Top Gear Set to Return to BBC Two on Sunday

Episode 1 brings – A summer holiday in (very) cheap convertibles

The average cost of a summer holiday is £600. Per person. Six hundred quid to sit in a smelly metal tube for a couple of hours, all for a bit of sun on your face. But what about if, instead of spending £600 on a holiday, you spent it instead on a second-hand convertible? A far nicer way to get a bit of sun on your face, surely?

To find out, the presenters each bought themselves a very cheap cabrio – Chris a Merc SLK, Paddy a very nineties Escort, and Fred a monstrosity called the Chrysler LeBaron – and set out on a glamorous journey from Bognor Regis to Essex. During which they were squirted with a ‘low-friction synthetic sweat substitute’, pelted with golf balls, and marooned in the sea.

Power Test: Ariel Atom 4

See, the new Ariel Atom costs about 40 grand, and accelerates from zero to sixty in 2.8 seconds. But in freefall, an object – for example a Rover Metro cabrio-shaped object – will accelerate from zero to sixty in 2.7 seconds. Supercar acceleration for free! Provided, that is, you can stop your Rover Metro before it hits the ground.

Chucking a car off a dam

Yes, Top Gear is attempting to bungee-jump a car. A Rover Metro cabrio, to be precise, with a Freddie Flintoff at the wheel. Off a massive Swiss dam. This has never been done before, at least not successfully.

You might ask ‘why’. Freddie did, quite a number of times, while suspended 400 feet above an unyielding valley floor. The answer? Not merely a bid to discover if Mr Flintoff has any function remaining in his fear-gland (spoiler alert: definitely a bit), but also Chris’s latest money-saving tip.

Get ready for one of the most palm-sweat-inducing bits of telly of the year.

Credit – https://www.bbc.co.uk/