Top Gear's Top 9: the worst fake exhaust pipes in the world

Oh yes, coming out swinging here. The Lamborghini Miura – the OG supercar, most-beautiful-ever-made candidate, an icon of sexy Sixties excess – had totally fake tailpipes.

The V12’s real pipes stopped a couple of inches short of the chromed tubes that exit out the car’s posterior, to allow that iconic engine cover to hinge upwards. Everything you’ve ever known is a lie. 

We’re talking pre-facelift here, people. Because it’s a really odd styling choice by Audi. It’s as though they wanted to have quad pipes, but decided four fakes was too far, so at the very last second while the clay model was being scanned for production, the design team tried to make the fake pipes part of the bumper instead. And what we got was, um, this. Any guesses?

The facelift wasn't any better, mind you. 

Be careful what you wish for. Audi doubled down on its fake exhaust addiction with these travesties on the facelifted SQ5, and the latest S4 and S6. These aren’t implied tailpipes.

They aren’t massive organ pipes hiding teeny real pea-shooters. They’re 100 per cent fake. But because marketing says an Audi S car needs four tailpipes, we get these glued to the back. It’s got nothing to do with yer Vorsprung Durch Technik y’know. 

The Toyota Camry is so boring, Toyota forgot to sell it in the UK for decades. Then they remembered, put it on sale, and no-one noticed. So now it’s gone again.

Pity, as we’re being denied some properly silly fake exhausts. One of the pipes on the back of the ’21 Camry is real, but its partner next door is just an imitation tacked on for looks. 

Nothing says “I need a sporty Ferrari 296-style central exit tailpipe” like a 1.0-litre city car wearing a plastic body kit. Having said that, the 108 is now dead, as the city car class’s demise continues at speed. The car world feels strangely incomplete without a cheap and cheerful French hatchback. 

Extra points for weirdness to Ford here. The Explorer ST’s pipes are real. Except they aren’t.

There are indeed four tailpipes, but the hot gases exit out the bottom of the pipe, facing the ground. This means your precious rear-facing pipes stay clean and soot-free. Science!

The stacked tailpipes of Lexus’ M3-rivalling 5.0-litre V8 supersaloon were an acquired taste. Partly because they looked a bit weird. But mostly because they were a complete facsimile, unconnected to the exhaust system.

Lexus listened, and made the RC-F sequel’s pipes the genuine article. Good work.

On the handsome previous-gen hot Octavia, you got two tailpipes to show normal Octavia drivers that you were in fact better than them.

They were, as per usual, trapezoidal fakes. But on the diesel, one side was entirely phony, as the TDI only had a single-branch exhaust.

Spot one on the road by the missing backbox behind one of the ‘exhausts’. For shame, Skoda. What happened to 'simply clever'?

What’s strange about Rolls-Royce’s imitation tailpipes is that you must pay for them.

If you’d like a pair of tubes protruding from your Roller’s behind, your butler must tick the ‘visible exhausts’ box, which adds chromed oblongs to your rear bumper… through which you can see the actual tailpipes.