Episode Archive - Series 6

On extremely-rare-beef Top Gear, Richard avoided a herd of angry bulls, while James put his music degree to good use.

Drift racing is a sort of turbo-charged version of figure-skating, with points awarded for style, rather than speed. The best drifters in the world all come from Japan, so we flew a brace of them over to give Hammond a crash-course in powersliding.

Naturally, the best car for the job was the rear-wheel-drive Vauxhall Monaro VXR. It wasn't long before Hammond started to get the hang of things. However, it wasn't until world drifting champion Yasuyuki Kazama took the wheel that we saw what the big Vauxhall could really do.

A littl-known fact about James May is that he has a degree in music. So we asked him to record a special version of the Top Gear theme tune using nothing but car exhaust sounds. James used his impeccable ear for pitch and a wide sellection of cars. We even gave him access to a state-of-the-art mixing studio and Pink Floyd's producer. The result was still rubbish.

When we were given permission to test drive the new Lamborghini Roadster, we saw it as an ideal opportunity to have Hammond chased through the streets of Pamplona by a herd of angry bulls. He escaped with his life, despite the best efforts of the locals. After all that excitement, you'd expect the car itself to be a bit of a let down. It wasn't.

First shown on: 07/08/2005