#TopGearChallenge Four: our favourite stories

For the fourth challenge from Top Gear’s Department of Education, we asked to see 500 words on your greatest car story. That was it. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But when you open up that blank word document or pick up a pen and paper, 500 words suddenly seems a whole lot further away, and whittling down your best car story to one seems almost impossible. Ah, the memories.

Thankfully many of you managed to get past the mental block, and the result was some stunning pieces of journalism – we had love letters to favourite cars, song lyrics, stories of memorable road trips and even a poem or two.

Plus, it turns out that 500 words, multiplied by hundreds of entries = a lot of words for us to read. Yeah, maths never was our strongpoint.

Still, after only one or two arguments, we’ve selected our ten favourite entries, which you can read by clicking through this gallery here. Enjoy…

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I’ll admit to feeling some trepidation as I set off. I’d driven nearly 1000 miles to get here, but now I had to dig deep and face up to the biggest driving challenge I’d yet encountered.

The Ardeche Gorge in southern France is a spectacularly, ruggedly beautiful place, searingly hot in mid-summer. Along its northern flank, the D290 soars, plunges, twists and turns for miles, tracing craggy clifftops and outcrops, rising hills on the left, death-by-thousand-foot-drop on the right.

Through the first dozen corners I settle down into a rhythm. Anticipation and preparation are key, reading the road, the terrain, even the sky. Exit is more important than entry. Scrub all the speed off before the corner, pick a gear for the gradient after, turn in, power through, find the torque, do not run out of revs. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

I wasn’t happy about the coach I’d be driving for this, my first European job. The Puddle Jumper – a 15-year old Bova – stormed the journey through France, but 800 motorway miles are meat and veg even for an aging motor. Just pop it into top gear, sit back and relax into another four-and-a-half-hour shift. Just try not to become hypnotised by the sheer featurelessness of the A6 at night.

More concerning were the mountain roads beyond the motorway. The steering wheel’s three feet across and has many turns of lock. The gearstick’s three feet long, quite slack and needs firm, sniper-accurate guidance over a long stretch to get into gear. The clutch, too, needs firm but minutely precise modulation. The Jumper isn’t an easy drive.

And yet, here, on this road, it turns out to be the perfect tool. At a shorter-than-normal length of 10 metres, it feels nimble and light on its feet, and there’s no shortage of power, either. DAF engines are famously big-lunged and this one’s 340hp is vastly more than a coach this size actually needs. Hold the revs at peak torque and this thing would climb up the side of a building. And drive back down again too, thanks to an immensely powerful electromagnetic retarder on the driveshaft.

Corners, climbs and descents appear as if on a reel. My arms are a blur of steering and gearchanges, my legs pump at the pedals, I’m concentrating hard, supressing vertigo and the aircon has packed up on a 40-degree day.

This is pure driving. Feeling how the machine needs to be driven and extracting exactly what I want from it. There’s no safety net, few barriers, no traction control, only ABS. I’ve never known driving to be such hard work. And such enormous fun. 

We get to the destination and I’m exhausted. Yet my passengers have no idea how hard I worked to get them here safe and sound, they just enjoyed a smooth ride. Which is as it should be. I’ve done my job, got the best from the machine and myself. 

It’s the most fun I’ve ever had behind a steering wheel.

Everyone has their favourite car memory. For some, it was when they were 8 and got Scalextric for the very first time. For others it was when they saw their favourite driver win their first race. No matter what it was, everyone’s story is special to them for one reason or another. This was no different for my dad.

I was only told this story a few nights ago. He and I were discussing the massive move by F1 driver Carlos Sainz Jr. from McLaren to Ferrari. We were going through all the implications that it could have on the other drivers for the 2021 season when he casually mentioned: “I’ve raced his father before.”

I was absolutely staggered!

I couldn’t tell whether he was pulling my leg or genuinely serious. It turns out he was technically right. It was in 1990, when my dad still had hair and years before I or Carlos Sainz Jr. were even a thought. He and my mum were on their way to the North Bannister stage of WRC Rally Australia. It was early in the morning and they had been driving for half an hour already without seeing another car. They pulled up at the traffic lights and waited for them to go green. All of a sudden, they heard a rumbling noise come from behind them. (relieved that it wasn’t some sort of zombie apocalypse and they were the last ones left). Through an array of exhaust bangs and turbo, a car pulled up beside them. What did it turn out to be? None other than Carlos Sainz in his Castrol livery Toyota Celica GT-4. They were gobsmacked. Out of everyone in the world, one of the best rally drivers in the world pulled up beside them. Both of them were impressed. Dad however, was ambitious.

Now you don’t need to be a petrolhead to work out that a bright yellow 1985 Ford Laser S is no match for a Group A rally car being driven by a brilliant driver. But being naive gets to the best of us so Dad started to rev his car as both drivers waited for the lights. For Dad it was like a scene from Fast and Furious. For Carlos? Well, I’m not sure he was even aware of what was going on, he just wanted to drive to the stage. The tension was high in one of the cars as the lights turned green. Dad determined to be in front attempted to launch his little Laser as fast as he could. But he forgot to factor in his driving ability and stalled hard as the Celica pulled away into the distance. A crushing but somewhat expected loss. They ended up following Carlos all the way to the stage where he would not just win the stage but also took out the WRC title. 

If I were to sum up this story I would use three words:

Ambitious but Rubbish.

BUKC 24 hours 2019: Stint 2: 01:25 am

I awoke startled, not by any noise owing to my ear plugs but rather shaking of my tent and the wide-eyed stare of my teammate. I quickly yanked out my earplugs, and immediately my ears were overwhelmed by the pops of backfiring 2-stroke engines and screaming tyres. The race fuel which coated the air invaded my nostrils, the resulting rush of adrenaline jolting my brain into focus. “Get ready as quick as you can, you’re in the kart in 25” came the order. Pardon? My ‘wake-up’ stint in the pits wasn’t meant to be for another 45 minutes, let alone my racing stint. Unbeknownst to me, our race had crumbled during my powernap. An engine refusing to idle, a sheared steering tube and the dramatic absconsion sent both our race and schedule up into (blue) smoke. 

I sprinted clumsily from camp down to the pits to be greeted by my exhausted crew. Nevertheless, in vain they tried to prepare me for my stint, my first ever in the dark. The front tyres were shot, the lap timer had got confused so now resets at turn 9, and don’t lock the rears to prevent the limping left engine from stalling. I tried intently to listen, but the adrenaline from earlier was now manifesting itself as anxiety, drawing my mind instead to the endless stream of karts flying past at 70mph on the other side of the pit wall. “Get the board, he’s in next lap” shouted my teammate, as I fumbled for the repurposed beer crate we were using as a pit board. What felt like almost instantly, our kart, with its fraying red and white gaffa tape livery was coming down the pit lane, with our crew poised to change the ballast and check the tyres. I jumped in, got the thumbs up and floored it. 

The first few laps were steady, but soon I was trying to hang on the back of some faster karts for speed. In hindsight I hadn’t appreciated that they were not just faster drivers, but also had fresher rubber. Going into the fast tightening radius turn 1, I turned in with them, but immediately I understeered away from the apex. B*ll*cks. I kept the power on, not wanting to spin the kart, over the outside kerb and finally straightened up. Only problem was I was now fully on the grass and heading towards an unavoidable mound. I braced with a vice grip on the wheel as a painful jolt ripped through the kart and I was immediately blinded by dirt. Two, three, four, five or maybe more winces later I hopefully turned right and felt the smooth relief of the tarmac. I was completely blind for the next 3 corners, and dirt would remain in my eyes 5 days later, but the kart was okay, and I finished my stint. And that’s how I learnt the importance of ‘if in doubt, flat out!’.

McLaren P1

It has 903bhp which is generated by a 3.8 litre twin-turbocharged V8 and 324 laptop-like batteries that power an electric motor. It can fly down the straights at 217mph thanks to active aerodynamics and its immensely powerful engine. The active aerodynamics raise the rear spoiler until the car reaches 156mph then it starts to lower a little bit because the weight of the air passing over it would break the suspension. As well as making it go fast the active aerodynamics also help put grip in the tyres by using the exhaust and the rear diffuser to make an area of low pressure pulling the car to the ground thus putting grip in the rear tyres. It is made from some strong stuff like military grade aluminium and the wheel's brake disc is made from a metal used in the Ariana space program and is coated in silicone carbide.

There have been many variants of the P1 like the P1 GTR, a race car version of the P1, it has more power and a fixed rear wing which makes more downforce. There is also the P1 LM, the road car version of the P1 GTR, which is the race car version of the road legal P1. McLaren also made a P1 GT which is a one-off special based on the P1 GTR but it is road legal like the P1 LM, it was commissioned by someone in the Middle East.

As well as being ultra fast it is strikingly beautiful and could be described as a piece of art hurtling down the straights at the speed of light. It was designed by Frank Stephenson and Robert Melville and I have to say to them that they did a great job. Same goes for McLaren in general for making a hybrid car move that fast and look stunning. 

We were forced to stop again. Our view across the Icelandic landscape had once again been replaced by an opaque, snowy void. 60mph winds wobbled the Aygo. We waited in silence.

Flashback to two months ago. My two friends and I were planning the perfect Icelandic road trip; the route was settled, the accommodation was booked, convincing excuses to get out of university had been planned. All that was left was to choose our noble steed. We had glorious visions of travelling the land in a rough and ready 4x4. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that firstly, we were 21-year-old students, therefore we were too young and broke to rent any of the juicy stuff. Secondly, we were reliably informed by the Internet that such specialist vehicles were unnecessary – one could easily get by with a normal car on studded tyres. So, we quickly settled on the cheapest car in the fleet – a Toyota Aygo. However, while the Internet said typical conditions would be manageable, it didn’t say anything about driving in a storm against government advice.

In our defence, our next accommodation was about 50 miles away and, unless we wanted to be homeless for the night, we had to get there. Flash forward to the present. Cautiously optimistic, we left Reykjavik - none of the forecasted snow had arrived and, while the winds were staggeringly fast, the plucky Aygo protected us against them. Once I’d got used to the left hand drive/right side of the road situation and the bite point of the clutch being uncomfortably close the top of the pedal travel, the car was unfazed by the weather conditions (true testament to the ability of studded winter tyres). 

The first sign that we were being idiots came in the form of a road closure – enforced by a Ford F-350 with massive monster truck tyres. Feeling a bit of size insecurity, but still determined to sleep in a bed that night, we found a way around via back roads. Idiot moment number two came in the form of a warning sign that read: “vehicle recovery beyond this point will incur significant cost.” Well, we’d come this far, and the Aygo was only just getting going.

What followed was the most dangerous thing I’ll (probably) ever do in a car. As soon as we left the protection of the city, the unimpeded wind picked up significantly – carrying snow from the surrounding land across the road and reducing our visibility to nothing. We trundled along at 5mph, not daring to go any faster. At regular intervals along the road were hi-vis reflective bollards - without those there’s no way we would have made it. For about two hours we continued until mercifully, we reached the next town, where there was another roadblock. The policeman enforcing it was clearly not expecting to have any car, let alone the little Aygo, come up behind him - the look of anger/bemusement on his face made our near-death experience instantly worth it.

Love Song for a Car

Sometimes it seems we’ve fallen out of love, you and I. Cars. Driving. The open road. It’s the tedium of adult life that’s done it - the morning commute and evening rush mean driving has become a chore. The drive down a grimy, trash-strewn interstate leading to a dingy office in a run-down city; it’s just another thing that must be dealt with, another responsibility to be fulfilled in the pursuit of career, money, and financial security. But oh, to return to the halcyon days of youth, when having a car meant pure, unbridled, pulse-quickening freedom. When you’re 16 and you have your first car, it feels like the world is at your feet, like you can go anywhere, do anything, and be anyone. Your entire future lies before you somewhere down that road, and all you have to do is find it. You drive around just for the joy of driving; for the thrill of discovering new places and traversing roads you’ve never seen before, not knowing what you’ll find beyond the next bend. When the sunlight filters through the trees just right and the windows are down and the warm summer breeze is washing over you as your favourite song plays on the radio, it’s bliss. It’s like a movie, only better, because you’re the star. Maybe it’s one of those things that get lost as we graduate from high school and then university. One of the silent casualties of growing up. Lost among the distractions of work and duty, emails and Instagram. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The world has changed and I’ve had time to reflect and I am sorry, old friend, for losing my way, for losing sight of the simple things. So if you’ll excuse me, I think we need to go for a drive.

How I got my Dream Car

I have always wanted a car. But not just any regular car. I’ve always wanted an EXOTIC car. I never thought it could happen… but how wrong I was!

It turns out that my grandfather happened to have a dusty, old Porsche.

But it wasn’t any ordinary Porsche…this was a 930 Turbo!  

About last year, my grandfather passed away unexpectedly. Months following his death, my father learned that he had inherited the Porsche! It was a rainy day when we went to go pick it up. Oh, how exiting that moment was. I remember seeing my grandfather’s garage door lift open…to reveal OUR Porsche 930 Turbo!  

Now, most people don’t know what the 930 is, or what it can do. But car enthusiasts are well aware of the car’s legendary history in the automotive world. An icon!

Even if someone who’s not really into cars hears or sees it coming… even they know it’s special! Each time we take it out, countless people wave, give thumbs-ups, and ask to take pictures of it.

Also, there’s an “ordinary” thing about our Porsche. Or should I say, “extra”-ordinary - at least for an exotic car: it has back seats! Meaning, that my father can take me and my two siblings for a ride at the same time. Now, the back seats aren’t too bad for me to sit in, because I’m pretty small. But when my older brother sits in the back, his knees touch his head! Okay, so, maybe I’m exaggerating, though he does look pretty squished back there! I also sometimes get to sit in the passenger seat, although I can’t see much over the dashboard! That doesn’t really matter though, because it feels like being on a rollercoaster (especially when my dad twists around corners)!  

Now, some people may ask, “What’s the difference between a Porsche 930 and a regular old 911?” Well, they may look similar, but there IS a difference! First of all, the 930 has a HUGE rear wing and big fat tyres; the 911 doesn’t. Also, the 930 is turbocharged (although it’s kind of obvious because it’s written out in fancy letters beneath the rear wing)! What’s special about the turbocharger is that it makes the car faster… MUCH faster than a normal 911! The first time I rode in the car, I remember thinking, “this isn’t so fast”… until the turbocharger kicked in, and pinned my head back to my seat! It was the most exciting feeling ever!

I love our Porsche 930 Turbo, which has become part of our family. We even call it “Oma”, which is supposed to mean “Grandma” in German, because the car’s so old (or at least old for a car, anyway). Our Porsche has already given so many great memories of my family and me riding together.

I’m hoping that our next car is a Lamborghini Aventador - although my siblings are going to have to stay home, because that only has TWO seats.

But I’m just fine with that!

‘Jump man, jump! We need to shed some weight or we’ll never make it.’ He jumped. And at that moment, as time stood still and he found himself voluntarily throwing himself from a moving vehicle, he realised that he had made a terrible mistake. He hit the solid tarmac, legs giving way beneath him, and rolled into a ditch. Somehow he sprang to his feet, caught up with the car and pushed with all his remaining energy. But it was too late. The car shuddered to a halt and the embarrassingly long queue of traffic, who had all witnessed this feat of foolhardy heroism, slowly edged its way around the stricken Citroën. To this day there is some debate as to who should take the blame for this incident, and whether or not ‘Jump’ implies ‘Jump when ready.’

Had you been one of those lucky few who were witness to this comic spectacle, you may have asked yourself what on earth two men in their early twenties were doing jumping out of a nearly 100-year-old car, which couldn’t even pull itself up a standard Sussex hill. This, dear reader, is their story. A story of breakdowns, mishaps and bucketfuls of youthful optimism. Or, a list of everything that can go wrong when you enter your first competitive average-speed rally in a vintage car. 

Attempting any form of motorsport on a student budget means that there will be certain compromises. Ours started before we even set off from home, as I could just about afford the 1922 Citroën 5hp, but certainly couldn’t afford a tow car and trailer. This meant undertaking the perilous almost 100 mile journey from Oxfordshire to Goodwood under the car’s own steam. This is easier said than done, when you realise that the car has 11bhp (not a misprint) and a top speed of 37mph (again, not a misprint). Add to this a tendency to shed vital components while driving, including: the prop-shaft, cooling fan, gearstick, carburettor and a wheel nut, all before we reached the start of the rally. 

So having retrieved and replaced most of these essential items, we boldly set forth into the rolling English countryside without a care in the world for our lack of front brakes, windscreen wiper, windows, indicators, 4th gear or any other modern niceties. Fortunately for us, the absence of a speedometer made the rally far simpler, as we had no way of tracking our average speed. So we decided that driving flat out would probably be our best bet in order to stand a chance of being anywhere near the required average. I can’t remember how well we did, but needless to say we didn’t win. 

Despite (or perhaps because of) its shortcomings, this diminutive Citroën is utterly charming, if like me you can put up with its tendency to disintegrate during motion, and the brakes catching fire if you happen to be descending a hill that’s too long and steep.

Wales. There’s a reason the British Army bases its school of infantry there. It’s the most miserable, hilly, rain-lashed corner of the UK, perhaps the only piece of real estate in these isles with no flat ground whatsoever. Not perhaps the most obvious place to birth a love of motorsport. Less evocative than sun-drenched Monza or the arboreal tarmac serpent of Spa, and fewer models being upstaged by the impossibly perfect curves of a parked Ferrari. But in the depths of a Welsh forest, the dawn light barely piercing a canopy of pines, steam rising from thermos flasks in the cold November air and a thick mist lying heavy on the ground, I fell in love with cars. 

I was nine. My Dad had dragged me out of bed at an ungodly hour earlier that day, deposited me semi-comatose in the passenger seat of our car (a red BMW 325i because we always had red cars) and set off up the M4 from London. On the way, my Dad told me of previous RAC rallies he’d been to, of helping cars back onto the road after they’d slewed off into a ditch, watching Minis and even the monstrous Group B Quattros. Once we’d trudged through the forest, hours later, and were stood shivering in the dark, I wondered why we’d bothered. And then I heard a distant rumble.

I hadn’t heard anything like it. I’d watched F1 on the TV but hadn’t quite caught that particular bug yet (although the young Brazilian guy was quite good) and those cars just sort of shrieked. This was altogether more visceral, the sort of noise a Norse God might make while gargling with turpentine atop a sled pulled by carnivorous elk. The distant rumble soon became a roar as a Lancia – a Delta Integrale with its beautifully proportioned, squat shape framed in Martini stripes – tore through the mist and screamed past us. The fact it was airborne as it did so was just about the coolest thing I’d ever seen. It didn’t occur to me that it was odd to see it in profile first, rather than front-on, but this was rallying, and cornering is basically a perpetual state.  

Sainz, Kankkunen, Vatanen, Airikkala and some Scottish chap called McRae thrashed a succession of Toyotas, Mitsubishis and Fords through the forest over the next hour. I was so captivated I forgot to take any photos. I remember imploring my Dad to hurry up as we returned to the car – I didn’t want to miss the stage later that afternoon, at Donington. That was fun, and I remembered to take some photos this time, including one of Sainz’s Celica GT-4 which I still have, yellowing in an album somewhere. But taking place on a circuit, it was a bit too much like normal racing, and I already missed the damp, soggy earth and log piles of the Welsh stage as a backdrop for the most lunatic form of sport imaginable. 

We’d spent all day on public transport, wending through progressively narrower and remote getting closer to our destination deep into rural Cornwall. It got dark. The house of the vendor turned out to be an eerie old folks home on a steep hillside, the path lit by a solitary bulb casting its light no better than a glow-worm in a sock. 

A single garage higher up the hill, at the end of a narrow un-made track was just visible. The garage door opened in the manner that only a sea-side metal object can, with sprinkles of rust tinkling on to the bonnet, for some time after the tortured door being wrestled from its resting place.

The engine came to life, one cylinder at a time and, as it crept forward I got my first view of a 1949 Humber Imperial Limousine, in the reflected glare from its headlamps with tarnished reflectors. I was none the wiser.

It was late, we were keen to set off, paperwork done. We bounced down the track to the main road, my friend driving his new daily driver trying not to bounce into the stone walls inches from the sides of the car’s enormous flanks. Turning left onto the main road, we noted that the fuel gauge was nearly empty; job one – find petrol and snacks. As the Scooby-Doo mansion of a care home disappeared in the rear-view mirror we realised that this was Cornwall. In the early 90s. 24-hour filling stations weren’t a thing.

The next few minutes seemed like hours; the road’s twists and turns leaping out of the gloom from the yellowing headlights, unknown brakes, eighteen feet long and column change were all new to my driver. I focused on the pinch mark I was making on the leather bench seat. Still no fuel.

We headed across Bodmin Moor, by now on fumes. We crossed a small bridge and the gradient up the other side meant that what fuel was left in the tank sloshed away from the pick-up pipe. We rolled backwards into a layby resigned to spending the night in the car, the saving grace being that as a limo, there was lots of space. Boxes of oily spares filled most of the space. We watched the fog roll up the valley and engulf the car, all very Stephen King. Sleep came. Eventually.

We woke early, the car still surrounded by fog, but we knew we’d passed a filling station a couple of miles back. We set off, and after about five miles, found the filling station. Sunday, early; we decided to wait. And wait. 9am came and went, 10am came and a bloke wearing nothing more than a towel came out of the house adjoining the petrol station, “We don’t open on Sundays, but there’s another filling station 200 yards further on that’s been open since 6am!”. Laughing, very inwardly, we peered into the fog…