Free The Top Gear Story by Martin Roach Page A

brownish-red to look like conkersbut unfortunately the emulsion paint virtually washed off in the rain before filming began. Suspending the caravans high in the air and 50 feet apart, Round 1 went to Hammond’s heavy Piper model, but May struck back with a surprise win for his Sprite Musketeer in Round 2 against the much-fancied Monza, only for Hammond to sneak a victory with a high-spec Abbey GT in Round 3, a caravan with hot and cold running water and a separate bathroom, no less, which must have given him the edge. It was all pointless, puerile and utterly great fun. May pretty much summed up the feeling of any ‘bigger boy’ watching this feature, when he said: ‘It’s better than working in a bank!’
    Although this was perhaps their most violent demolition of the hated towing beast, undoubtedly the best Top Gear caravan jinx came in Series 14, when May went up in a caravan airship, racing Hammond on the ground in a Lamborghini. The very sight of the caravan strapped to the base of a Zeppelin-esque airship was perhaps one of the most bizarre of any episode of Top Gear , but things quickly started to go wrong. The original plan had been to land the odd-looking flying machine on a cricket pitch somewhere in Cambridgeshire (and ideally in the middle of a match for obvious dramatic effect) but strong winds rapidly blew the caravan airship off-course so it crash-landed in a farmer’s field near the A428. Although the tabloids ran pieces about May’s ‘lucky escape’, in fact no emergency services were needed, not least because the accident was at a recorded speed of 2mph. You walk at 4mph, so the ‘crash’ actually resembled falling over … slowly. (Note: May once suffered a sprained wrist while ‘travelling at speed’ in a shopping trolley for Top Gear Live in 2006).
    The humble caravan also found itself repeatedly battered as an indirect result of otherwise unrelated challenges, such as the time when the team were testing the resilience of a 911 Turbo and decided it would be a good idea to drop the German car from agreat height onto a caravan. Later, the roles were flipped for a Toyota Hilux feature, when they dropped the caravan from a great height onto the pick-up – proving beyond doubt that despite their complaints about the ‘van’, if nothing else it is a highly versatile vehicle. Hammond has also tried to see how far a car towing a caravan can jump in response to the same stunt being done by the rival show, Fifth Gear .
    Meanwhile, James May slept with the devil on his show, Oz and James Drink to Britain , in which he travelled the nation drinking with famed wine connoisseur Oz Clarke (surprisingly, you would expect May to be a nifty vino tippler, but he’s actually a dedicated bitter man; he has also said: ‘I’ve never quite trusted water, I don’t think it’s entirely healthy.’). May drove around the isles in a predictably British Rolls-Royce Corniche Cabriolet, but he risked the wrath of his Top Gear colleagues by spending good money on a 1978 Sprite Caravan for their sleeping quarters. Judas!
    Of course the most obvious thing to do with a caravan is to go on holiday and that’s exactly what the Top Gear team did in Episode 6, Series 8. They bought a lovely Elddis for £3,000 and attached it to a Kia, the Caravan Club’s ‘Towing Car of the Year’ no less (Clarkson’s own opinion of the brand is slightly less positive, dubbing it ‘soulless’). The team set off for Dorset and before long there was a huge traffic jam behind them, with the three presenters cringing with embarrassment in the Kia. Hammond even declared: ‘I can’t bear the shame!’ Clarkson made the point that while the Caravan Club claim their members will pull over and let traffic queues past periodically, he has never once seen this in 30 years of driving.
    After the Top Gear dog (‘TG’) was sick in the car, they finally made it to the caravan site where they initially parked so badly that they wrecked a