Ten Things We Learned This Week

There is a new Transformers film coming up. It is the fourth in the Transformers canon, and it is called Transformers 4. And among the many exotic cars included in the high-art think-piece will lurk a Pagani Huayra, like the one in the picture above; the one we awarded our Hypercar of the Year 2012.

Clearly this is ridiculously cool. At the other end of the scale, we discover Transformers 4 will also star a fire-breathing ROBOT DRAGON in the film. Answers on a postcard.

High drama unfolded this week ahead of Her Majesty's official visit to France, as horrified organisers realised President Francois Hollande's low-roofed official Citroen DS5 government car wouldn't be able to accommodate our glorious monarch's gloriously oversized headwear.

Though the presidential fleet includes people carriers, such utilitarian transport was not considered befitting of the Queen of England. And thus, the Elysee Palace rolled out an old armour-plated Renault Vel Satis with a V6. A Vel Satis!

Though a clear improvement on an Espace, Top Gear feels even the VS somewhat below Her Maj, and is currently on the phone to the RAF in a vain bid to convince them to chopper in a V8 armour-plated Range Rover instead.

John Costello is a man who lives in America. This week he told a television channel called WFXT that, following a walk, his 12-week old German Shepherd puppy named ‘Rosie' - quite possibly the most adorable GS puppy on earth - jumped into his car (which was running), hit the gear stick and shifted into drive.

The helmsmith pup then fell onto the accelerator and drove straight into a pond. The car was totalled. More importantly, however, Rosie is safe. This makes Rosie a better driver than at least 50 per cent of the Top Gear office.

Pic: WFXT

Matthew Michael Lee McMahon receives the TG Darwin award. The 20-year old from Ohio, it seems, enjoys pretending to be a police officer, strapping a set of red-and-blue lights to his Ford Crown Victoria (like the one in the pic above) and then flagging down motorists. What larks.

Only this week McMahon flagged down... a real police officer. One Detective Justin Anderson. McMahon has been arrested for impersonating a law enforcement officer, but this raises an important question: how do we known Detective Anderson is a genuine police officer? What if they're all frauds, furiously arresting each other?

Good news! Richard Hammond has got his 911 GT3 back. You might remember that on TG telly a while ago, Jeremy and James were entirely sympathetic after hearing about Hammond's beloved new 911 being recalled due to a fire risk. They even bought him some GT3 oven gloves to commiserate. 

Well, he's now got it back. "Home 24 hrs, no fire," Hammond tweeted yesterday. "Glad they caught fire anyway, gives it an air of danger". Quite.

Serial hanger-out-of-car-windows Harry Redknapp has a new ride. QPR and Caterham owner Tony Fernandes rewarded the England-manager-that-never-was for winning the recent Championship play-off final - and securing QPR's place in the Footballing Premiership - with this: an 79bhp two seater with no roof. What a gent. It's fair to say it will be a good 300bhp and £100K under the rest of the cars in the newly-promoted club's car park.

Mr Redknapp reportedly described the car as: "A triffic little thing, triffic, always liked it, been after one for years but could never quite get the deal over the line. Good engine, got a bit about him. Triffic." Look out for its next media appearance at approximately 10.59pm on Sky Sports News on the last day of the next transfer window.

Worrying news from Kumho tyres, who have conducted a survey on car ownership in Blighty. Turns out that half of motorists stranded on the hard shoulder with a flat tyre wouldn't know how to replace it.

There's more. One in three motorists aged between 18-25 said they'd never checked if their tyres were inflated, while one in four have no idea how to tell if the tread depth is within legal limits.

But, worst of all 20 per cent of British drivers don't even know how to open the bonnet. Britain, here's the simple TG guide:

Step One: Take hammer

Step Two: Apply to bonnet repeatedly

Step Three: If bonnet does not open, repeat Steps One and Two

You're welcome.

Subaru driver Mark Higgins this week smashed his own record for a production car lap of the Isle of Man TT course.

On Wednesday Higgins tooks his 2015 WRX STI around the 37.3 mile course in 19m 26s, an entire 11 seconds faster than this previous best time set in 2011. His average speed? 116.40mph. Which is fast.

But then Friday (6th June) rolled around, and the iron-testicled rallyist clocked a time of 19m 15s, shaving 11 seconds from his Wednesday time. Around the Isle of Man's 37.3-mile course, that equates to an average speed of 117.5mph. That's astonishing.

A pair of pranksters who decided to have some fun with an approaching Google Street View car have been outed.

See, when the camera car rolled through their local town, mechanics Gary Kerr and Dan Thompson decided to enact an axe-killing for the car to capture on film and upload to Google's Big Brother.

But police were later called after an alarmed member of the public saw the scene on Google Street View. "It was in the spur of the moment," Thompson told The Independent. "It seemed like the obvious thing to do so I threw myself on the ground and Gary grabbed a pick-axe handle from the garage.

"We only had about 20 seconds. It was all we could think of," he added. The police saw the funny side. So does TG.

Yep, you read that right. TG's Paul Horrell reports that Ferrari will thoroughly refresh its 458 next year, with the mid-engined beauty losing weight and gaining power... thanks to a turbocharged V8 midships.

His Horrellness reckons it could be called the 408T. Many of you disagree. Read the full in-depth story here.