After seeing small adverts in the back of many car magazines that advertise supercars for less than £10,000 (the average price of a two-year-old Ford Mondeo), Jeremy, Richard, and James decide to see whether or not these offers were worth taking up. Therefore, they were each given £10,000 to purchase a mid-engine Italian supercar to undertake a series of challenges.
Introduction & Choices[]
The presenters are told to meet in Bristol Harbour by the SS Great Britain. Richard is the first to arrive, driving a 1979 (albeit late-registered in 1983) Ferrari 308 GT4 Dino, followed shortly after by Jeremy with a 1974 Maserati Merak SS. Richard notes that he had paid the full £10,000 for his Ferrari (which Jeremy refuses to acknowledge as one); Jeremy has only paid £7,000, although the previous owner had spent £10,000 to restore the engine. After a while, the two begin to wonder where James is, highly amused when he finally arrives with a 1974 Lamborghini Urraco: however, it is on the bed of an AA truck, having broken down due to an electrical problem.
Challenges[]
Test 1 - Bristol to Castle Combe[]
The first test is simple: get from Bristol to Castle Combe racing circuit, a journey of 20 miles via the M4 corridor but not using the M4 itself. Jeremy and Richard both manage this without much trouble (the Merak hiccups and gives off some smoke but does not fail or have to stop); meanwhile, James, being delayed from setting off, fixes the Urraco's electrical issues, only to break down two more times before even getting there.
Test 2 - Power Lap[]
After The Stig sets a benchmark time of 1:35 around Castle Combe's circuit in a 2005 diesel Vauxhall Astra, the presenters each have to try and beat that time. After James's (once again) belated arrival, the other two decide to send him out on the track first while his car's still working, only for the Urraco to spring a coolant leak, overheat and then stall after the first corner. After the car is repaired, James completes a lap, but with a dismal time of 1:58. Richard fares a lot better (although he accidentally knocks off his interior mirror before beginning), but despite being quicker than James his time of 1:43 still isn't enough to beat The Stig's time, and he subsequently tries to blame the Dino's developing a misfire, to the amusement of the other two. Jeremy's time ends up hardly being any better than James's, the Merak's rebuilt engine peaking at only 4,000 RPM, with a time of 1:54; adding insult to injury, he overheats, his brakes fail, and springs a coolant leak just as he finishes the race. None of the presenters beat The Stig's time nor the test.
Test 3 - Horsepower Test[]
To see how well the car engines have aged, each is tested to measure how much of their originally rated horsepower they have retained. The Dino fared the best, dropping from its rated 255bhp to 194bhp; James jokes that the equivalent of a Volkswagen Lupo had escaped Richard's engine bay. The Urraco had dropped from 220bhp to 117bhp: almost half. Before the Merak is tested, Jeremy reveals he has checked its service history: it is actually an original-model Merak, not the more powerful SS with 220bhp. This means that its rated power was only 190bhp, giving Jeremy some hope, only to be devastated to learn it registered only 80bhp remaining, less than half of what it once had. With the least power lost, Richard wins this round.
Test 4 - Oil and Spark Plug Changing[]
After departing Castle Combe, the cars stop off in Bath to have their fuel tanks drained, and are each given 25 liters of petrol to get them to their ultimate destination: the Spearmint Rhino "gentleman's club" in Slough which was 96 miles away. First, they have to drive to a service center in Chippenham where, with no outside help, the trio were tasked with changing their oil and spark plugs. While Richard and James decided to change their oil first (the latter after doing some mopping), Jeremy decided to change his spark plugs first. Richard does this easily and at a leisurely pace due to the Dino's spark plugs being designed to be easily replaced compared to those of the Lamborghini and Maserati. He is the first to finish with a time of 1 hour 13.2 minutes and Jeremy wraps up close behind him by half a second. Despite his sloppy and unorganized approach, the Merak only had six spark plugs compared to the eight of the other two. James's overly fussy and meticulous manner causes him to finish last by a wide margin; he annoyedly tells the pair to sod off and let him finish off alone. Richard is the victor in this test.
Test 5 - Parallel Parking[]
On the way to Slough, because supercars are notoriously difficult to park due to their length and poor rear visibility, the three presenters each have to drive into the center of Marlborough, where they will have to parallel-park their cars between a Nissan Almera and a Ford Mondeo without hitting them or the curb. Just making the journey again proves troublesome for James; the Urraco loses power again right outside a school during lunch hour, causing him (and Jeremy and Richard when they arrive on the scene) to be mobbed by jeering students for autographs. Wisely, the latter two leave James behind while he fixes the Lambo and deals with the crowd. It also becomes apparent at this point that the Merak's engine is rapidly deteriorating, likely due to strain from the power lap and horsepower test, while the pit stop hadn't helped.
Starting the test first, Richard struggles, touching the Nissan twice, but ultimately gets parked up, albeit a good couple of feet away from the edge of the curb with a time of 1:38.7. Jeremy is next with only one touch to the Nissan, and finishes the challenge in 1:00, much faster than Richard, while also getting nearer to the pavement. While James fetches his car, Jeremy and Richard sabotage him by pushing the Ford backwards a bit to shorten the gap; accidentally, James reverses too fast into the Nissan, breaking one of its headlamps. In the end with one wheel close to the pavement and the front sticking out James gives up with a final time of 3:20, over three times longer than Jeremy, and he ends up parked at a bad angle having touched the Nissan and Ford countless times. Finally, a win for Jeremy.
Test 6 - The Final Stretch[]
The last part of the challenge requires the trio to drive from Marlborough to the Spearmint Rhino in Slough. From this point onwards, if a car stalls for any reason and cannot be quickly restarted, its presenter is instantly eliminated. Jeremy notes that the service stop had not helped his engine: it sounded worse than ever. Then, barely sixty miles away from their final destination, the inevitable occurs: the Merak's ailing engine spectacularly disintegrates, spewing its own debris out the tailpipe onto the road and James's car. This also causes the car to lose all power and, consequentially, all braking, forcing Jeremy to ditch it in a hedge to avoid an accident. Abandoning Jeremy, Richard and James attempt to close the remaining distance to Slough, but then the Dino suffers a total electrical failure just ten miles short, eliminating Richard. The Urraco, despite its endless cause for ridicule since the start, is almost the last car standing, but it too breaks down at the outskirts of Slough with less than three miles to go, causing a traffic jam bad enough to be reported on the airwaves. James was out as well, leaving no victor.
Conclusion[]
While the presenters agree that the Merak was the worst car of the three (Jeremy had collected bits of the crankcase from the road into a bucket, including the "big end" of a connecting rod) they conclude that none can be called a winner, seeing how none of them could complete a journey from Bristol to the club, despite James almost reaching their final destination. This causes Jeremy discard the scoreboard, deeming it "as useless as our cars." He then ends the episode with a Top Gear Top Tip: "Yes, you can buy a supercar for less than £10,000, but for the love of God, don't!"
Scorechart[]
| Presenter | Car | C.C. Lap | HP Loss | Breakdowns | Insurance | Sub Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jeremy | 1974 Maserati Merak | -19 | -11 | 0 | 2 | -28 |
| Richard | 1979 (1983 reg) Ferrari 308 GT4 Dino | -8 | -7 | 0 | -5 | -20 |
| James | 1974 Lamborghini Urraco | -27 | -11 | -20 | -45 | -99 |
*The remainder of the challenges was cancelled due the board being deemed pointless. The second breakdown box however confirmed that Jeremy and Richard had both got -5pts for having 1 breakdown each & James had got -10pts for his two breakdowns. The parking would have seen Jeremy on -1pt for 1 touch, Richard -2pt's for 2 touch's & James -11pts for 7 touch's and 4 curbs.
Excluding the MPG and Servicing Points which couldn't be seen the final total would provisionally have been Hammond win with -27pts, Jeremy in second with -34pts & James far behind in last place with -120pts.
Aftermath[]
As with many of his favorite challenge cars, Richard purchased his Dino from the BBC after the episode aired, and subsequently had it restored to full working order. In stark contrast, the Merak was deemed a write-off, and sold for spare parts. Finally, it emerged years later that James' mechanical issues had been largely scripted, and that the Urraco was exported to Australia in 2010 after being resprayed orange.
Trivia[]
- After the engine disintegrated, Jeremy makes a pun of its number plate simply by writing an additional "E", hence reading as "JOKE 229N".
- This was the first supercar challenge with 4-seaters but only in rear mid-engine.
- This is the only episode where three 4-seater rear mid-engine cars competed and appeared altogether.
- Although Jeremy corrects the badging of the Dino, it is unclear whether it was a Ferrari badge (on mid-MY model).
- Viewers have speculated about the service history scene when Jeremy discovered the SS badge, assuming it had been added onto a base model. However, others have pointed out that his Merak looked like the SS model with the black bonnet grill, three spoke steering wheel, and a driver-orientated dashboard (as seen in the pictures of the Merak after the episode was filmed). Additionally, the section of the service history Jeremy was referring to included repairs consistent with collision damage, among other things, would necessitate replacing the badge. Thus, it is possible that the Merak's previous owner had its original SS badge replaced and included this in the service history, making the trio believe that the Merak wasn't an SS model.
- If this were indeed the case, then the ailing car only had barely over a third of its original horsepower.