TG's greatest adventures of 2013

Behind the mechanical stuff; the numbers, the pricetags, the prestige, every car shares one thing - the ability to move us from one place to another. A fact we greatly enjoy, because it allows us to share with you our explorations of strange and exciting places. Like Moscow, Sau Paulo, Delhi, Death Valley, South Central, the Australian outback, and, er, Glasgow.

Here lies this year's finest - the best adventures of 2013. Click through the gallery, and follow the links for more wondrousness from a year in automotive adventures.

"The stillness of the desert was shattered by the sound of an approaching James May. He was at the wheel of the new Aston Martin Vanquish. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen..."

Written by
Jeremy Clarkson

Cars
Lexus LFA
Aston Martin Vanquish
SRT Viper

Watch it here

"This is a GT500. Mustangs are very good straight-line, quarter-of-a-mile cars. This is 800 miles across Europe... Yeah, no."

Written by
Richard Hammond

Car
Ford Mustang 500

Watch it here

"Because only one of us could achieve immortality through the history books , things soon turned ugly..."

Written by
James May

Cars
BMW 5-Series Touring
Volvo 850R Estate
Subaru Impreza WRX Sport Estate

Watch it here

"I am currently at the base of a mountain frothing great gouts of smoke and steam, preparing to drive to the top. If the health and safety people are reading this, then I couldn't find the appropriate form. Honest..."

Written by
Tom Ford

Car
Fiat Panda 4x4

Read it here

"I received a text message from an unknown number. It read: a couple of 500kg ratchet straps, some chocks and a LOT of bubblewrap... This wasn't the kinkiest booty-call in history, but rather a missive from a worried Bloodhound engineer making sure I'd considered the realities of securing 220kg of slippery metal on a flat bootfloor. Clearly, I hadn't..."

Written by
Sam Philip

Car
Range Rover Sport

Read it here

"We've seen trucks called Grave Digger and Maximum Destruction leaping and smashing seven shades of steel out of whatever gets in the way. And so it's with some excitement that we find ourselves aboard our very own monster - nearly two tonnes of machine towering three metres above the ground. Its name? Panda. Perhaps not as terrifying as its American counterparts, but still something of an animal..."

Written by
Dan Read

Car
Fiat Panda monster truck

Read it here

"A few thousand horsepower of stout locomotive versus 731bhp of bright red supercar. An overnight blast from one end of the country to the other: one on rails, one on roads, and a writer in each. Inverness to Euston, one shot, no unnecessary stopping."

Written by
Dan Read

Car
Ferrari F12

Read it here

"I'm Frosty. I'm gonna introduce you to my homeboys. They used to be knuckleheads like me, messing around with gangs, drugs and guns. Now we're into the lowriders, man. Old Memories Car Club. That's how we kick it"

Written by
Matt Jones

Cars
Chevrolet Impala
Chevrolet Fleetline Aerosedan

Read it here

"it gets a bit hot here: it hit 56.7°C in 1913, while much more recently - July last year, in fact - it averaged 47.5° across 24 hours, making it the hottest 24-hour average ever recorded anywhere. Even in early March, the mercury generally hovers around the 27° mark, which is exactly what it's showing today. It doesn't help that most of the place names sound like something from a Judd Apatow cowboy satire: Badwater Basin, Furnace Creek, Hell's Gate. All in all, then, almost comically hostile territory."

Written by
Jason Barlow

Car
BAC Mono

Read it here

"This is a city with roads like corduroy, and if the traffic doesn't kill you, it'll certainly make you late for dinner. Driving styles range from the incompetent to the murderous, cars range from the sublime to the Soviet, and it's the single most baffling town to navigate in the world. It's the ultimate test of our previous conclusion that this is a car for every mood, every journey and every road."

Written by
Matt Jones

Car
Ford Focus ST Estate

Written by

"If the photographer and I were to become separated from the Amarok now, within a few hours we would, quite literally, be cooked through. Cooked, delicious, and eventually eaten by zebras."

Written by
Sam Philip

Car
Volkswagen Amorak

Read it here

"We've just arrived in a new Volkswagen Type 2 Kombi, a charming tin can of a thing you could dent with your little finger. It also doesn't have air-conditioning or power steering, so its driver - me - is perspiring freely in the humidity of what was once rainforest. The road ahead spirals off up the mountainside, the improvised dwellings on either side of it magically failing to collapse into each other. The man leaning against a whitewashed wall lets his rifle drop as he sees us. No threat here."

Written by
Jason Barlow

Car
Volkswagen Type 2 Kombi

Read it here

"It's hard to accurately describe the noise a baby cow makes when it lands on the swollen bonnet bulge of a spanking-new Ford special-edition ute. It's a strange cacophony of human gasps, weird bovine squawks and a kind of audible dread of just how badly it's all going to end. Time slows, faces stretch in shock, hands fly to mouths. Then the crashing crescendo arrives with a bass-heavy thump as 450 kilograms of surprised beef bends the bonnet of a one-of-only-75-ever ute in on itself like it's made out of papier mâché."

Written by
Andrew Chesterton

Cars
Ford FPV Pursuit
Holden HSV Maloo R8

Read it here

"Every single car has a dent of some description. And, as a European - in fact, scratch that... as a human being - it's difficult not to notice the crowds, the sheer number of people trying to get somewhere."

Written by
Piers Ward

Car
Maruti Suzuki Alto 800

Read it here

"Darth Vader turns slowly in my direction, face obscured by the familiar blankness of that funereal mask, and I swear all I can hear is the classic laboured rasp of his breathing. The next couple of seconds ease themselves away like honey off a spoon, and then Lord Vader turns slightly to his right, ominously raises a ribbed black gauntlet and says to an Imperial Stormtrooper: ‘Man, is that a 2013 Shelby?'"

Written by
Tom Ford

Cars
Ford Fiesta
Shelby Mustang 500

Read it here