Top Gear: Season 11, Episode 2

11 - 2: Cool Wall

On Ski Sunday Top Gear, Hammond got to grips with the world's most powerful estate car. Jeremy accidentally drove to Wales. James introduced another health-and-safety-defying display of bravery from Top Gear Stunt Man. And round ten of the car world's longest running grudge match kicked off on the test track. Audi's new RS6 Avant is basically a practical family estate car with a faintly ridiculous 572bhp engine wedged under the bonnet. To test its sporting credentials, Hammond took it to the French ski resort of Les Arcs for a race against a pair of goateed French extreme skiers. Richard had to negotiate 22 miles of twisting, icy roads to reach the finish line, while the skiers would be taking a more direct route - straight down the side of a mountain. Despite the Audi's awesome performance, the chalet maid-bothering Frenchmen won. Mercedes has taken its elegant, if slightly uninspiring, CLK coupe and sent it to supercar boot camp. The result is the CLK 63 AMG Black Series. That means a lot of badges, but then this is a lot of car. Jeremy loved it so much he just kept driving until he ran out of British Isles. James May got his slide rule out in an effort to recreate one of film's most beloved car stunts: the spiral jump from The Man with the Golden Gun. In the film, an AMC Hornet is seen jumping off a ramp, making one complete revolution in mid-air, and then landing on its wheels on another ramp. What looks relatively simple on-screen actually involves some incredibly complex equations, and the genuine possibility of a horribly messy death for the driver. Enter Top Gear Stunt Man. Unfortunately, James misplaced a couple of decimal points, so the attempt ended in a huge and painful-looking crash. Rivalries don't come any more bitter and protracted than that of the Subaru Impreza and Mitsubishi Evo. Previous versions of these cars have slugged it out on Top Gear several times before, and it's always been very close. But with the Evo X, Mitsubishi has finally delivered the knockout punch. To take the boxing analogies to breaking point, it really is Mike Tyson to the Subaru's Frank Bruno.