Top Gear amphibious car challenges

The 2006 Rudyard Lake challenge

The first challenge was broadcast on 21 May 2006 as the third episode of Top Gear's eighth series ^[1]. Each presenter converted a road vehicle. Clarkson used a 1989 Toyota Hilux pickup with a large outboard motor on the back, Hammond a 1983 Volkswagen T3 camper dressed up as a canal boat, and May a 1962 Triumph Herald fitted with a mast and sails ^[1][3]. After a road section, they had to travel about 2 miles (3 km) along Rudyard Lake near Leek, Staffordshire ^[1]. The lake's operators say the crew spent a day and a half filming there ^[5].

Top Gear's own retelling identifies propulsion and watertightness as the two problems the presenters could not solve ^[3]. May relied on wind power and drifted off course into reeds. Hammond's propeller, driven by the van's diesel engine, snapped on the jetty before the van reached the water. Clarkson ignored advice to use a small outboard and fitted a 225 bhp motor; his Hilux worked reasonably well until it capsized ^[3]. Despite large amounts of foam and welding, all three vehicles let in water and sank ^[3].

The 2007 English Channel attempt

The producers then told the presenters to improve their designs and cross the English Channel from Dover to France ^[2][3]. May kept his Herald, now with a collapsible mast and a centerboard keel. Hammond built a new houseboat from a second Volkswagen Transporter with a fiberglass hull, which became known as the Dampervan. Clarkson switched to a 1996 Nissan pickup with oil drums added for buoyancy, which he called the Nissank ^[2][3].

A Dover news site reported the attempt on 18 July 2007 ^[4]. The vehicles started from a disused hoverpad at Dover's Western Docks, with rescue divers and safety boats standing by, and Clarkson's Nissan now carried a 225 hp outboard ^[4]. That day May's Herald nearly struck a ferry berth and then capsized near the hoverpad, Hammond's van broke down at the end of the Prince of Wales Pier, and neither of the other two vehicles got beyond the harbor breakwater ^[4].

In the broadcast version, shown on 14 October 2007 and watched by 5.53 million UK viewers, the Herald and the Dampervan sank repeatedly and needed help from the coastguard and other rescue crews ^[2][3]. The presenters abandoned both and all three boarded the Nissank, which reached France without sinking ^[3]. They had hoped to beat Richard Branson's amphibious crossing time but failed to do so ^[3]. Branson's time, set in a Gibbs Aquada in June 2004, was 1 hour 40 minutes 6 seconds ^[6].

Legacy

Top Gear has continued to feature the films in retrospectives, including a list of the program's most memorable moments that names both the lake test and the Channel crossing ^[7]. The problems the presenters met on camera, keeping water out of a car body and finding a workable way to move it through water, are the same ones that real amphibious vehicle designers have to solve ^[3].

Related entries

• Amphibious vehicle records and journeysRecords, people and culture · 1950 to present
• Gibbs AquadaAmphibious cars · 2003 to 2004
• How amphibious vehicles workHow it works ·