The eighth episode of the third series of Top Gear aired on the 21st of December, 2003. It was presented by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May and The White Stig. Johnny Vegas was the guest star. It was the 28th episode overall.
Synopsis[]
Jeremy opens this episode with another the show's famed 'crummy' charts. This one was created, in Jeremy's words, to 'show the definitive history of car design'. Starting off in the '40s and '50s where every car looked the same, he proceeds on to his personal high point of the '60s, before gradually going downhill each decade until car design reaches the 'Hyundai' and 'Whatever that is' (a picture of a Daewoo Tacuma). Clarkson defines the 'zenith' of car design as 1966, which poses a problem, as many cars of that era have rusted into nothingness, citing the 'MG B' and 'Alfa Romeo Spider' (in reality, two crumbled piles of rust), but there is one car that has stood up to the test of time: The Mercedes-Benz SL.
Tonight...[]
- Audi's new V6 ankle bracelet...
- A moment of madness from Aston Martin...
- And Johnny Vegas in our Reasonably-Priced Car - which should be interesting since he can't drive!
In later broadcasts and on streaming services, the Tonight sequence comments are replaced with new comments, including Jeremy most notably mentioning that on Today's show.. the new lines are as follows;
- [Jeremy] drive[s] the latest Audi TT...
- Richard lives it up in a private jet...
- And James tries an insane Aston Martin.
Airing History[]
Series 3, Episode 8 originally aired on the 21st of December, 2003, on BBC 2. It was then regularly reshown on channels such as BBC Prime and UKTV People throughout the mid '00s, along with the rest of Series 3, before indefinitely ending up as a permanent fixture on Dave from the channel's 2007 debut onwards, albeit in a cut 45-minute version. It would later appear on streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and IPlayer.
Episode Names[]
Though never given a name upon its original airing, much like every other episode of Top Gear, two slightly different names were retrospectively applied to the episode by the BBC years later:
- Top Gear's section on BBC's website calls it "The Top Gear Generation Game".
- Top Gear's own website calls it "The one with the Top Gear Generation Game".
Thumbnail[]
