[/align]Top Gear on BBC2


This Week's Show [/align][/align][/align]
Do not adjust your set. The monstrosity you see before you is a Reliant Robin rocket. Yes, this week Top Gear is aiming for space... and beyond.

Space travel
The challenge is a simple one: to build a cheap space rocket based on a car.

Enter a reluctant-looking Reliant Robin and the nice men from the British Rocketry Association (the same chaps who helped fire the Mini off the ski-jump in the TG Winter Olympics Episode) armed with enough rocket fuel to generate eight tonnes of thrust.

Read our explosive preview

Will TG's biggest challenge yet go down in flames or prove as explosive as, ahem, pro-homosexuality slogans in Alabama? It's an episode not to be missed.

Turbo fan
James and Richard love the Porsche 911. Jeremy hates it.

So with a new 911 Turbo out, it seemed only fair to let Captain Slow and the Hamster take it for a blast. However, it seemed far funnier to hand the 480bhp supercar over to JC to see whether it was good enough to convert a life-long Ferrari fan.

Top Pegg
There aren't many celebrities that rave about the performance of our Chevrolet Lacetti. But after being relegated to rural police duties in a Vauxhall Astra diesel for his new cop comedy Hot Fuzz, Simon Pegg leapt delightedly into our Reasonably Priced Car for few hot laps of the TG track.

Fine tuning
Apparently a 612bhp Mercedes SL65 AMG is a bit sedate for some people. So when the boys found out that unhinged German tuners Brabus offer a 720bhp version of the SL, they thought it only polite to introduce the SV12 S BiTurbo to our test track...and the Stig. Will the most powerful roadster in the world prove too much even for our tame racing driver?

On reach-for-the-stars Top Gear, Richard and James tried to make a Reliant Robin boldly go where no three-wheeler has gone before, the latest incarnation of Porsche’s 911 flagship was put through its paces, and the impossible happened when Jeremy found a car that actually had too much power.
It’s unlikely, but should you find the standard Mercedes SL600 wanting in the power department, mentalist German tuning firm Brabus may have the answer. By throwing away most of the standard Merc’s motor, adding new turbochargers and fiddling with the many onboard computers, it’s created the most powerful convertible car ever. But, as Jeremy pointed out, making an engine with 730bhp and 811 lb/ft of torque is pretty easy, compared with making a car that can transmit that sort of power to the road. As it turned out, in the case of the Brabus, absolute power really does corrupt absolutely.
Supercars are traditionally, huge, overblown pantomimes on wheels. But the Porsche 911 Turbo does things a bit differently. It’s quite small, you can see out of it, and there’s even somewhere to put your designer man-bag. But, as Clarkson discovered, it’s still properly supercar fast.
Space, so we’re told, is the final frontier. And since Top Gear has done pretty much everything you can do to a car on Earth, we decided that Richard and James should try to put one into space. What followed was a simply massive undertaking that combined cutting edge amateur rocketry, British grit and determination, and truly intergalactic levels of cocking about.
Using the scientific principle that ‘it’s a bit pointy at the front’, a Reliant Robin was selected as the shuttle. Our old friends from the British Amateur Rocket Society were bribed with the promise of unlimited tea, and set to work on the launch systems and providing the 8 tonne of thrust needed to power the craft. What followed was the largest non-commercial rocket launch attempt in European history.
As the timer ticked to zero, everything seemed to be working perfectly. But at the last moment the Robin failed to release from the main booster, spiralled out of control, and crashed into a hillside. On the bright side, what was the biggest non-commercial rocket la
On reach-for-the-stars Top Gear, Richard and James tried to make a Reliant Robin boldly go where no three-wheeler has gone before, the latest incarnation of Porsche’s 911 flagship was put through its paces, and the impossible happened when Jeremy found a car that actually had too much power.
It’s unlikely, but should you find the standard Mercedes SL600 wanting in the power department, mentalist German tuning firm Brabus may have the answer. By throwing away most of the standard Merc’s motor, adding new turbochargers and fiddling with the many onboard computers, it’s created the most powerful convertible car ever. But, as Jeremy pointed out, making an engine with 730bhp and 811 lb/ft of torque is pretty easy, compared with making a car that can transmit that sort of power to the road. As it turned out, in the case of the Brabus, absolute power really does corrupt absolutely.
Supercars are traditionally, huge, overblown pantomimes on wheels. But the Porsche 911 Turbo does things a bit differently. It’s quite small, you can see out of it, and there’s even somewhere to put your designer man-bag. But, as Clarkson discovered, it’s still properly supercar fast.
Space, so we’re told, is the final frontier. And since Top Gear has done pretty much everything you can do to a car on Earth, we decided that Richard and James should try to put one into space. What followed was a simply massive undertaking that combined cutting edge amateur rocketry, British grit and determination, and truly intergalactic levels of cocking about.
Using the scientific principle that ‘it’s a bit pointy at the front’, a Reliant Robin was selected as the shuttle. Our old friends from the British Amateur Rocket Society were bribed with the promise of unlimited tea, and set to work on the launch systems and providing the 8 tonne of thrust needed to power the craft. What followed was the largest non-commercial rocket launch attempt in European history.
As the timer ticked to zero, everything seemed to be working perfectly. But at the last moment the Robin failed to release from the main booster, spiralled out of control, and crashed into a hillside. On the bright side, what was the biggest non-commercial rocket launch in Europe became Top Gear’s biggest ever explosion.
unch in Europe became Top Gear’s biggest ever explosion.[/align][/align][/align][/align]