Top Gear: Series 25, Episode 5

Matt LeBlanc takes the Ferrari 812 Superfast to Imola
Rory Reid heads to America to drive the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE
Matt LeBlanc attempts to improve tractors by creating the Track Tor
Star in a Reasonably Fast Car: Vicky McClure

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Episode Guide

Rory heads to the spiritual home of muscle cars where a very strict teacher is waiting for him. The Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE. A muscle car so extreme that it’s actually been banned in Europe. So Rory Reid, always prepared to put his own life on the line in the name of consumer research (and skidding around in muscle cars), was on the first plane to America to discover whether a European could indeed drive the 650bhp Camaro without instantly bursting into flames or being chopped into a thousand wafer-thin slices.

Luckily for Rory, it transpired the ZL1 1LE was non-toxic to European drivers. And, as he discovered at Willow Springs racetrack, really rather good fun to drive on a big fast racetrack like “Big” Willow. So, inevitably, the producers – never keen to allow anyone to have too much fun without stepping in to spoil things – ordered Rory to find out exactly how fast the MegaMaro could lap Willow’s very unforgiving 2.5-mile course. Naturally, they’d also laid on a spot of tuition. In the shape of Sabine Schmitz, a teacher very much from the ‘tough love’ school of race schooling.

Finally, heavy machinery enthusiast Matt LeBlanc reckoned he’d spotted a problem ripe for improvification. The tractor. Now, MLB’s a big fan of tractors when they’re doing their tractoring thing on the farm. In fact, he owns a whole load of them. The problem, as he saw it, comes when tractors leave the farm, and join the public highway. Yes, the tractor is holding up Britain’s motorists, and Top Gear needed to do something about it.

Now, the sensible policy solution to this issue would be to, say, ban tractors from the public highway during rush hour. But Matt had a far more exciting solution to the problem of slow tractors. Involving the Top Gear Agricultural Technology Centre. And a lot of horsepower. And a can of paint borrowed from Lamborghini. And a speed record.