Episode Archive - Series 8

In if-you-can't-beat-them-join-them Top Gear, we took a break from blowing up caravans and went on holiday in one instead. And, Richard set a deeply unimpressive new world record with an F1 car.

There are some pretty weird car cultures out there. In America, some people fit hydraulic suspensions to their cars - making them as low to the ground as possible, so the vehicle can then be made to 'jump' about.

But even more ridiculous is a group of Brits who attach a lump of plastic to their tow-bar on a Friday night, then drag it across the country to a large expanse of grass and sleep in it.

Why would someone subject themselves to a painfully slow journey to sleep in a plastic box? This, it seems, is a question with no real answer. James, Richard and Jeremy certainly didn't seem to enjoy their trip much. They didn't like the humiliation of having to go to the loo in a bucket filled with blue water. There was, however, some amusement to be gleaned from watching James crash while trying to do three-point turns.

Our star was Brian Cox, a man who has a list of films to his name which is longer than a Greenpeace petition to have Jeremy fed to dolphins. Although he wasn't the fastest ever, we've seen a lot worse in the past.

We all know F1 cars are fast. But how fast are they indoors? We borrowed one to find out. To our surprise, we discovered that the maximum speed an F1 car can achieve in the EXCEL centre in London is 81mph, which is rubbish, but still a world record.

First shown on: 16/07/2006