Top Gear Tonight: Mercedes SLS AMG Black Series & SLS Electric, Hovercraft Car & Hugh Jackman is SIARPC

Top Gear tests the Mercedes SLS AMG Black Series (pictured) against the SLS Electric Drive

We’re already halfway through the latest series of Top Gear – Series 20 – with tonight’s episode 4 leaving just two more show to go before the end of the season. Tonight we get Messrs Clarkson, May and Hammond looking for a solution for negotiating flooded regions (which just happens to be running in the longest dry spell in the UK for years) and it seems the solution is to build a car that turns in to a hovercraft.

That will be the cue for the boys to appear in wetsuits as they take their creation for a trolley down the River Avon, a trip that will no doubt be more than a little eventful and wayward – hovercraft are not exactly point and steer.

On the track, Jeremy gets to play with two very expensive variants of the Mercedes SLS – the SLS AMG Black Series (costs over £200k) with a very fulsome 622bhp and suspension that hurts – and the electric version of the same car – the SLS AMG Electric Drive (costs over £300k) with an even more appealing 751bhp and 737lb/ft of torque.

Will the SLS ED have the measure of the SLS Black with its extra power and torque, or will the electric SLS be hampered by all its extra weight (550kg) blunting its performance and compromising its handling?

Star in a reasonably priced car is that very nice Antipodean actor Hugh Jackman – yes, Wolverine is in the Astra – who could either rip the Stig apart with his claws or serenade him with a burst of song from Les Mis as he sees if he has real Aussie Grit round the Dunsfold track.

Top Gear – Series 20, episode 4 – is on BBC2 tonight at 8pm.

By Cars UK