Top Gear: Jenson Interceptor, Lotus T125, Demolition with Tanks & Bob Geldof

The boys enjoy a bit of house demolition - with Tanks

Remarkably, we’re already almost at the end of the current series of Top Gear with this one – episode 5, series 17 – the penultimate episode. And it’s not been a bad series, whether you’re a viewer from Minnesota or the 12 year-old Miss Clarkson.

This week’s higlight rather depends on your point of view – do you consider Top Gear an entertaining car show or an entertaining show with cars? Let’s start with the car stuff.

Regular readers will remember that Cars UK was the first to report on the rebirth of the 1970s classic Jensen Interceptor, lovingly restored and brought up to date – in much the same way that Eagle do with the E-Type – by Interceptor specialist V8 Limited, under the watchful eye of ex Morgan boss Alan Garnett.

Since our report the whole shebang seems to have moved on, acquired a bit of a cash injection from a man who made a packet out of mobile phones (no, not the Dragon one), and Jeremy gets to go and play with the fruits of their efforts. And dress up as Jason King.

Perhaps the maddest car bit this week is Jeremy playing on the Top Gear track with the Lotus T125. What on earth is a Lotus T125, I hear you ask? Well, perhaps the best way of describing it is as a Lotus F1 for overweight, middle-aged, wealthy men. Which is no doubt why they have Jeremy driving it.

The T125 gets a 640bhp Cosworth lump, looks for all the world like a Lotus F1 car but has a cockpit big enough for those of us who can’t remember what our feet look like. It weights in at about 550kg (or twice that with Jeremy on board) and is said to deliver levels of performance on a par with a GP2 car. It costs £650k. We also know TG had Jean Alesi at the track when they shot the T125 piece - perhaps for a ‘How close is it to the real thing’ add-on to the piece, or even a bit with Alesi at the wheel.

Daftness this week comes from the boys finding a way to demolish a row of derelict houses in less time than it takes a professional demolition team. Cue military vehicles – and in particular tanks. And big grins from Messrs Clarkson, May and Hammond in the process.

This week’s Star in a Reasonably Priced Car is Saint Bob of Geldof, with the TG production team working hard to see if they can put together enough footage they can transmit before the watershed of the interview section with Clarkson.

The madness, mayhem, octane and all is, as usual, 8pm BBC2 Sunday 24th August.

By Cars UK