Top Gear

APPLAUSE

Hello, hello, everybody. Thank you so much, thank you.

Thanks very much.

We're back!

APPLAUSE

We're back! We're back with a new-look Top Gear.

We have changed everything.

And to give you a taste of what you can expect over the coming weeks,

we have prepared a little montage.

Tally-ho, tally-ho, chaps.

They are all over me!

At Twickenham, for England!

We might actually just be in with a chance.

Let's do this for Carroll Shelby, come on!

You will find the source of the River Nile.

Here we are, ladies, at the bowling club. Oh, lovely.

And, stop. Oh, I am so on board.

There's nobody driving!

The last to arrive will cross into Mexico...

Hello. I've accidentally painted a gentleman's sausage on a storm drain.

'Oh, my.'

Big jump, whoa!

APPLAUSE

We haven't changed anything, have we? No. Not really.

Wait, I have bought a new jacket. You have new shoes.

I'm in my 50s now. James, to be fair, you were born in your 50s.

To be honest, James turned 50 just last week.

Yeah.

APPLAUSE

Why are you applauding?

All he had to do to get to 50 was not die,

and the speed he drives, that's not difficult.

Anyway, we have a tremendous series coming up, some amazing races,

some incredible challenges and, of course, some brilliant cars.

And we start with the best of them all.

The Pagani Zonda is my favourite supercar.

But it's been around for a decade now,

and for the last few years, Pagani have been promising again

and again that they will replace it with a brand-new car.

And now, finally, they have.

It's called the Huayra.

It costs £800,000 and it has a top speed of 230 miles per hour.

The name Huayra comes from the South American god of wind.

Probably not what you want to hear.

What you DO want to hear is that it has six-litre twin-turbo V12,

made especially for it by AMG.

And once petrol is applied, it makes 730 brake horsepower.

And what you do want to hear and see is what that does.

Aaaargh, ha-ha!

It spins its wheels all the time!

I'm in a monster!

Ha-ha-ha!

Oh, dear God! 0 to 60 in 3.2 seconds and then on into space!

That is 180.

That is savage. Savage, savage thing.

I can't get enough of that. I'm going to do that again.

The drama isn't just restricted to the speed.

Because inside the Huayra, it looks like a Victorian's idea of the 23rd century.

And the detail is beyond obsessive - every single nut and bolt

is made from titanium.

The name badge takes 24 hours to carve out

from a solid piece of aluminium.

Each wheel, also hewn from a single aluminium block,

takes five days to make.

And look at this gear shifter.

All the mechanism is exposed so you can see the workings.

It's made from 67 different parts, all arranged

just so you can hear that mechanical clunk of a gear being selected.

You don't even need to use it - you can use the paddles by the wheel -

but they have put that there because it makes it more of an occasion.

This fanatical attention to detail goes on and on and on.

Even the body is more high-tech than the one

you'll find on a Formula One car.

It's made from carbotanium. I even know what that means!

Now somebody's told me.

It's a blend of carbon fibre and titanium,

which is incredibly light but is actually stiffer than carbon fibre

and doesn't shatter when you crash.

That makes things safer

should you suddenly find all 730bhp

propelling you towards a hedge.

Not every element, though, is quite so cutting edge.

Pagani haven't gone with a fashionable twin plate clutch that so many cars use,

because they do make for faster changes.

They have gone instead for a more traditional single plate clutch because it's smaller

and a whole 100 kilograms lighter.

In fact, the Huayra weighs just 1,350 kilograms

and has the power-to-weight ratio of 541 brake horsepower per tonne,

which is more than you get from a Bugatti Veyron.

But where the Bugatti Veyron is four-wheel drive, this is only rear-wheel drive,

and, rather worryingly, we have now come to the part of the film

where we must see what it's like going round corners.

I understand the more infantile viewers, of which there are many,

will now want to see me sliding the back end around.

So, here goes.

Amazingly, you can corner this car like a halfwit

and come out the other side alive.

And that's because, in the Huayra, the black art of aerodynamics is watching over you.

You see those flaps on the outside?

There are two at the back and two the front. They measure how fast you're going

and then deploy to keep everything stable.

That's astonishing!

All from the back wheels - I'm in love!

But the handling is not all down to the magic flaps.

It doesn't feel big, like a Lambo,

and it's all been set up so well

and made so stable that even I can corner it hard without hiding in the glove box, whimpering.

Oh, God, this is properly put together.

The Zonda was always going to be a difficult act to follow,

but the Huayra has pulled it off.

It drives better, it looks better and it hasn't lost any of the drama.

On top of that, it also has something that its main rivals,

Ferrari and Lamborghini, no longer possess.

This car, and this may get a bit Culture Show now, I know,

has still got its innocence.

Ferrari and Lamborghini haven't.

One is owned by Audi,

the other is a commercial machine for selling hats and keyrings.

Pagani is where those companies were 30 years ago - no corporate culture,

no branded teddy bears, they just want to make a bedroom wall pin-up poster.

With a touch of the madness we saw in the Lamborghinis of a few decades ago.

And you can feel that!

There might be some people watching right now who could actually

afford one of these things.

And it is the job of you, me and everybody else to stand around

and join together in a chorus, "Do it, do it, do it!"

APPLAUSE

Wow. That is an amazing-looking thing. Crazy but wonderful. Amazing.

Now, do you know, do you know which of the world's cities

has placed the largest number of orders for this car? No.

Wakefield. Is it? No, I made that up.

Is it really as fast as it looks?

Yes, yes! You know the straight between Chicago

and Hammerhead? Yeah. In this, it's not as long as you think.

It's just there. Is it not? So I can't relax. "Oh, there!"

It is just one corner, it is amazingly insanely fast.

Now, obviously, we must find out how fast it goes around our track,

and that of course means handing it over to our tame racing driver.

Some say that we have at least thought of a new way

of introducing him.

But we haven't.

It's The Stig!

And he's off, surprisingly gentle at first,

but then the tyres light up, the spoilers spring into action.

Coming up to the first corner, and he is...he's indicating,

seems unnecessary, but he is keeping it all in shape.

Just about.

MUSIC PLAYS

Should explain that, since the Olympics, The Stig has become obsessed with national anthems.

He's around Chicago and fires in towards Hammerhead.

Hammond was right, that took no time at all.

Under-braking and takes it easy through the left and right.

Now, hard on the power. Do you hear those turbo waste-gates fluttering?

Now, follow through - surely he can't use all the power there.

He did. He double-breaks as he passes the tyres,

presumably with his left foot or the middle one.

Just two corners left. God, he's coming in fast.

Steady, Stig, up to Gambon. He's very smooth through there.

And across the line.

APPLAUSE

Right, the Pagani, Pagani...

Hu...in. Huayra.

Huuuugh. It's a stupid name.

Why is it stupid?

It hasn't got any consonants in it.

Consonants are the meat of language. If you had no consonants in your name,

you'd be...I-a.

And I'd be...Eey.

People have waited a long time for us to come back, and that's it.

Anyway, the fastest car we have ever had around the track is

the Ariel Atom V8 1.15.1.

Now, are you seriously suggesting that this is faster than that?

I would say it is in with a shout of being as fast, yes.

Well, you're wrong. Oh.

Because, the Pagani did it in 1...

13.8. I am not joking.

APPLAUSE

It's genuinely staggering.

I can't see that time being beaten ever, to be honest.

Anyway, it is time to do the news, and it's good news,

because the Dacia Sandero is on sale in the UK and taking the nation by storm.

Great! Now, the Mercedes SLS, there it is.

There is a new black version of it, there's a picture of it there, and it's yellow.

It has 60 more horsepower than the standard, more speed, more violence.

Dear God, is the brochure written in bullet holes?

No, the brochure is carved into your face with a hunting knife. Is it?

Subtle.

I wonder if they have addressed the problem with the old one - you could never get it sideways.

This one doesn't go in a straight line.

It's funny, weirdly - my friend just bought a black series Mercedes,

and every time I see him, I say, "How is it going?"

And he pretends it's great. "It's fine!

"I'm enjoying it!" "But you've aged 30 years in a week."

"I know! But I really like it!"

That's like saying, "I've got a new attack dog, and it's great!

"You don't know when it's going to attack, or who! I love it."

That's what that is. It's a big yellow attack dog. It's very silly.

Now, may I talk about 50 Shades Of Grey?

Really?

Can I just honestly ask, who here has read it? Be honest,