Top Gear (series 6)

Main review: Clarkson tests the Mercedes-Benz CLS55 AMG, a stylish and comfortable four-door coupe with a throaty 500 hp (370 kW) supercharged V8, brakes from the SLR supercar, a luxurious interior, and "fabulous handling". The Stig does a lap time of 1:26.9, currently the fastest four-door saloon ever tested. Clarkson adores it as a "thug in a silk dressing gown" and says the only thing that would keep him from buying one is fear of the recent reputation for dodgy Mercedes-Benz build quality.

News: The collapse of MG Rover is talked about; in response to a protest by environmentalists who broke into a Land Rover factory and chained themselves to a production line, Clarkson, Hammond and May staged their own protest at the Hammersmith bus station in London, only to be sent away by police.

Review: May tests the Honda Element, which is not for sale in the United Kingdom. He brings it to a community of retired, elderly drivers to see what they make of it; he proclaims it cool after the stereotypical old Honda drivers don't like it.

Star in a Reasonably Priced Car: James Nesbitt discusses guns with Jeremy and what it is like being 40. The lap time he achieves is of 1:51.3

Challenge: Hammond and May played a football match using several cars that were all the new Toyota Aygo, each driven by professional drivers such as Russ Swift, Paul Smith and Ben Collins (who was The Stig at the time). Richard won the match by a score of 2-1.

Cool Wall: Clarkson is annoyed that Kristin Scott Thomas likes the Honda Civic and a red Bentley and thinks the DB9 is uncool, so he replaces her with Fiona Bruce as the arbiter of good taste, before he and Hammond fight over the Chrysler 300C due to the fact that Wayne Rooney owns one; the Maserati Quattroporte is now Sub-Zero as "Bonio" (Bono) owns one; Clarkson and Hammond fall in love with the Alfa Romeo Brera.

Review: After destroying the disappointing Maserati Biturbo and lauding the Maserati 250F for its performance in the hands of Juan Manuel Fangio in the 1957 German Grand Prix, Clarkson announces the £412,000 Maserati MC12, saying it is "An Enzo in Drag". Fastest car of 1:18.9. He is impressed with its speed, but, like the Biturbo, doesn't consider it to be a proper Maserati.

News: The recently released Honda FR-V, with its distinctive "3+3" seating arrangement, is discussed, along with the upcoming Saab 9-3 SportWagon, the Hummer H3, the third-generation Mazda MX-5, the eighth-generation Honda Civic, and the Ferrari 575M Superamerica, which was a convertible version of the 575M Maranello, with the Ferrari leading Clarkson to dispute the carmaker's claim that the Superamerica is the "world's fastest convertible", naming several other convertible supercars (such as the Porsche Carrera GT) which are faster.

Cheap Car Challenge: The team each had to buy a 2-door coupé that wasn't a Porsche, for under £1,500 (the same budget as the Porsche challenge), with May buying a Jaguar XJS, Hammond a BMW 635CSi, and Clarkson going for a turbocharged Mitsubishi Starion. They were then sent to the Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire where they would begin a series of challenges, starting from there, to see who had got the best deal, scoring points for each challenge.

The challenges they got at the Proving Ground, included trying to get to 140 mph (225 km/h) in their cars, and then having to drive at 30 mph (48 km/h) over Belgian cobbles with a bucket of water on their lap. After this, they then had to drive to Oxford and meet up at the QI Club, where Clarkson managed to arrive first, followed by Hammond after 47 minutes, while May never made it; his Jag broke down five times en route. Finally, the team's next challenge was a big one - they were allowed to spend the remainder of their £1,500 on upgrading their cars prior to an unknown race, which was soon revealed to be an endurance race in a farm's field. Clarkson had given his car a "racing car" paint job, and revealed his Starion had a turbocharger installed in it from a major rally car (said to be from Pentti Airikkala's Group A Rally car), May had repaired his with most of his budget and then bought a £10 pot of paint to make his car in "racing green" (but ran out of paint), and Hammond had given his car a "chin" spoiler, and outward, fake exhausts, and who later, before the race began, decked it out with racing colours.

Only May managed to complete the race (despite the suspension of the XJS collapsing and boiling the brake fluid) with Clarkson joking that somehow May had succeeded in making the Jaguar reliable where British Leyland had failed; Clarkson was the first to retire after the engine of the Starion finally gave out; several breakdowns during the endurance race were due to the engine coolant boiling repeatedly and destroying power, as a result of the turbocharger. Hammond was also forced to retire when the transmission of the BMW failed in the final hour. However, in the studio, Clarkson pointed out that it was the number of laps that the challenge was about, in which Hammond had done a couple more than May. May, however, managed to win the complete challenge, but offered to give the title to Clarkson if he admitted "I'm a clot and I ruined my car", because of his highly uprated turbocharger, since no changes had been done to the cooling system at all to compensate for it. Clarkson instantly accepted the offer, and celebrated his "victory".

Review: Aston Martin DB9 Volante. Hammond finds it to be too wobbly and shiny, and proves that more people would like a puppy than this car.

News: Clarkson's Ford GT finally arrives and is shown in the studio alongside Hammond's dream car, a "half-timbered" Morgan. They talk about the sacrifices needed to make in order to enjoy owning "the car of your dreams", such as causing numerous traffic jams and things being stolen from the car.

Review: May drives the Maserati Bora, which is his favourite Italian 1970s supercar, and his overall favourite except for the old Aston Martin V8 Vantage. The Bora had comfort and sophistication, but luxurious touches made it the slowest supercar of the 1970s. May is vindicated as it is civilised and is still decent to drive in the modern era.

Main Review: Clarkson reviews the Wiesmann MF3 and the TVR Tuscan. The Tuscan is proven to be a very hard and complicated car to enter and drive. Lap times of 1:27.9 (Wiesmann) and 1:24.8 (TVR). But Hammond, who hates TVRs, and Clarkson, prefer the Wiesmann.

Feature: Clarkson attends the opening of the Chipping Norton lido, near his home. He does so by buying a classic Rolls-Royce and repairing some of the panels on it, along with repainting it and preparing it for the opening. After acquiring a suit, he drove to the opening, and then into the pool, apparently as a surprise, although Hammond and May saw it differently.

Skit: The new Batmobile from Batman Begins is shown in the studio, and is considered a great movie car for it.

Challenge: A 3-ton stretched limo is used for a stunt to see if it can jump over a "wedding party". The party consisted of an outdoor wedding setting, a few caravans and the guests' cars. The obese Lincoln limo clears the wedding setting, but smashes into the caravans and one of the cars.

News: Hammond happily highlights all the problems Clarkson's new Ford GT has caused him over the past week, from it refusing to start when he attempted to leave the studio the previous week, the alarm going off during the night multiple times for no reason, to the tracker system malfunctioning and sending out numerous SOS calls claiming the car had been stolen while Clarkson was still in it. Clarkson threatens the people at Ford that if they don't mend his car, he will "bone their dog", before he proceeds to mock the Ford Focus courtesy car they gave him.

Review: Clarkson tests the Cadillac CTS-V at the Top Gear test track. He initially mocks the claim that it handled like a European car (after development had been done at the Nürburgring), before racing it against an Audi S4 driven by the Stig. Despite a similar power output, and the Stig in control of the Audi, the Cadillac wins. Clarkson likes it, but doesn't recommend it over the Vauxhall Monaro muscle car, and expresses disdain over the constant "bong" sounds the car makes when the door is open, the key is in the ignition, and so on. The CTS-V does a lap around the test track in 1.33:4 in the wet.

Star in a Reasonably Priced Car: Omid Djalili, the British-Iranian comedian, talks about the only car made in Iran and Clarkson suggests that Iranian nukes can't be very advanced if this is their idea of car technology. Omid drives a lap of 1:51.5.

Review: Hammond tests the new BMW 3 Series on the M4 corridor, and describes it as "a great piece of machinery"; he also talks about the 3-Series outselling the Ford Mondeo, thus diminishing the "snob value" of the badge. Music from Coldplay's album X&Y, released earlier that month, is featured prominently in the film.

Review: May takes a Nissan Murano to Hertfordshire and after an overall favourable review he concurs with Clarkson that the only thing he does not like about the car is the looks. Especially the front grille reminds Clarkson of the James Bond villain Jaws. Its positive points include comfort, ease of driving, and most of all extreme quietness.

News: The new Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX is the same car as its predecessor, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII; Lamborghini introduces a spyder version of the Gallardo; James May promotes a retro-styled hand-free phone; the bold new Citroën C6 is in the studio.

Review: Clarkson returns to the 1960s to define cool with the Aston Martin DB5 and a Jaguar E-type. In standard, antique form they are terrible to drive, unreliable, extremely expensive, and slower in a drag race than a 2.4 litre Honda Accord. But he also recommends that nearly all of these problems can be overcome by spending somewhat more money on a modernised and updated version. The Stig takes both of them around the track; the original DB5 is the slowest car ever at 1:46, while the modernised E-type sets the same time as a V6-engined Audi TT at 1:32.

F1 Star in a Reasonably Priced Car: 1996 F1 World Champion Damon Hill tries to disprove the claims that he is the Stig, then talks to Clarkson about the 2005 United States Grand Prix 6-car fiasco, along with a discussion on the bad tastes in cars of people that "have lived at 300 mph" (Hill's car at the moment was an Audi A3). Hill's time of 1:46.3 starts the F1 drivers' board.

Review: Hammond drives the new Maserati Coupé, known as the Gran Sport, and attempts to get around the Autodromo Riccardo Paletti in Varano de' Melegari, Italy, faster than former F1 and BTCC driver Gabriele Tarquini. Hammond was four seconds a lap slower than Tarquini, which subsequently meant the latter would have, in an 70-lap race, lapped him five times.

Greatest Driving Song of All Time: For the remainder of the series, May will be presenting five songs the viewers nominated to find out what song is the "Greatest Driving Song of All Time." This week, it is Golden Earring's "Radar Love".

Review: The Aston Martin DBR9 racer is given a race around the track. It sets a very quick time of 1:08.6, but can't go on the board because it is not a production vehicle and it was on slick tyres.

News: Nissan Micra C+C, the car for the man who "likes musicals". Also, Hummer have produced aftershave and cologne for "inbreds".

"Car Vs. Public Transport" Race: A race from Heathrow Airport to Oslo. Clarkson chose the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren because it was both extremely fast and completely comfortable, while Hammond and May would fly north, catch a ferry, and travel by boat the rest of the way to Oslo. Clarkson embarked on a tiring 1,320-mile (2,120 km) drive via the Channel Tunnel, and then through France, Belgium, Holland (who he claimed watched Top Gear a lot), Germany (where he got to try out the car's top speed), and then into Denmark, where, having tried to use coffee stops and other methods to keep awake, exhaustion took over him and he was forced to sleep at a service station outside of Copenhagen. The next day, he continued onwards, crossing the Øresund Bridge, and then driving through Sweden, and into Norway.

Hammond and May took a flight to Newcastle upon Tyne, and then boarded a long ferry to Kristiansand, which was a journey of 17 hours, where they enjoyed the services and food on board. Initially, it looked hopeful for them as they planned to complete the trip by speedboat upon disembarking from the ferry however, in heavy seas, they broke down in it and had to use the chase boat, which also broke down. Forcing them to the shore to complete the journey by bus after ending up in a town (which name is never mentioned) some distance from Oslo. Clarkson managed to beat Hammond and May by several hours due to their setbacks. Back in the studio, Clarkson admitted that his victory was a hollow one as despite the greatness of the SLR, he was wasted after spending 24 hours inside it. He summed it up saying, "The weak point of the modern car is the squidgy organic bit behind the wheel. Me, basically.".

Star in a Reasonably Priced Car: Clarkson discusses A Picture of Britain and Question Time, with David Dimbleby, who drove a lap of 1:52

Main review: Clarkson drives the first and only non-terrifying TVR, the Sagaris. May contends that despite his great praise for the vehicle, Clarkson would rather have a Mercedes-Benz SLK55 AMG because he's a coward.

News: Clarkson has slipped two discs, which he describes as 'repetitive oversteer injury'; Proton have announced the Savvy, as a 'My First Lotus'; two new Mustangs are revealed, with neither coming to the United Kingdom; Mercedes-Benz have styled a car like a fish; the Top Gear Survey.

"Car Vs. Something" Race: Clarkson races the new 4-wheel drive Fiat Panda against marathon runner A.C. Muir around the London Marathon circuit during the morning rush-hour. After early success, the car gets bogged down in traffic and just as Clarkson approaches Tower Bridge, the gates are closed and the bridge rises. Muir wins the race by 10 minutes. Clarkson is impressed and back in the studio, Clarkson interrogates Hammond for failing to beat him on a train, a plane and a boat and commends Muir for beating him using "nothing except half a horsepower and some toast". Clarkson praises Muir again and gives a Top Gear Top Tip, "If you're looking for a faster way to get through London during the morning rush hour, don't use a car — run!"

Greatest Driving Song of All Time: Deep Purple's "Highway Star"

Star in a Reasonably Priced Car: Justin Hawkins (lead singer and guitarist of The Darkness) recalls driving across America in a Reliant Regal. Lap time of 1:48.

Cool Wall: The DB9 Cabriolet is Sub-Zero in case you own one and it is called over a tannoy as you parked it in a wrong place; Hammond takes advantage of Clarkson's injury to place the Maserati Gran Sport in the cool section due to it being an italian sports car which isn't a Ferrari and the Peugeot 1007 in the uncool section due to it being too fiddly with the changeable dashboard and the sliding doors; the Panda is cool because it is a 4x4 and annoys "eco-mentalists"; the Range Rover Sport is uncool because a reality television star wants one; the two disagree over the SLK55 — Hammond says it is too fiddly and the two use large audience members to fight by proxy — Hammond wins at first, but then Clarkson intervenes and it goes in "sub-zero".

Feature/Challenge: Hammond takes a look at the history of Ford Transit van as it celebrates its 40th birthday, where he remarks on the design of the van making it attractive to builders and small transit companies when it first appeared, helping small haulage firms break the corrupt monopoly of larger firms, helping to ferry rock groups around, while also being favoured by criminals in the 1970s (the police reckoned a high majority of crimes used one in it), with the van having several thousands of combinations of designs.

Main review: Ferrari F430. Clarkson claims it "about the best car I've ever driven". The convertible version of the F430 is just as pin-sharp to drive and comes only one-tenth of a second slower on the track. He can find nothing wrong with either version, but advises that unattractive people should avoid the soft top, so as not to create embarrassment.

Car Review Challenge: Clarkson, Hammond and May take some convertible versions of existing coupes to Iceland. Specifically the Chrysler Crossfire, Nissan 350Z and Audi TT. Clarkson likes the Chrysler because as a soft top it is attractive, comfortable, and cheap. Hammond likes the Nissan for its power. May likes the Audi because of its build quality and four-wheel drive. Two of them find the TT to be too dull, two of them find the Crossfire to be rubbish, and two of them find the Nissan to be too camp and idiotic. They cannot decide which is best, because each one is flawed due to their conversion into a convertible, and so use the "Down to Earth" board to figure out which ones to use, in which Clarkson picks out three that were designed to be convertibles in the first place.

News: The boys discuss NISMO (with May expressing his hate for the R34 Skyline GT-R); aheavily modified Citroën C2 is discussed and shown in the studio.

Star in a Reasonably Priced Car: Tim Rice has a Jaguar, but he and nobody who works for him know which one, before he is shown to have done a lap of 1:52.7.

Main review: The new BMW M5, priced identically with the Mercedes-Benz CLS. Clarkson admits disappointment, and points out the list of failures in great detail: confusing electronic settings for everything, annoying sat-nav, jerky gearbox, uncomfortable ride, ugly exterior, non-cancelling indicator, and disappointing appreciation of speed with the 400 horsepower (300 kW) standard setting. Though the review then appears to be over, Clarkson presses the M button and the engine delivers 507 metric horsepower (373 kW; 500 bhp), the suspension stiffens, and the gearbox goes to a default race setting. In this form, it is spectacular to drive, but very fragile- it had to be mended before a lap could be done. In the hands of the Stig, it does a lap time of 1:26.2, putting it slightly faster than the CLS. Although the M5 is a worse as an all-rounder than the CLS, Clarkson admits that 'it's an epic car'.

Review: Clarkson drives three hot hatchbacks, the VW Golf GTI, RenaultSport Mégane, and the Vauxhall Astra VXR. Clarkson thinks the Astra is too powerful for a front-wheel drive car, resulting in disastrous understeer. Torque-steer always yanks the front wheels to the left, and the extra power is useless as it is slower than the Renault. Clarkson likes the Mégane, but would still buy a Golf instead, reiterating his decision in Series 5, Episode 6.

Car Review Challenge: Hammond and May decided to play a game called "Road Test Russian Roulette" - the pair would work for a company that specialise in driving the car and its owner back to their homes, after they had been out drinking. This would allow the pair to test each car they got while driving the car's owner in doing so. Hammond tries to be polite and avoid telling people that some parts of the car are rubbish, instead talking about spices and that part of the car. Clarkson tells him that he has cocked it up because of this approach (at one point, he had no knowledge of a car he was driving, and had to stop to brush up on his know-how of the vehicle), but remarked that May, who was honest, did a better job.

Challenge: A new world record was set for the number of complete sideways rolls in a car. A stuntman managed to make a Ford Sierra estate complete 6 rolls - and survived.

Star in a Reasonably Priced Car: Chris Evans, does a lap of 1:47.9

Review: Clarkson tests the BMW 535d four-door sedan, the first diesel car to be brought to the Top Gear test track. He finds that, compared to the petrol variant, the diesel is quieter at motorway speeds, it has much more torque, it is slightly cheaper, and the weight of the heavier engine doesn't affect the handling. The petrol version is more responsive, more fun to drive, and it beats the diesel on a track. The Stig takes the 535d to a 1:31.8 time.

News: The presenters discuss the Proton Gen-2 with dual driving controls; the Vauxhall Astra 2-seater convertible is talked about; the guys look at a tear-proof map booklet; the Audi A6 allroad quattro concept car is shown.

Feature/"Car Vs. Something" Race: Hammond returns to Iceland, on the basis that the convertible test in episode 8 had been very boring, and he was not allowed to come home until he had filmed something interesting. He looks into a Snowmobile that is used in special, off-roading races, where it was found to skip over the surface of massive pools of water on the track, and so to see if it can get across even bigger water, is driven over Lake Kleifarvatn, and proves to do so. It then goes into a race with a modified off-road vehicle and manages to beat it.

Greatest Driving Song of All Time: A retrospect of the five finalists.

Star in a Reasonably Priced Car: Big Brother host Davina McCall tries to invite Clarkson onto Big Brother and admits she owns an eco-unfriendly Range Rover, and how the Stig said her shoes were slowing her down and made her do a lap barefoot. Her lap time was a 1:57.1.

Review: May drives the Bentley Continental Flying Spur in Dubai, as he can think of no other place to respectfully test the "New Money" car. May defies his "Captain Slow" nickname by bringing the Bentley to 180 mph (290 km/h) on roads specially closed off for him; he likes the car and finds that the addition of two more doors and a bit of re-characterisation has moved it successfully away from the Bentley Continental GT. Clarkson despises the new four-door Bentley, calling it "the most dreary styling" he has ever seen.

F1 Star in a Reasonably Priced Car: Mark Webber complains that the wet conditions would hurt him, despite Clarkson's reassurances that he could have gotten 4 seconds faster in dry. His time of 1:47.1 is disputed after Clarkson suggests that he could have gotten a 1:43 in dry conditions. Afterwards, Clarkson gives Webber a shirt proclaiming, "I AM THE STIG".

Main review: Hammond tested the Vauxhall Monaro VX-R and was taught how to drift in the same car by D1 Grand Prix driver Yasuyuki Kazama, despite Kazama not speaking English (he had to teach using hand signals). Kazama then took the VX-R and showed Hammond how to drift properly.

News: It is revealed that Vauxhall has discontinued the distribution of the Monaro VX-R, making the former segment irrelevant.

Challenge: May tries to re-create the Top Gear theme tune using car engine noises. Ranging from the supercar Enzo Ferrari to a classic Chevrolet Corvette to modern cars like the Suzuki Swift and the Mazda RX-8 and even a construction dumper, May's song is purist as he refuses to use computer effects to make it sound better, with results that fail to impress the others. Clarkson compares it to "a fat talentless shop assistant farting". May was allowed to use his creation to end the show, owing to it being the last in the series, and that they would "not be around to answer complaints."

'Star in a Reasonably Priced Car: Timothy Spall talks about his movie roles with Tom Cruise, and manages to take the Liana to a respectable 1:51.1 time, despite going into the last corner too fast and swivelling around on the last straight.

Greatest Driving Song of All Time:

• Rankings:
  1. (WINNER) Queen - "Don't Stop Me Now"
  2. Golden Earring - "Radar Love"
  3. Meat Loaf - "Bat Out of Hell"
  4. Steppenwolf - "Born to Be Wild"
  5. Deep Purple - "Highway Star"

May presents Roger Taylor, Queen's drummer, with a trophy.

Review: Clarkson reviews the Ford Lightning, and considers the truck useless in England. From claiming it is made from old shovels and the interior is rubbish to getting something stolen from the bed of the truck, Clarkson closes his argument by mentioning how these trucks often appear to crash in police chase videos.

Cool Wall: The Ford Lightning is uncool due to the fact that it is ridiculous in Britain, with the new Mercedes A-Class also being uncool because it is the base model Mercedes and other Mercedes users will point that out, whereupon Clarkson brought up the Mercedes CLS which he declares as being cool because other Mercedes users will look up to anyone who owns it; The Porsche Boxster S is seriously uncool because May has ordered one (a major rule is that a car is uncool if owned by one of the presenters); the Audi TT Convertible is seriously uncool due to the fact that it is for stockbrokers; Clarkson and Hammond fight over the Chrysler Crossfire Convertible to which Hammond wins and puts it in uncool; the Nissan 350Z Convertible is uncool as it is owned by Yobos; Clarkson and Hammond could not be bothered to put up the BMW 3-Series on the cool wall, finding it too dull to be worth the time.

Review: Hammond participated in the Pamplona Bull Run in Spain, where he was shoved into the path of a bull by a participant, before a segment in which he road tested the Lamborghini Murciélago Roadster.