Hello and welcome to the enormous catapult machine that we built
to keep ourselves amused during the COVID lockdown.
I've no idea what we're gonna use it for, but who knows,
maybe something will come to mind as we set out in this show
to answer an important question:
what is the matter with the French?
[theme music playing]
[melancholy music playing]
[Jeremy] Now, I wanna make it plain at the outset that I like France.
So does Hammond.
May thinks it's only there so we can drive to Italy more easily.
But we are all in agreement on one thing.
The French can be a bit weird.
The fact is that we live in a homogenized world these days.
We all eat the same food
and wear the same clothes
and do the same things.
[music distorts]
[traditional French music playing]
But not in France.
France is different.
They take most of their medicines anally.
And at work, you're not allowed, by law,
to eat your lunch at your desk.
You must go and do it somewhere properly.
In schools, tomato ketchup is banned, but until the 1980s,
kids could be served alcohol with their school dinners.
French bakers are not allowed to close when they want
because there must always be a supply of croissant and baguette.
And French footballers are unusual as well.
When the seagulls...
follow the trawler,
it's because they think
sardines will be thrown into the sea.
And if you wanna say "I feel lucky" in French,
you say "Avoir le cul bordé de nouilles,"
which means "My bottom is full of noodles."
Surprised there's room with all the pills up there.
But it's on the road where this oddness is at its most evident.
French cars have always been weird.
They've always flown in the face of convention.
And from their pantheon of strangeness,
I've bought this...
[rock 'n' roll music playing]
A Citroen CX Safari.
It wasn't easy to find one, as most have been turned into motorhomes,
but it was worth the effort because...
this is perhaps the most French,
French car of them all.
Take the indicators. You operate them using this rocker switch here.
[indicator ticking]
But because that's nowhere near the steering column,
the indicating doesn't self-cancel
after you've made the turn.
And then there's the stereo, which is mounted vertically between the seats.
And that's fine, but...
If you're enjoying
a cheeky pain au chocolat as you drive along, and a bit of pastry,
falls off, which it will,
it'll end up in the cassette player,
where it will
spoil your enjoyment of the Vanessa Paradis song
you were listening to.
It's as though Citroen's engineers
looked at what everyone else was doing in the 1970s
and then did something else.
Even the brake pedal's weird because
it's effectively a switch, the brakes are on,
or they're off. It's just about impossible
to use it properly.
Probably easier when you get to your destination to just...
Do a George Michael.
[Richard] This is what I've chosen.
A Matra Murena.
It's from the '80s. A mid-engine, two-seater sports car.
Except it's got three seats.
[in French accent] I suppose maybe if my wife and my mistress
want to go out for a drive at the same time, I've got that covered.
[in normal accent] And it's not a sports car either
because the engine is a tiny 1.6
which produces just 88 horsepower.
It doesn't make any sense. Matra built the Exocet missile.
That is a fast thing.
This is really not.
Then, there's its name.
Everywhere else in the world they name cars after
exciting animals, like Jaguar, Mustang, or exotic winds,
Khamsin, Scirocco.
Matra, no, they chose Murena,
which is a Latin word
meaning "son of a plebeian family who likes eels."
[in French accent] "Been through the dictionaries of all the languages
"and we have found the word.
"That is... Nobody will get that,
"that is weirder than any other name we could give it. We will have it."
[in normal accent] Mind you, this car is nothing
compared to what May has bought.
[rock 'n' roll music resumes]
Bonjour, viewers.
Now, back in 1998,
Renault told its designers that they wanted a large, luxury coupé,
you know, something a bit like a BMW 6 Series.
So, this is what they came up with.
The Avantime.
It's made almost entirely of plastic,
it appears to have been drawn by an eight-year-old
who liked high-speed trains,
and there are no conventional instruments.
There are just some digital things
floating around over in the middle there.
Look at all that dashboard that's there. It's just...
There's just acres of it.
If you wanted to wipe the windscreen because it had fogged up,
you couldn't do it.
You do get the impression that if Renault's designers were asked
to design, say, a new dog,
they'd put the head on the other end
and it would have two tails at the front.
They wouldn't be able to do a conventional dog.
Even the doors on this car are odd.
Mainly because, and I have checked this,
each one weighs more than Kylie Minogue.
That is very heavy.
They claim to be the heaviest car doors in the world.
Not much of a boast.
And they don't really open. That is as far as it goes. It's more ajar.
See that. On any sort of a slope,
it can actually be quite difficult to do it.
Bloody Nora.
[exclaims]
Renault has a long history of automotive oddness.
In the 1950s, for example,
they built this.
It appears to be ordinary, but look closely
and you'll see it's all the wrong way round.
[suspenseful music playing]
Mind you, that's positively straightforward
compared with this,
the Leyat Hélica.
[Jeremy] Who thought, "I know, we won't drive the wheels,
-"no, everybody's doing that." -No, no, no, no.
"We'll be propelled along by a propeller?"
If you're driving through a town center, for example,
-[James laughs] -what would happen...
If you knock someone over in a car, it's bad.
But if you knock someone over in that...
No kidneys, liver, offal,
-"No, there's another one..." -No. They've thought about this
because it's got the propeller,
but they've put bits of wire
so nobody could put their hand or head through
-or anything like that. -[Jeremy laughs]
It's perfectly...
[James] Has it got a rear seat?
[Jeremy] This is a two-seater, Hammond, unlike your Matra.
[James] Would you get in there
knowing you have absolutely no control over any of that?
[Richard] A car with just pedals.
[James] It's not like an airplane where you've got dual controls.
-It would be mad... -You just sit there.
[Richard] I think it's brilliant.
-[James] It is brilliant. -I mean, look,
I admire it, but...
Did they take it on the Dragon's Den?
[all laughing]
[in French accent] "Here is my thought for a way of traveling."
-But hang on a minute... -[Richard] Do you think it works?
[Jeremy] Well, I'm sure it does.
[Richard] Hang on, look, there's...
You don't start it with a key. There'll be some fiddling.
"Advance" and "Retard." I'll retard it.
Are you gonna prime it?
[James] Compression point is there. Ready?
I don't know what's gonna happen! How can I be ready?
-[James] Got your feet on the brakes? -[Richard] Am I ready?
-Yes. -[Jeremy] The thing's not moving.
-I've got everything. Yeah, go. -That's the concern. And...
-Oh, wow. -It didn't go.
Try again.
-Contact? -Yes.
-Mags on? -Yes.
-Feet on brakes? -Yes.
-I'm gonna do it. -[Richard yelps]
-[Jeremy] It won't start. -Are you ready?
[James] I really thought that was it.
It's the definition of anti-climax, isn't it?
This would be a great ambulance. Or fire engine.
-Brilliant. -Yeah.
-Throttle set? -Yes.
-Here we go. -Yes.
-[thuds] -Don't worry,
Monsieur Hélica is on his way as the emergency vehicle.
"Don't worry. How big is the fire?"
Hang on.
[in French accent] "These pains in your chest,
are they getting worse or better?"
[Jeremy laughs]
[James] Right, mag on.
I'll tell you what, a stall at the lights would be a bugger, wouldn't it?
[both laughing]
"I'll just... Excuse me..."
[Jeremy] 'Cause it's a two-man job.
[James] That's a good position. Here we go.
All right, here we go.
[engine sputtering]
-Go! -[yells]
[Richard shouting] I think I'll take it for a drive!
-What? -I'm gonna take it for a drive!
What, you? Run! Run for your life!
[exclaims]
When it was unveiled to the world, 600 people put their name down for one.
Six hundred sentient human beings,
who could tie their own shoe laces and use a lavatory, said,
"Yes, I want one of those."
It's very hard to see why it didn't catch on.
It is quite loud in here, surprisingly so.
That could be a factor.
Apparently it's good for a 106 miles an hour.
I reckon it can do more.
Come on! Come on, come on!
Ha-ha!
I think people are bored
of watching these crashes now, so let's move on, because...
even when French cars seem to be normal,
you don't have to look too far below the surface to find that, actually,
they're usually not.
Now, let's take this one, the Renault 4.
A reasonably straightforward car for the time, but...
The distance between the wheels on this side is 94 inches.
Whereas on this side, the distance between the wheels is 92 inches.
Why?
I've got no idea.
Then there's the Renault 21.
Looks boring, but it isn't,
because in this 1.7-liter model, the engine is sideways,
whereas in this 2-liter model,
it's lengthwise.
That meant this needed, longer wings and a different bonnet
-and a different subframe... -[car crashes]
-Hammond's just crashed, hasn't he? -[man] Yep.
Anyway, this was an extremely complicated
and expensive solution
to a problem that didn't exist.
And they're still at it today.
This is a brand-new Peugeot 208.
And for some reason, they've mounted the steering wheel
under the dashboard,
which means it has to be the size of a shirt button
if you're to get your legs under it.
[grunts]
Why?
[Jeremy] Then there's the Citroen 2CV, which I hate.
This car is the harbinger of everything that's gone wrong in the world.
Veganism, cycling,
liberal democrats, people who talk about having "my truth."
There's no such thing. The truth is that it's awful.
[James] It's not awful.
It's a very practical, sensible car
that stood the test of time for decades.
It survived a war, it liberated the French peasantry, it's fantastic.
And it's totemic. That's the most French thing.
If you have a themed restaurant, or you're doing a film, or painting,
you think, "How do I make this look French?"
Put a 2CV in it.
It doesn't have wind-down windows. Look, it's stupid.
Airplanes have these windows.
-It's a... -What airplane?
-I've never been on one... -My airplane's got one exactly like that.
This is a fantastic car. Everything in it is fit for purpose and no more.
I hate the expression "fit for purpose."
-But it is. -[Jeremy] Hello.
-Where's the Hélica? -It's evidence.
-Let's not get bogged down with that. -I'm not.
We won't.
Because even I will admit the 2CV does have very clever suspension.
In fact, it's claimed
that you can drop one from under a helicopter at a height of 500 feet
and the springs will absorb the impact.
Really?
Well, let's find out.
[helicopter hovering]
[Jeremy] Okay, and...
Let it go.
There it is.
Yeah, what's happened is,
I've misread the handbook.
It says that "the suspension is so compliant,
"you can drive across a ploughed field
"with half-a-dozen eggs on the seat and they won't break."
And how did you misread that?
Well, in my mind, "oeuf" is the French word for "helicopter."
But...
[Jeremy] At this point, I figured it was best to move on
and examine the relationship the French have with their cars.
Because it's nothing like the relationship we have with ours.
[Richard] Now, if I were in
my car, I'd look at that space and go,
"That's too small," and then I'd go find another.
But that's not what a French person would do.
There's nothing extreme about this maneuver in France.
This is how you park.
You would see this any day of the week
on any street in Paris.
[engine revving]
It's actually for precisely this reason
that the Renault 5 was the first production car
in the world with deformable bumpers.
[thuds]
There's more, too. I've just bought this dishwasher.
And as you can see, it doesn't quite fit in the boot of this Peugeot.
I'm British,
so what I'd do is go and buy a smaller dishwasher,
or I'd borrow a slightly bigger car,
or I'd probably have it delivered.
What the French would do is this,
"Oh, merde."
[wheels screeching]
[thuds]
Has my car stopped moving?
Yes. Am I close to where I wanna be?
Yes.
Well, then I'm parked.
[inaudible]
The fact is, that in France, unlike almost
anywhere else, the car is simply
not seen as a status symbol.
If you buy an expensive car, it's considered bourgeois.
And if you look after it,
that's disgusting.
And the world of Premier League football backs this up, because what I have here
is a photograph of Willian, who's Brazilian,
driving his Bentley.
And then there's Ibrahimovic, who's Swedish, he has a Lamborghini.
Ozil, who's German, has a Porsche.
Marcus Rashford, who's British, has some kind of trixied-up Range Rover.
And then I've got a photograph here of Kante, who's French,
driving his MINI.
That he's crashed slightly, probably while parking.
And you might say, "What about the President?"
"No way is he going to drive around
"in a small hatchback."
Wrong! Because what I've got here
is a photograph of President Mitterrand
in a Renault 5!
[laughing]
Look at that!
[in French accent] "No, I don't have a chauffeur
"and I don't want a big car.
"It's bourgeois. It is revolting.
"How you say,
"the sick."
[Jeremy] This is why no French car maker
has ever made a large off-roader.
The Americans have. The Japanese have.
The Swedes have.
The Germans have. We have.
Even the Italians have.
But not the French.
Their view is that
if you want to go to the top of that hill over there,
you'd just use your normal family car.
[pop music playing]
[Jeremy] Was talking to a girl in our office
the other day, who's French.
And she was saying that her parents have never sold a car.
Buy a Renault 5, run it until it breaks,
scrap it, and then buy a Renault Clio and run it until it breaks
and scrap it, and so on and so forth.
If you're not worried about the second-hand value of your car,
it's so liberating.
[Richard] In France, just four percent of people
wash their cars by hand.
Four percent. That's it.
On a Sunday morning, what you would not do in France
is get up early to wash your car on the drive
because your neighbors will hate you.
All those Sunday mornings I've got up early to wash...
[engine revving]
Oh.
[Jeremy] I'll just give him a hand through here.
[thuds]
[crashes]
Lovely.
Merci, monsieur.
I'm looking at Hammond's car.
It's all stoved in from Jeremy's push.
And I'm wincing. Because I'm British, but...
If you're French, that's just what a car looks like.
Look, now we are going into the woods.
Can I clear that tree?
[Richard] Driving along in my car,
going where I need to go.
If I was coming down here in a 100-thousand-pound Mercedes G-Wagon
I'd be worried about scratching the paint.
But I'm not in a G-Wagon, I'm in my van.
I mean, paint is, to the French,
the wrapper that the car comes in when it's new.
When I was 17,
on a French exchange trip,
I was staying with a French family. They had a son my age.
And they bought him a brand-new Fiat Panda.
I mean, a new car.
And as we sat outside in the sun, me and them,
his kid brother, five years old, was throwing stones
-at the Panda... -[imitates thud]
And a chip of paint would come off.
Well, if that had been me
at 17 with a brand-new car, I would have beaten him to death
with anything that came to hand.
This 17-year-old lad didn't care.
[in French accent] "He's flicking stones at the car."
"It makes a nice noise as the paint comes off."
What?
[Jeremy] Soon, we reached the halfway point,
where I demonstrated the Citroen Berlingo's party trick.
[Richard and James laugh]
It's John!
[Jeremy] And then, after I'd ruined the handbrake...
We joined a sort of rally track.
[Jeremy laughing maniacally]
What we're proving here, I think, is that a car's ability to get places
and do things is governed entirely
by the driver's willingness not to care about it.
Please don't be alarmed by those noises.
They don't really mean anything.
This is only what a typical French person would do
on a rally in Africa
in their mum's Renault 4.
[rock music playing]
[James] It was, let us not forget,
the French who invented endurance rallies.
Such as the Paris-Peking.
the Paris-Dakar,
and all the other Trans-Africa races.
And, most importantly,
they usually used what was parked in the drive.
Well, this is bumpy enough to dislodge your "Gaulois."
[engine stalls]
Ah! [speaks French]
Merde.
[thudding]
[speaking French]
Merci.
Ooh, la, la!
Au revoir, monsieur.
Merci, monsieur!
Well, this is une pièce de gâteau so far.
Oh, that's a...
Monsieur May!
Go on.
Oh, dear. Oh, merde.
Bonjour, monsieur.
[James] As we got closer to the summit,
the going got even tougher.
[Jeremy] Now this is an inconvenience.
The windscreen.
[Richard] Right, this way.
Oh, no, my dishwasher.
Hello.
My family car can go down here no problem at all.
I don't see... Why do I need a G-Wagon?
[Jeremy] Oh.
Merde.
[James whistling]
Allez!
[James] Jesus! Fuck! Bloody hellfire!
[Jeremy over mic] I've lost the electrically-powered
door mirror on the left-hand side,
but the manual one is still there.
[thuds]
[Richard] I can't open the window to adjust my mirror,
but that's okay because it's gone.
[Jeremy] Eventually, with the glorious Welsh hills
bathed in warm afternoon light,
we reached the end of our leisurely drive.
[triumphant instrumental music playing]
Hammond.
-Wow. Look at the view over there. -That is... -
-[Richard] That is just something else. -Look... It's even got a house
like it's been designed for a train set.
-It's just perfect. -Absolutely gorgeous.
[James] Oh, hello.
-Bonjour, monsieur. -[Richard] I mean, look at that.
[Jeremy] Unbelievable, isn't it?
And I tell you what's interesting.
The crew, using all those four-by-fours, they've made it.
-Yeah. -But, so have we.
-Exactly. -Yeah.
[Jeremy] Some damage was done.
-[Richard] Wear and tear. -[James] It's patina.
It's what happens. The French might be right.
[James] I think they are.
-[Jeremy] I just had a thought. -What?
Your dishwasher.
Oh, God. Because Hammond drove into me.
[Richard] I'm sorry about that.
[Jeremy] Where's your boot release?
-Is it in the door? -Yes.
-Right. -[Richard] That's a design flaw.
[Jeremy laughing]
[Jeremy] The next day, we set off in our own cars
to the next destination.
And on the way, we began to realize their strangeness
was actually making them more endearing.
Obviously, you don't need two windscreen wipers, just the one.
And you put the washer in the wiper blade itself,
because why would you not do that?
[chuckles]
It's different. It's interesting.
Then there's the door mirrors.
So good and so futuristic-looking,
that they were used on the Aston Martin Vantage,
the Venturi Atlantique, the Renault Sport Spider,
the Lotus Esprit,
the Jaguar XJ-220 and most TVRs.
On the one hand, this steering wheel is typically French.
It's weird. It's got one spoke
and it's sort of deep-dish and a flat bottom.
On the other hand,
it's brilliant. It's the perfect size, perfect thickness, perfect diameter,
and I can see the dials 'cause there isn't a spoke in the way.
[James] I mean, in many ways, the weirdness makes them more likeable.
What we see as bloody-mindedness is actually innovation,
because the French have been pioneers in motoring.
It wasn't gonna be us.
We were making the Morris Marina.
[Jeremy] And don't think it's just the cars that are odd.
Some of their rules of the road are quite strange as well.
For example, the French believed, unlike everyone else,
that white headlights were wrong
and that they should be yellow.
And if you like driving along to music,
there's a rule which says that 35 percent of pop songs
played on French radio
must be French.
[French pop music playing over radio]
[upbeat French pop music playing over radio]
[music distorts]
Is that how it's supposed to be
or has un morceau de pain au chocolat tombéed
into my stereo again?
[upbeat French music playing]
[music stops]
There you go, that was from the country that gave you Debussy and Messiaen.
One of my favorite French things is their slovenly attitude
to road signs. I mean, take this one as an example.
You see this all over France.
What it says is that the town hall is that way
and everything else, "Toutes Directions,"
everything else is over there. India, Paris,
Kamchatka Peninsula,
whatever it is you want, just there, go away.
[Jeremy] And then there's the issue of how to use a roundabout.
[Richard] Everywhere else in the world,
countries decided that cars should give way to those already on it.
But not the French.
They decided to do it the other way round.
So, cars on the roundabout would stop for those wanting to get on.
Like this.
Carry on.
[horns honking]
Why would they think this was the right way to do it?
The point of a roundabout is to avoid this.
[horns honking]
Did you know that half the world's roundabouts are in France?
[James on radio] Is that really true?
Is it half of all the world's roundabouts
are in a country that doesn't know what it is?
[Richard on radio] Yeah. It's a fact.
I mean, it doesn't work.
[man] I'm trying to get out of here.
This is what happens.
I'm doing the roundabout the French way to see if it works...
I don't care. Look, you're queued up here.
This is what happens.
[man] Move the [bleep] vehicle.
That's exactly what's gonna happen.
Hammond's being beaten up by the locals. I don't blame them.
[bleep] move it.
[James] Eventually, we did [bleep] move it
because it was time to find somewhere for that most French of things...
Lunch.
Where we discussed another aspect of French car culture.
[Jeremy] Can I just show you something, Hammond?
This is, as you can see here,
a list of French philosophers, okay, on Wikipedia.
[Richard] Oh, my God!
-Well, it doesn't really... -I'm only at "G."
That's basically everybody in France.
-That's incredible. -[Jeremy] On and on.
I bet the Australian list is a bit shorter.
I'm staggered.
'Cause you know in French secondary schools,
it's compulsory to study philosophy.
-For everyone? -Yeah.
I bring this up because I've been reading this book by
Roland... Is it "Barth" or "Barthes"?
Waterland boy, which one is it?
[mumbles]
That.
And he says,
"I think cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals.
"I mean, the supreme creation of an era,
"conceived with passion by artists
"and consumed in image if not in usage
"by a population which appropriates them
"as a purely magical object."
They don't review cars like we do, then.
No. What we tend to do is mention the top speed.
-Naught to sixty, the price. -Stick the tail out.
A couple of silly metaphors.
-Back to the studio. -Job done.
No. I'll give you another bit here from him.
"They are in the Citroen the beginnings of a new phenomenology
"of assembling, as if one progressed from a world where elements were welded
"to a world where they are juxtaposed."
What's the naught to sixty?
He doesn't mention it.
Could you imagine what a review of that Mégane would look like on French TV?
It'd be completely incomprehensible.
[crows cawing]
[suspenseful music playing]
[jazz music playing]
[speaks French] It is truth
So, I think what we're able to deduce from that French road test
is that the Megane
is wistful and cynical,
but with a hint of levity,
as suggested by that balloon.
[Jeremy] Now, though, it's time to examine
a more down-to-earth aspect of French cars,
namely their famed ride quality.
[woman] The elasticity of the air and the flexibility of water
are combined for your comfort in the Citroen hydro-pneumatic suspension.
[Jeremy] The fact is that because the roads were so poor
in post-war France,
the French car makers
were forced to develop suspension systems that could cope.
As I clearly stated earlier,
the Citroen 2CV was capable of transporting
a basket of eggs across a plowed field
without breaking them.
And as for my CX,
well, it's literally the best-riding car
ever made.
Okay, picture the scene.
You're lying on a day bed on a tropical beach.
It's warm, and all you can hear are the wavelets caressing the white sand.
[imitating waves crashing]
You had half a bottle of wine
at lunch time and there's nothing to do all afternoon
but snooze.
That is what it's like to drive a Citroen CX.
It is incredibly comfortable.
In fact, it's said
that the hydro-pneumatic system in my Citroen is so good
that two people can sit in the boot and defuse a bomb
while the car is being driven at speed down a cobbled street.
Are you sure it said that?
[Jeremy] Yes, absolutely.
The suspension system in this was so good
Citroen sold it to Rolls-Royce, who used it in the Shadow.
So, are you ready?
Because we are about to hit the cobbles, now.
[intense music playing]
[James] Okay, this needs absolute delicacy and precision.
[Richard] Yep.
[Richard] God, this is like doing eye surgery.
-One wrong move... -[James] Steady.
[Richard] Okay, very carefully,
if I just separate these wires,
just a millimeter at a time.
[James] We have to work out... At least one of them is just a fake.
[Richard] No sudden jolts.
[James] Eight seconds to go. I'm gonna have to make a decision.
[James] That's not the car shaking, that's me.
[Richard] I should do it now.
[James] I'm gonna do it.
-[Jeremy] Have you done it? -[Richard] Oh, well done. Yes.
-Excellent. So, there we are. -Were we moving?
Exactly.
Exactly my point.
[Richard] And to hammer the point home still further,
we put the same sort of bomb
in the back of a BMW
and asked two office juniors to see if they could defuse it.
-[man 1] Just snip it! -[man 2] I can't snip it!
I can't [bleep] get on the wire!
[man 1] [bleep] hell!
So, there we are.
If you want a job on The Grand Tour, write to us at
"I'd die for a job on that show."
It's sad, 'cause they were good kids.
I thought they were gonna go places.
I never wanted to inhale them.
[laughs]
[James] Well, they have...
[Jeremy] After writing some tricky letters to the boys' parents...
We headed to Kent for our next important experiment.
And on the way, we examined a French characteristic
we very much admire,
their willful refusal to be governed.
De Gaulle once famously asked,
"How can you rule a country that has 246 different types of cheese?"
Well, the truth, it seems is...
You can't.
When we introduced the points system on driving licenses
in Britain in 1988,
everyone just went, "Okay."
But when they introduced a similar system in France
in the 1990s,
everyone immediately got into their cars and blockaded the motorways.
That wasn't organized by social media
'cause that didn't exist back then. It was just instinctive.
When the head of Renault, Georges Besse,
laid off 21,000 staff in 1986,
they didn't go outside and fire up the brazier.
They shot him.
[speaking French]
Back in 2019,
the French government decided to reduce the speed limit
on all their major A roads to 50 miles an hour.
The French people responded by putting their yellow vests on...
[loud chattering]
And then going out and destroying
60 percent of the speed cameras in the whole country.
Sixty percent!
[loud chattering]
[indistinct chatter]
And when they put cameras on porticos over the autoroute
to catch truckers breaking some new eco law,
they didn't destroy 60 percent of them,
they destroyed the lot.
-[all shouting] -[horns blaring]
[Jeremy over radio] I'm just thinking, I quite admire
the French bloody-mindedness, you know.
I absolutely love it.
Is it true that when they tried to introduce wheel clamps,
people just filled the locks with glue
so they had to be cut away and were useless?
If I was French now, I'd be a doing 120 miles an hour.
I wish my car could do 120 miles an hour.
[laughs]
[Jeremy] Soon, we arrived at the rally cross circuit
known as Lydden Hill.
The laboratory for our next experiment.
[James] Oh.
We all know that when it comes to hot hatches,
the French are the kings.
[man speaking French]
[intense music playing]
[in English] But which one is the best?
Well, that's what we're here to find out, using the crucible of motorsport.
That seems fitting as the French pretty much invented motorsport.
The first ever race was held there.
Grand Prix are French words. Le Mans is in France.
The governing body of all world motorsport is based in Paris.
And certainly today, we shall be adhering to French rules.
The plan is simple. A 20-lap race.
I shall be driving a Peugeot 205 GTi 1.6.
Jeremy, a Peugeot 306, GTi 6.
[James grunts]
And James will be driving a Renault Sport Clio 172 Cup.
We will be up against a Saxo VTS,
a 206 GTi,
and a Renault Sport Mégane
which will be driven by three people from the office.
Our script editor, because he wrote this bit,
our production assistant, because she's French,
and finally, Abbie, our in-house racing driver.
[engines revving]
With all of us in our cars...
The important experiment could finally begin.
[tires screech]
We are away.
[music intensifies]
[music ends]
[cars slow down]
Lunch, I think.
[pulls handbrake]
[Jeremy] Over in the paddock, some simple track-side food was available.
[Jeremy] James, do you want a Châteauneuf-du-Pape or a Petrus '62?
[James mumbles]
In the middle of a race?
Well, no, you say that,
but in France, alcohol is banned in the workplace, you're right,
but you are allowed to drink wine,
beer or brandy.
So, they said, "You cannot drink alcohol apart from beer,
-"wine and brandy." -"Which is what we make."
-You can't drink gin or vodka. -Yeah. Foreign alcohol.
Yes.
My favorite law in France is the one
that prevents you from sending work emails at a weekend.
-You're not allowed to? -By law.
So you can enjoy le weekend?
Yeah. Exactly that.
Can I just say, I'm currently in second place in this race.
I'm last. I messed up the start...
I've told you before, a 205 GTi, great car,
but not as great as the 306 GTi.
Yeah, because the world agrees with that theory.
Oh, no, wait, everybody agrees the 205 is the definitive hot hatch.
-I agree, it is a definitive hot hatch. -It can't be a definitive hot hatch.
-It's the... -But very few people realize
the 306 GTi, the one I'm driving,
is actually the best French hot hatch of them all.
Word about that somehow didn't get out?
-Nobody realizes. -Therefore...
[Jeremy] It's like the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls.
[Jeremy] After lunch was over and we'd had a little nap,
-the race resumed. -[engines revving]
We are away.
This is tight.
Now I'm eating proper French dust.
[speaking French] Come on, come on. Oh, deary me. [bleeping]
[James] Marguerite, a French intern, in the 206 GTi.
[Jeremy] But just as things were hotting up,
there was a problem.
Wait a minute. What's going on here?
[air horn blows]
What's happenin'?
[Jeremy on radio] Well, it looks like the marshals have gone on strike.
[Jeremy] In the confusion, James took the opportunity to make up three places.
[chanting in French] Liberté! Liberté! Liberté! Liberté!
Oh, dear, there's a lot of bother going on, look.
[chanting continues]
What could they have gone on strike about?
It's always difficult to know with the French.
Fishing quotas, land,
speed cameras.
This just feels like home.
[sighs]
[Jeremy] Eventually, though, after the race director had been murdered,
they went back to their posts so the race could begin again.
[engines revving]
Right, just to be absolutely clear, all the cars here are excellent
because they're all French hot hatchbacks.
But mine is the best.
It's got no ABS, it's got no traction control, and I've spun!
[thuds]
[Jeremy] Seven thousand RPM.
Hundred and sixty seven horsepowers unleashed!
Richard Hammond will now be moaning about a lack of horsepower.
Now, I am down on power. I only have 104 brake horsepower.
Porter completely killed me.
That was a very French move from the scriptwriter there.
[speaks French] Out of the way! Out of the way!
Oh, it's her! The French woman.
I ought to point out that Marguerite's never really done this before,
so she is a natural French lunatic.
Although she did make a slight error there and I'll hammer her.
Bonjour, madame!
Whoa!
[Jeremy] As Hammond and May battled with the office staff,
Abbie and I were up front fighting for the lead.
Determined face.
Speed!
You may be a racing driver, but I've got 40 more horsepower than you.
Oh, no. Hang on.
[grunting]
[clattering]
[exclaims]
Ah. Think my dash appears to be coming off,
but I'd say that wasn't necessary.
French cars tend to shed the stuff you can lose.
Bumpers, electric windows, all that sort of stuff.
What you're left with is, actually, an incredibly tough drivetrain, engine.
Whoa. Monsieur Le Porter.
-[clattering] -[exclaiming]
Right, this is my chance.
-Ooh, [bleep]! Not my chance. -[laughing]
Yep, she gave me the finger. She is definitely a French woman.
That's the real deal there.
[Jeremy groans]
God, this thing's so good.
Oh, she's cocked it up!
[exclaims]
[in French] You son of a female dog! [bleeping]
Go away in a reproductive manner.
Whoa!
[Richard] As we entered the closing laps,
I finally overtook James' much more powerful Renault.
Stealing a line from James then. "Come on, little Pug."
But then...
Oh!
I've died.
What's happened here?
Oh, dear.
It's gone on strike.
[laughing]
[Jeremy] As the race entered the final two laps,
James was still being humiliated
by the brilliantly-entertaining French novice.
And I was still fighting Abbie for the win.
AND BEFORE YOU JUMP ON TWITTER,
YES, WE KNOW HE'S BELGIAN.
[Jeremy] Damn it!
[exclaims]
[cheers]
[James] Oh, balls!
[Jeremy] Whoa!
[Jeremy laughs]
Yes. The mighty Peugeot is in the lead!
Come on! Come on! Come on! Come on! Come on! Come on!
No!
[Jeremy groans]
[Jeremy] So, the Saxo won.
But it doesn't matter
because all of us had had so much fun.
And...
we'd made an important point.
The French can make spectacular cars when they're not being bonkers.
But here's the thing.
Sometimes they can make spectacular cars
when they are.
CITROЁN SM
Welcome, everyone, to the most magnificent French car of them all.
The SM.
A Citroen coupé with a 2.7 liter
Maserati V-6 under the bonnet.
This, in essence, really, is Franco-Italian.
And that can work.
Jean Alesi, he's Franco-Italian,
so is Olivier Giroud, Eric Cantona, David Ginola.
That worked well.
[Richard] Yeah. So what you got in one of these
was French complexity and Italian fragility.
Yeah. Yeah.
To give you an example of the complexity, it doesn't have a throttle linkage,
as such. Well, it does,
but you get a rod, then a bit of cable,
then another rod, then it goes through the exhaust.
-It does. -[both laughing]
-And then it comes out. -It's basically engine-out.
[Jeremy] And here's another good one, all the wiring under the bonnet is black,
so you've no idea where it's going or where it came from.
It's just all black. I don't know.
They don't really work.
I love the "stop" light there.
The biggest stop sign.
-Yeah, it doesn't even... -"Just stop!"
"One of a number of things has gone wrong again."
-That's what it says. -[both laughing]
"This is a really big light to tell you, inevitably, stop."
"What did you expect?
"Here is the moment you knew was coming.
"And you must stop instantly or die."
But... can we just mention the looks?
[Jeremy] It's one of the best-looking cars ever made.
[Richard] Some angles, there's a sort of gawkiness to it,
which is, I know we've said it before, but real, true beauty isn't just
-that sort of Internet, fake... -[Jeremy] No.
[Richard] ...perfectly-symmetrical. This has an angularity to it.
Oh, it's stunning.
I'll tell you what I love, is the list of people who owned an SM.
-Is it good? -Oh, eclectic.
You've got Graham Greene, Brezhnev,
Haile Selassie,
Lee Majors, The Six Million Dollar Man, John Barry,
the guy who wrote the Bond stuff.
Idi Amin had seven of them.
Seven SMs.
[Richard] Just on the off-chance one of them worked.
[Jeremy] But this is the really interesting one.
Bill Wyman from The Stones,
okay, Adam Clayton from U2
and Guy Berryman from Coldplay.
They're all bassists and they all had SMs.
That's because nobody ever looks at the bassists.
They're always standing at the back.
"Stop looking at the lead singer.
-"I've got a sodding SM." -"Look at me!"
[Jeremy] Yes!
-I love this car. -[Richard] I really want one.
[Jeremy laughs]
I can feel the vibe of a man wanting something coming from over there.
And I think you should have one so I can look at it.
[Richard] It's so special.
And I wanna be the kind of person that would,
well, set out
-to turn up in one. -Yeah, you'd never get there.
-No. -But you'd be an optimist.
People would see you
and assume you were just an optimistic idiot.
-Yes. -Which I kind of am.
[laughing]
[Jeremy] You know, we started out by asking,
"What is the matter with the French?"
And the answer is,
not much, not really.
We like their food, their wine, their bloody-mindedness,
and, it turns out,
we like a lot of their cars as well.
But we don't want you to get the impression we like all of them.
Because we don't.
This is the Citroen Pluriel, which we hate,
partly because it's horrid, but mainly...
because of its stupid roof.
Now, you probably think the roof has folded away cleverly
like it does with a normal convertible.
But it hasn't.
It's right here.
You have to take it off entirely.
If you get up in the morning and think, "It's sunny, I'll take the roof off"
and then it starts raining, what do you do?
What if you set off and you think,
"The sun's come out, I'll take the roof off",
where do you put it? It is genuine French idiocy.
We should send that miserable thing back to France
and tell them to keep it.
It's funny you should say that 'cause France is, what,
25 miles away? You can virtually see it from here.
-It's not far, is it? -No.
If only we had something that could fling it that far.
Wait a minute!
Oh, yeah!
[intense music playing]
[Jeremy] At more than 60 feet tall and weighing 32 tons,
our trebuchet was certainly big enough for the job.
However, it's quite a faff to load and cock it,
which means bringing in some machinery.
KATO
[Richard] Oh, yes.
I love cranes, me.
Where's James?
[beeping]
[James] Hang on.
[intense music continues]
[beeping]
[intense music continues]
[Jeremy] Having moved faster than he had done at any point in the show,
James then set about attaching the trebuchet
to the hook on Hammond's crane.
Thank you.
[Richard] He is wearing a harness, isn't he?
[Jeremy] Oh, of course. He's more than six feet up.
-Are you hooked? -[Richard] Are we on?
[James] Yeah.
[Richard] With that done, we needed someone practical
to explain the engineering behind our incredible machine.
Right, so here's how it works.
Hammond will lift this up, and this...
12-ton weight
will go...
Or will it go that way?
No, this way.
The arm will come down,
and then we attach the cable to the end of the arm...
to the car?
[Richard] With all that cleared up,
he went off to get the Pluriel.
[Richard] What are you doing?
-[James] It goes at the other end. -[Richard] Jeremy, that's the wrong end!
-What? -It's in the wrong place.
It's gotta be at the other end.
No, France is that way.
It's pulled underneath and then goes over.
-It starts that side. -So then it goes...
-Like that. -It doesn't start here?
No. It starts over there.
[beeping]
[Jeremy] No!
[Richard] Oh, quality work.
[creaking]
That's it. No, it isn't.
Genius.
-Hasn't he got one of these at home? -Yeah.
-[creaking] -Whoops.
Yeah, that's better.
-When a heart surgeon finishes the job... -[Jeremy] Yeah?
Attach an artery to an artery
and then they stitch it, it doesn't look like this.
[Jeremy] What?
[Richard] That's clearly not precision work been taking place, has it?
[intense music playing]
Yes.
Just pickin' it up!
-[James] Stop. -[Jeremy] Stop. Stop. Stop.
[Richard] God, this is complicated!
Stop.
It turns out we three are pretty manly.
[Jeremy on radio] Oh, yeah!
[James laughing]
[Jeremy] With the, um, heavy bit
lifted into position and the car attached
to something important,
we were finally ready for launch.
So the car, when I pull this, goes round, loops round
-and goes to France? -Yep.
-[James] Exactly. -[Richard] And if it works,
it'll be the fastest Pluriel ever.
By a long way.
[Jeremy] Are we all ready?
Take up the slack.
Here he comes.
-That happens. -[Richard] Taking up some more slack.
[grunting] Manly, you know.
[Jeremy] Here he comes again.
[grunts]
-Keep, keep... -It's elastic.
Oh.
-[Jeremy] We've got the wrong rope. -I'll go,
"Three, two, one," do it, we give it a...
Ready? Three, two, one. [grunts]
-There it goes! -[exclaims]
-Whoa! -There it goes!
[wind whooshing]
-[James] Yes! -[Richard exclaims]
PluRiel
Oh, good, there it is. I've got it, I've got it. There it is. Geez.
[all laughing]
Hang on.
[Jeremy] Where's it gone? Anyone see it?
[Richard] There!
[Jeremy] Oh, shit.
[loud crash]
Right, well, on that terrible disappointment...
For Louis.
-Who's Louis? -Him.
For Louis, it's time to end.
Thank you so much for watching.
We'll see you next time. Take care.
-Won't be in France, though, will we? -No, no, maybe not for a bit.
No.
[theme music playing]