Top Gear Season 9 Episode 6: The Limo Challenge Goes Off Script
Clarkson, Hammond and May stretch ordinary cars into limousines for the BRIT Awards, with mechanical failures and lost celebrities marking the episode.
Top Gear’s ninth series reached one of its most memorable set pieces in Episode 6, first aired in 2007, as Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May attempted to convert used cars into stretch limousines. Their task: deliver celebrities to the 2007 BRIT Awards in vehicles of their own making. The results were predictably chaotic, with mechanical failures, navigation disasters and some of the most ungainly cars ever to grace the show.
The Limo Challenge: Three Very Different Approaches
Clarkson opted for a Fiat Panda, which he extended to an absurd length by cutting and welding extra sections. The resulting car was so unwieldy he struggled to manoeuvre it through London traffic, and the car famously split in half where the chassis had been shortened to comply with road regulations. His passenger, BBC Radio 1’s Chris Moyles, was left less than impressed by the experience.
Hammond chose an MG F convertible, stretching it and reinforcing the structure to maintain some rigidity. He was tasked with driving singer Jamelia to the awards. Despite a slightly more conventional approach than Clarkson, the MG F limo was far from refined, but Hammond managed to complete the journey without the catastrophic failures that plagued his colleagues.
May took a different route altogether, joining a Saab 9000 to the front of an Alfa Romeo 164 to create a double-ended limousine dubbed the “Alfaab.” The car was meant to combine Swedish sensibility with Italian flair, but the result was a confused and difficult-to-drive machine. May’s passenger, Lemar, was left waiting as May became hopelessly lost, eventually arriving over an hour late, by which point Lemar had given up and left.
Mechanical Mayhem and Celebrity Patience Tested
The episode’s main challenge was less about luxury and more about demonstrating just how difficult it is to build a functioning limousine from unsuitable donor cars. Clarkson’s Panda suffered the most dramatic failure, splitting in two and requiring roadside repairs. Hammond’s MG F, though crude, completed its run, while May’s Alfaab proved too confusing to navigate London’s streets efficiently.
The episode did not feature a traditional car review or power lap, focusing instead on the presenters’ ingenuity and the unpredictable consequences of their engineering. It remains one of the more memorable episodes for its sheer ambition and the willingness of the presenters to risk embarrassment in the name of entertainment.
For those interested in other memorable Top Gear challenges, later episodes such as Season 13 Episode 6and Season 14 Episode 3offer similarly chaotic and ambitious stunts.
