Top Gear: The Worst Car in the History of the World

Jeremy Clarkson,James May

Jeremy Clarkson & James May converge on Whitby harbor in England to answer the question "which is the worst car in the history of the world". The first to go is the Polish manufactured Polonez. With steel so thin that it could be used as neck scarf & car not having anything remotely connected to reliability. James looks at the Mahindra CJ540 jeep. The CJ540 started life in the US army in WW II, but after the war the Indians decided to continue making it with a few modifications. This included a different (non existent) suspension, a second hand VW engine (the required the bonnet height to be raised & completely ruined the looks) & a loose steering.Jeremy reckons that most bad cars are cheap, so James & Jeremy look for a bad, expensive car. So, they look at the brand new Ferrari 458 Strider vs the Mercedes SLS. The SLS has 1 BHP more than the 458 & wears its tires out after just 5 laps of racing. James concludes that with the 458, Ferrari knew what they were doing. What he cant understand is what they were dong when Ferrari came out with the Mondial in 1980. 6000 people bought the car seeking perfection, but got a car which was slower than a golf GTI. The steering wheel gnaws at the testicles if the seat is not adjusted properly.Next Jeremy looks at the Ferrari FSO, launched in 1995 to celebrate the company's 50th anniversary. Built for Ferrari's 349 top customers to give them an everyday F1 experience. A F1 car, that people could drive on the road. But the V12 engine on the FSO shared nothing in common with the Ferrari F1 engine, was bigger & made a very different noise. The car needed to have many accessories such as lamps & indicators, which took space & weight. It wasn't a F1 car, nor was it a road car that anyone wanted to drive or even look at.The next is the BMW X3, which is supposed to be a compact version of the four wheel X5, but is not nearly as good or as comfortable. Jeremy reckons that BMW is making a slew of great cars at the moment (including the M3, which he considers to be perfect), which makes the X3 looks like the village idiot in a family of geniuses. Jeremy expects good cars from the US as the country has been to the moon and developed the iPod, but is disappointed to see cars such as the AMC Pacer, Chevrolet Corvair, Cadillac Cimarron, Ford Pinto, and many more such as the Lincoln Continental Mark 4 & the Buick LeSaber Custom.James reckons that the Lincoln was manufactured to provide power, speed and luxury to its buyer, much as the BMW M3 in Europe, & while the BMW is expensive there is a good reason for the same. The Beamer does a road test in 1.18 mins, with its 560 BHP engine. The Buick has 160 BHP and the Lincoln has 204 BHP in a 5 and 7 liter engine respectively. James takes the Buick & delivers a track time of 2.34 mins, whiles Jeremy delivers 4.07 mins in the Lincoln. Both cars are shambolic as compared to the precision driven BMW M3.Next is the Epsilon from the Lancia stable, a brand that has once again delivered several classics in the past. In an attempt to make an affordable city car, they go far away from their niche of producing sports cars and end up with a disaster. On to Alpha Romeo, which gave classics such as the Spider and the Stud. The brand which won all but one race in the 1950 F1 circuit. Which brings us to the GTV6, which had a superb V6 engine, but is a contender for the worst car in the world. Designed as a hatchback, whose back seats wont fold as the petrol tank was in the way. The manufacturing was shit and the design was suited for apes alone.Onto French cars. The Citroen Pluria, a convertible, whose roof panels would have to be dismantled by hand to fully remove it & the bits that you do remove, do not fit in the car which means that you have to go out without them. The next is the Saab Sensonic, which has a gear box, but no clutch pedal. The idea is to have the control & precision of a manual, but the comfort of an automatic. The problem is that the car is almost impossible to parallel park on an incline. Talking of gear boxes the 1991 Porsche 911 Carrero RS, which Jeremy argues has a range of fatal handling characteristics. James disagrees & pulls out the Ford Escort Cosworth, a car that Jeremy has 2 of, to demonstrate all the things wrong with it. Designed an affordable sports car for the masses, it was a failure as Ford decided to stick a powerful turbo charger that was very crude in delivering massive power. To overcome the issue Ford fitted a smaller turbocharger, which reduced the power from 227 to 217 BHP, which was not the point anyways.Just when Ford could not do any worse they roll out the Ford GTI in 2005. They made the car so wide that it could not be enjoyed on the sort of open country roads that it was meant for. Now Jeremy takes a stab at 1972 Rolls Royce Corsair, the car that James owns. One of the slower rolls Royce, having hydraulic controls (which meant that a small problem could immobilize the entire car) & since the car was hand made, replacement parts never really fit properly.The Mercedes AMG C63. Has a high tech differential, which takes 15 mins to warm up, until then you cant turn left or right. The engine produces too much torque and as such a set of tires last just 25 miles on the track. Jeremy loves it while James called it a "colossus knuckle Hoggers car". Jeremy drops a Ford on top of a Fiat Panda, the kind that James owns. Jeremy & James call a truce & decide to stop trashing each other's cars. Jeremy looks at a Lexus LFA, which is too wide to be a sports car, too raw to be a GT car and the engine is in front, so its not a super car. Costs about the same as a Ferrari 599 GTO, but at 550 BHP delivers about 100 BHP less than a GTO & is not great to look at. Toyota took 9 yrs to design the LFA. They were 5 yrs into design & ready to go to production when they decided to ditch the aluminum body & put on a carbon fiber one & start over. The trouble is that it costs 340,000 pounds & a comparable Nissan GTR costs 70,000 Pounds.The next is the pricey Lexus SC 430. Toyota made the retractable roof out of aluminum to save weight & then proceeded to put wood all inside the cabin, which is heavy. the 4.2 L V8 engine delivers 300 BHP, which leaves the car severely under powered. The ride is diabolical & the steering has much delayed communication with the front wheels. Not any good at all. All of today's Peugeots are utter rubbish & rising to the top of the cesspit of this uselessness is Peugeot 308. The looks are awful, the ride is not comfortable & the car feels sluggish (like a bag of wet laundry).The Lexus SC430 & the Peugeot 308 meet all the criteria for the World's worst car. They are slow, not well made, expensive, lazy, not good engines, unimaginative & they hate it. They choose the SC430 & gift it to Richard Hammond.