We are not giving away any spoilers when we mention that the apex of this TG special is Richard Hammond trying to recreate the famous Lotus submarine from the Spy Who Loved Me.  The movie may have used a 1976 Lotus Esprit, but those are now a genuine classic.  For this Bond car on a budget Hammond instead utilized the similar-looking but never-loved Lotus Excel as a stunt double.

Since the U.K. already saw this car pull Jacque Cousteau duty when the special aired over there on October 29th, the Lotus has been retired to the World of Top Gear.  The National Motor Museum at Beaulieu houses most of the former Top Gear project cars as if they were national treasures.  There is even another Excel from when James May decided it would make the perfect camper.  Not everyone can make it to England to see all the displays, so we took the tour for you and brought back plenty of pictures.

Die hard Top Gear fans also know that this is not the first time the show has built a cut-price Bond car.  In season 1 of the new series they enlisted the help of Edd China to create a car fit for a recession-era spy:

For those lucky enough to visit Beaulieu, the Top Gear submarine will not leave you pining for the real thing for very long.  The National Motor Museum also has a special Bond in Motion exhibition featuring one of the prop Lotus subs used in the movie.

Later this month when the live show hits Birmingham, England, they will bring out the same double loops from the first world record, but this time they’ll set a new benchmark as they lose two wheels.  Known as the “Deadly 720+″ this one will be attempted on a KTM 250 SX-F motorcycle/dirtbike.  According to organizers the difficulty of attempting this stunt with a motorcycle includes sustaining higher speeds (27-29 mph).  Also, we imagine stability may be a bit of an issue as a dissociating variety of inertia forces are felt while barreling through the double loops.  This certainly sounds dangerous, and it is, but the rider must be used to his kind of pressure as the stunt will be run nine times over the four-day show schedule.

The Top Gear Live shows are also well-known for their automotive performances where smoking tires and sliding cars look like a high-octane Ice Capades.  This is the exact kind of thing Ken Block has become famous for in his Gymkhana viral videos.  So it only seems natural that he becomes a feature part of this year’s live show.

Seeing the crew of Top Gear perform their antics seems like a good justification for those needing a reason to visit England in the dreary days of late October.  Everyone else, keep your fingers crossed that Jeremy Clarkson, James May, Richard Hammond, and The Stig, bring their show over here someday.

There are plenty who don’t know the irreverent car builders once out of Blackpool, England, and those who do are thinking this posting is about five years too late.

Trevor Wilkinson started producing cars in the 1950s (TVR was named after three letter from Wilkinson’s first name.)  The cars were known for their lightweight fiberglass bodies, powerful engines, and notorious unreliability.  They were an interesting status symbol of a semi-affordable, hand-built machine for people who cared more about pure sporting than making it to work every day.

By the time Russian boy wonder Nikolay Smolensky purchased the firm in 2004, TVR was building its wildest creations that made little practical sense at all.  This point is driven home by Jeremy Clarkson while testing the new Sagarisis:

As practical as the Sagarisis was (at least for TVR) the sales were not there.  By 2007 the whole operation was bust.

So that’s where the story should end, but Smolensky held on and occasionally would give interviews about future plans.  There were talks of moving production to Germany and building Corvette and BMW-powered machines…but now that’s all over.

Smolensky announced last week that the production costs would be too high, and customer demand was too low.  So now the TVR name will be used on portable wind turbines.

We could sum up the life of TVR, but we’re not too sure this is the full end.  When the days of disposal income again, there will be people who want absurd machines.  When the crazies come out of the woodwork with checkbooks in hand TVR will likely once again be there.

source: Autocar

But the least womanly outburst was yet to come.  “I just like cars. I’m like Jeremy Clarkson.”

Very few women have likely made that self-comparison, and aside from shopping for automatic weapons, even fewer people would elect to take Clarkson along as a road trip companion over Macdonald.

Although Macdonald is a ‘petrol head’, she probably isn’t gunning for the television presenter’s job just yet.  Macdonald has just released her third album, and purchasing the Ferrari was likely to commemorate the occasion.  In 2009 she celebrated 2.6 million album sales by buying an Audi R8.

Source: Daily Record

It seems the latest program will not disappoint as the Top Gear Live Stunt Team will attempt an arena world record for the first double loop.  They call it the “Deadly 720″, and the team will use a special dune buggy to complete the 26-foot high pair of vertical rings in front of a live audience this weekend.

According to officials with the show, the buggy was fitted with hand controls to lock out the accelerator.  The industrial strength cruise control keeps the vehicle in between 24 and 26 mph.  This is the ideal speed range because any less will allow the buggy will fall out of the loop, and any more will cause the driver to black out from the g-forces.

The project has been in the works since the stunt team developed their first loop in 2009.  They used similar test procedures when it came to doubling the fun.  This included a full-scale, remote-controlled buggy that could run the full circuit before allowing any person to attempt the dangerous stunt.

Those who want to see the Deadly 720 will likely have to travel far.  Jeremy Clarkson, James May, Richard Hammond, and The Stig are performing this weekend at Top Gear Festival in the Moses Mabhida Stadium, Durban, South Africa.  While Top Gear has yet to tour the USA, we can keep our fingers crossed they at least bring this show a little closer to home.

This should not be too much of a surprise.  Clarkson’s television humor often involves a patsy.  So the British public is smart enough to know they would rather view someone else get annoyed by Clarkson than be there live.  We all enjoyed watching Clarkson and James May have an epic road trip to the North Pole, but who is going to believe that trading bitter cold for extreme heat will improve the man’s personality?

Of course the big fault of many who took this survey is they likely believe the guy on camera must be the same man in real life.  But even following this logic, it is impressive that Clarkson beat out other celebrities like Madonna and Simon Cowell, who both made it into the top ten of this list.

On a desert trip we would easily take Clarkson before accepting an invite from a craggy-faced celebrity that pretends to know good music (we also wouldn’t go with Cowell, too.)

Ok, so Jeremy, Richard, and James put on plenty of road trips, but the ones around the year end have yet to dissappoint.  This time it seems the British will be trying to reconquer India, including the Himalayas, in budget vehicles of British upper class.  Well, at least two are using posh-ish rides while it seems Richard Hammond has decided that a later version of a Mini Cooper is decedent (either that of he was given the spare car rather early on this one.)  Either way, Britain will find out all the details on December 28, and the rest of the word will have to wait a little bit longer (nudge nudge, wink wink.)