave him a big disadvantage as not everything would fit inside, this not being a problem for his colleages who had normal sized vans. James struggled to concentrate with his immigrant so employed him to load his van. Jeremy disliking manual labour as expected rushed loading his van and broke numerous items including plates, glasses and cups aswell as other numerous items. He even resulted into throwing items into the van which also broke them. James was the first to be loaded and set off with Jeremy seconds behind. At the drop off point the presenters now had to get their vans unloaded with the first to finish being the winner, Jeremy wanting to take victory aswell as get the job over and done with pulled up behind James's van blocking his rear doors. This plan worked with Jeremy being the first to finish and winning the challenge. After moving his van forward so he could unload James began unloading his van, his illegal immegrant meanwhile made a run for it with the vase. He therefore finished second and Hammond who now looked ridiculous came last, his van being so small he had to secure the mattress's to the sides and roof of his van & he hadn't been able to close the tail gate.

The next challenge saw the trio have to drive as close as possible to the tail of a car infront of them without touching. Hammond went first with Jeremy and James leading in the Ford Mondeo, to see how close each of the trio could get a laser had been fitted to the back of the car. Hammond managed to get his van 10.3mm away from the back of the car, Jeremy went next but immediately came across a problem as with how low the front of the van was he couldnt see from the drivers seat. He ended up having to stick the top half of his body out of the drivers window to see how close he was to the back of the Ford, however he ended up hitting the rear of the car bending the bumper slightly which went to -6mm. James went last but the weight of his van combined with the poor acceleration meant that he couldnt catch up, Jeremy and Richard were joking about this with Jeremy stating. "We are going to run out of runway before James gets anywhere near us". James as a result lost this challenge badly.

The fourth challenge said that the trio had to change the front drivers door of their van and that they would again be racing each other, this being to the annoyance of Jeremy as it meant more manual labour. Jeremy tried to ask if he could be excused from the challenge but was refused. While Hammond and May set to work with spanners and bolts Jeremy decided to borrow James's van and break off the door of his van to speed things up. Now having got the original doors off they now had to attach the new doors to their vans, Hammond was the first to finish having used the spanners and bolts provided & Jeremy finished shortly afterwards. Jeremy however had stuck the door on with gaffer tape, claiming it had only said get a new door but hadnt said that it needed to open it. James meanwhile took so long that he ran out of time to get his new door on.

The fifth challenge was to see which of their vans was the most burglar proof with a car thief trying to break into the back doors of their vans. The thief first tried Hammond's van but failed to unlock the door and get it open being defeated after 1 minute. James's van having not as strong rear doors were smashed open and then pulled open setting the target for Jeremy to beat which was 34 seconds. Jeremy lost this challenge badly as his van like other early Ford Transit vans could easily be opened up by hammering a screwdriver into the lock, it taking the thief only 10 seconds to open the vans rear door. Much to the ammusement of his colleages at how quickly it had taken to get into his van.

The final challenge was a game of cops and robbers around the Top Gear short circuit, the trio would get a headstart and then 20 seconds later a police car driven by the Stig would give chase. The person who managed to stay infront the longest being the winner. To make the challenge harder the Stig's police car was a standard 1.6L Vauxhall Astra which compared to their vans would easily be able to catch them. Jeremy went first having remembered that in the early days Ford Transit vans were so quick that they were used in most bank jobs which happened in the 1970's as police cars then couldn't keep up. The Stig set off with Jeremy now going around the follow through, Jeremy got an advantage around this part of the track where the drivers door of his van fell off reducing the weight of his van. He managed to make it around the Hammerhead and almost made it to the finish line but ended up getting caught just inches away. James went next and having got the slowest and heaviest van needed to get as far ahead as possible to try and beat Jeremy, he also managed to make it past the Hammerhead but got caught before rounding the corner meaning Jeremy was still leading.

Hammond went last and having such a light van combined with a speed advantage was expected to win the challenge, after quickly setting off and looking on for a likely victory it was to all come to a disasterous end by the Follow Through. Being mid engined Hammond thought he'd be able to do a scandinavian flick, however his speed combined with how light his van was and how sharp he turned the steering wheel ended up rolling his van over onto it's side (starting what would become his reputation of crashing cars). Fortunately he was unhurt managing to crawl out of the van via where the front windscreen was supposed to be, which had fallen out in the rollover.

Pointswise Richard was leading with Jeremy in second and James well out of the running having scored -4,000,000 in the tail gating challenge. One final challenge was then run to see who could get the most responses after placing a man with van advert in a newspaper and they would each get 1pt for each reply. James failed to get a single response so remained at almost minus 4 million, Richard managed to get one reply boosting his score to 21. The result on who would win was now down to Jeremy who needed to get more than 11 replies through his advert to take victory, he however also failed to get any responses back resulting in Hammond taking victory and winning by 10.5 points over Jeremy.

Scoresheet[]

Presenter

Van Drag

Race

Cargo Thief

Test

Tail

Gating

Door

Challenge

Police

Chase

Man with

Van ad

Total
Jeremy Ford Transit 2 3 1 -0.5 2 3 0 10.5
Richard Suzuki Supercarry 3 1 3 9 3 1 1 21
James LDV Convoy 1 2 2 -4,000,000 0 2 0 -3,999,993

Thumbnail[]

Top Gear-s08e08-Episode 8 thumbnail


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