On drivin'-too-fast Top Gear, Richard lost his Bugatti cherry as he took on the most advanced fighter jet on the planet, Jeremy turned the corridors of BBC Television Centre into a test track, the latest cars from Ferrari and Rolls-Royce were given a thorough shakedown, and Ronnie Wood became a Rolling Stone in a reasonably priced car.
When we last raced a plane against the Bugatti Veyron, it was a creaky little Cessna piloted by James May. The plane lost - badly. This time we decided to up the stakes considerably by borrowing a ?65m Eurofighter Typhoon from the RAF. And because we thought James might not be up to the task, we borrowed one of their steely-eyed pilots too.
The contest took the form of a simple two-mile drag race with a single start/finish line. The only difference being that the jet had to take off, climb to an altitude of one mile and perform an elegant nosedive back to earth before crossing the line. Despite the Bugatti's cartoon-ish acceleration and massive top speed, the Eurofighter won by a nose.
Jeremy found the future of personal mobility in the form of the Peel P50 microcar from, er, 1963. When most of us travel to the Top Gear office we have to park our cars in the basement or (heaven forfend) use some sort of public transport. Not Clarkson. No, Jeremy just drove the tiny Peel through the front doors, into the lift and straight up to the office.
Also in the show, James hoisted himself into the stately new Phantom Drophead Coupe, a ?307,000 convertible from Rolls-Royce. James reckoned it might just be the coolest car in world.
In one of the most highly anticipated tests of the series, Jeremy drove the new Ferrari 599 GTB. It has the looks and - courtesy of a mildly detuned version of the engine from the Enzo - the speed and soundtrack of a true Ferrari. It's also loaded with more bleeding-edge computer-aided gadgetry than a Japanese 12-year-old's bedroom, which is very impressive. But Jeremy reckoned it lacked just one thing - a soul.
Our star in a reasonably priced car was veteran rock legend Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones.
First shown on: 28/10/2007
