Top Gear: Season 3, Episode 7

3 - 7: The Big Boffin Burnout

On extravagant Top Gear, Hammond went to South Africa and tested Mercedes' gloriously cool SLR. Get out your Union Jack, the boys gave their verdict on the best British car. And, a roomful of celebrities came round and tested our reasonably priced car. Richard went abroad to top-up his tan and to look at Mercedes' new collaboration with McLaren. It has an amazing 626bhp, does more than 200mph, and goes from 0-60 in 3.8 seconds. It also happens to look like an F1 car, which is cool. In fact, you could say it's the Rachel Stevens of the car world. Jeremy was surprised by the new MG SV. He was certainly surprised by the price, which is rather a lot more than most people would be prepared to pay for an MG. He was also quite surprised by its performance, and declared it to be 'quite a laugh', which is a good thing. Impressionist and comic Rory Bremner drove round our track at high speed. He certainly didn't let the side down, and produced a very reasonable lap time of 1.47.9. Then everyone made their way to the test track where they proceeded to argue about which was the best British car. Of course Jeremy reckons the Nobel is the winner, despite being made out of a Mondeo. Richard took the corner of the Morgan, which is, rather confusingly, made out of wood. James of course gets scared driving quickly, so he was happy to champion the Rover 75, which is stately, reserved and thoroughly pleasant.