Top Gear

Tonight, I wear a hat...

Richard wears a hat...

and James wears a hat.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello, everybody. Hello and welcome.

Welcome. Thank you so much.

Now...

Now, we start tonight with a letter.

It's from a chap called Alan Massive Liar and it says,

"Dear Jez, Dick and Jim,

"I want a convertible supercar,

"but I only have £113,500 to spend.

"Can you help?"

This is very timely, actually,

because as it happens, no, we can't.

This is the new Audi R8 V10 Spyder,

which in this spec, costs £113,500.

And this is the new Porsche 911 Turbo convertible,

which, to all intents and purposes, costs £113,500.

If it's speed you're after, the Audi looks like the better bet

because it is much, much more powerful.

But because the Porsche is so much lighter,

they both produce exactly 306 brake horsepower per tonne.

If they were supermarkets, you'd do them for price fixing.

There's more, too.

They're both German, they're both four-wheel drive,

and they both have hoods made from cloth rather than metal.

So let's see if they can be split in a drag race.

Right, some numbers.

I have a Lamborghini 5.2 litre V10, and I'm up against

Porsche's brand-new 3.8 litre,

twin turbocharged, direct-injected flat six.

This should be interesting.

Three, two, one!

Go!

And indeed, it is interesting.

Ironman's heavy weight iron car

is losing to the lightweight one with the iron lung.

But now let's see what happens if we swap drivers and do the race again.

Go!

Oh no!

'Embarrassingly, this time round, the Audi was victorious.'

The reason that happened is simple.

Four-wheel-drive cars like these are notoriously difficult to get off the line quickly.

If you do it well, you're going to win.

If you do it badly, you're going to lose.

So really, in short race like that, it's all down to the driver.

The cars, predictably, almost exactly the same.

They both do 0-60 in around four seconds.

And flat out, they can both crack 190 miles an hour.

So in a straight line, there's nothing to choose between them.

But what about in the corners?

Well, it's the same story here because they both have the same problem.

You see, a normal car like this is strong,

because the two ends are connected together

by a roof and a floor - two pieces of metal.

If you take the roof away,

you end up with a big heavy engine here,

connected to the steering and suspension gubbins there by just the floor.

It's like having two bricks joined together by a playing card -

it's going to be all wobbly.

To get round the problem,

Audi has fitted the Spyder with lots of strengthening beams.

Now that sounds fine, but it's added 100 kilograms to the weight.

Porsche meanwhile offers the turbo with active engine mounts,

which make the engine part of the car's backbone.

It sounds intriguing, but has it worked?

In a word, yes.

This is a million times better than the old 911 turbo convertible.

Mind you, that isn't saying much,

because other things that are a million times nicer than the old car

include tuberculosis.

And being on fire. Stuff like that.

However, even though it is a big improvement,

it is heavier than the coupe and despite everything...

..it's still not as rigid.

And just knowing that, it sort of spoils everything.

So what about the Audi?

The hard-top R8 V10 was one of

the best cars I drove last year.

And actually, in one important respect, this is even better.

That noise.

With no roof, you can hear it even more clearly.

The only sound I can think of which is better than that

is the sound of Peter Mandelson being attacked by bears.

With that noise going on,

it's very hard to detect the shimmying and you really don't notice the extra weight.

Really, it's like driving a car that has chlamydia -

there are no symptoms but you know it's there

and that sort of... spoils the relationship a bit.

On the track then, both are good,

but you get the sense that neither is as good as it could be.

So what about practical stuff, such as what big speed convertibles like these

can do if you have big hair?

Now, ideally to demonstrate this, we need James May

but sadly he's busy today,

building a nuclear submarine out of Lego probably.

So instead we've got someone who looks just like him...

except for in every single detail.

This is Lauren.

She's spent all morning having her hair done,

and now we're going to see how it's affected by driving the Audi.

Was it, er, an expensive haircut? Yeah.

This is probably how you imagine things will be if you have a convertible supercar.

The smell of the scenery, Groove Armada in the stereo,

and a James May body double by your side.

But the whole point of this car is speed and that changes everything.

SHE SCREAMS

140.

In just two minutes,

I've turned Lauren into a pop star from the 1980s.

The Audi, then - not a good hairstylist.

Sadly, our attempts to see if the Porsche was any better ended prematurely.

My eye! Let me... No listen, a bee went in it.

No, the thing in my nose has a face!

So there we are.

Set off for a weekend away with your wife in either of these cars

and you'll arrive blind and with Bonnie Tyler in the passenger seat.

Naming a winner, then, between these two cars

is not that easy because, frankly,

they both lose.

# Nothing I can say

# A total eclipse of the heart. #

Bonnie Tyler? I don't get it.

So... I don't understand.

So what you're saying is they both lose.

They both lose, yes, because the R8, the hardtop and the 911 hardtop,

they're like poached halibut.

Halibut? Halibut.

Now, if you put HP sauce on delicious poached halibut, you're going to ruin it.

If you put HP sauce on a bacon sandwich,

you're going to make it better.

You are quite odd. You know that, don't you? It does make sense.

Yeah, I think I know sort of what you're getting at.

If you take the roof off an ordinary car like a Peugeot or a BMW 1 Series or something,

no harm done and if anything, you make it a bit better cos it's a bit of drama. Quite.

But with serious performance cars... Halibut. Whatever. Yeah. ..it's a different story.

There are good reasons why there's never been a Eurofighter Typhoon Cabriolet.

Precisely. And having cleared that up,

we must now find how fast these cars go round our track

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

Some say that he's spent all week daydreaming

about what Rubens Barrichello would look like in a ham slicer.

LAUGHTER

And that he's terrified the BBC will reveal his salary,

because he's paid in strong pornography.

LAUGHTER

All we know is, he's called the Stig.

And they're off,

Stig fuelled by his fanatical hatred of Rubens Barrichello.

Powering down towards the first corner, here they are

and the Audi looks like it's getting a bit out of shape already.

Yes, it is.

# Night fever, night fever... #

Oh dear.

Stig seems to have developed an obsession with the Bee Gees.

Perhaps it's cos they share a love of the white suit.

Around Chicago, both dipping a wheel off the track.

Now hammerhead, Stig stamping on the brakes,

imagining it's the head of a Williams driver.

Not Nico Hulkenberg, obviously.

911s can understeer, but no sign of it there at all.

The Audi's in good shape, too.

# Sweet city woman, she moves... #

I should say the Stig also dislikes convertible supercars

because he always tries to keep his helmet out of the flies.

I've just realised that if these two go faster

than their hardtop equivalents, I'm going to look like a massive idiot.

They've just got Gambon to do now.

Both round and there we are, across the line.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Come on, then. So...

No pressure. Here we go. Hang on. No pressure.

The Porsche 911 Turbo convertible

did it in 1:22.2 seconds, which is there.

Where's the hardtop? We never tested the hard top. Which is lucky for you.

We have done an Audi R8, though - it's here.

If this is faster than that you are going to look, by your own admission, a massive idiot.

Yes I am. Go on, then.

1:21.6, the convertible.

1:22.3!

Oh-ho-ho! Look at that!

You got away with that by the skin of your teeth.

Look how similar they are.

Now...

Before we do the news, I'd just like to conduct a quick loyalty test.

As you know, last week there was some sort of football match on at the same time as us,

so I just wondered... Who watched Top Gear last week?

Hands up. I did. I did. It was great. Jeremy, you?

I couldn't watch it.

I'll be honest, I found the bit with the wedding pretty cringeworthy.

No, I couldn't watch it because I was in Johannesburg. Watching the final?

Oh great! So the one week when we wanted to call in a bit of loyalty

and you decided to go to South Africa and watch a Dutchman kick a Spaniard in the heart? Yes, I did.

But I have brought one of these back.

Oh, God!

Great. Two long, noisy things.

One long, noisy thing.

They don't work. They don't. Look.

VUVUZELA FAILS TO BUZZ