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Top Gear
Richard "Hamster" Hammond, Jeremy "Jezza" Clarkson, and James "Captain Slow" May. They like cars.

"I'd have all my clothes in brushed aluminium on matte black if I could."
— Richard Hammond

"Diesel, it says three things about you: one is, you're tighter than two coats of paint, the second one is that you care so much about the environment that you want to leave a little protective sooty film over it, and the third one is, you're probably French."
— James May

"You listen to this chap, he wants to bitch-slap his ho. Why not? Good luck to you, fella."
— Jeremy Clarkson listens to Radio One in a Jaguar.

"..."
— The Stig

Top Gear is an award winning (BAFTA/Emmy) BBC magazine series about automobiles and motoring. It started in 1977 as a fairly conventional auto show, but after being revamped in 2002 (following a one-year cancellation in 2001-2) it took a turn to become more overtly humorous. The show is very popular, with an audience estimated at about 8 million per week on the BBC and around 350 million worldwide.

The main presenters are
  • Jeremy Clarkson: The leader of the central trio: the oldest (49), tallest, and most obstreperous. Tends to be very vocal in his dislikes and self-confident to the point of arrogance. Also physically the most fragile. Given his choice of cars (and most everything else, really) he prefers sheer raw power (preferably with the noise to go with), then control, and then speed.
  • Richard Hammond: The second in command: the youngest (40), shortest, and second-most obstreperous — also the closest thing the show offers to Estrogen Brigade Bait. Described by the others as the toughest physically but the most fragile emotionally. Tends to be chatty and moody. Given his choice, he wants a fast, powerful car, but the love of his life is a 1963 Opel Kadett with under 50 hp. Known affectionately as "Hamster" for his size, chattiness and willingness to engage in risky stunts.
  • James May: The Quiet One (relatively speaking) somewhere between Clarkson and Hammond in age (47) and height: a picture-perfect Straight Man with an understated sense of humor and a gift for deadpan delivery. Likes physics, classical music, alcohol, light aircraft and interesting facts. Far more careful than the other two, and obsessive (to the point of possibly suffering from OCD) about details, down to the proper arrangement of his tools. May is implicitly acknowledged to be the most technically savvy of the three. As he prefers control and good handling over power and speed — and absolutely refuses to run on camera — the other two have dubbed him "Captain Slow".
  • The Stig: The show's "tame racing driver," who is never seen without his racing coveralls, gloves, and (face-concealing) helmet. He is also never heard speaking, though we hear occasionally about the driving advice he gives off camera. Some say he naturally faces magnetic north, and that all of his legs are hydraulic... all we know is, he's called The Stig.

In September 2006, Hammond suffered a near-fatal brain injury after crashing at 288.3mph/464.0km/h during a test of a jet-powered car, but he Got Better.

The show's appeal, which extends far beyond driving enthusiasts or even car-owners, is the interplay of the three presenters and what May referred to in an interview as "self-indulgent cocking-about." In addition to doing more conventional car test drives and reviews, it has undertaken a number of segments which feature unique premises:

  • Races: Not just car vs. car, but such contests as
    • Car (Bugatti Veyron) vs. fighter jet (RAF Eurofighter Typhoon). Hammond drove the Veyron in this challenge, making him the last of the three to try it and the only one to lose his challenge. The car did one mile, there and back, horizontally. The plane did its mile vertically.
    • Car (Ferrari 612 Scaglietti) vs. commercial airliner/public transport to Verbier, Switzerland. In one of the most ludicrously unlikely (and hysterical) moments of the series, May and Hammond arrived in Verbier and were yards from the finish when Clarkson drove past them on the town's high street.
    • Car (Bugatti Veyron) driven by Clarkson vs. private plane (Cessna 182) flown by May, with Hammond riding shotgun. The car won, possibly because May did not have his instrument rating and therefore could not fly after dark. That, and a whole lot of problems with their airways clearances resulted in them taking the long way around the Alps. It was a very close result nonetheless.
    • Car (Aston Martin DB 9) vs. passenger train
    • Car (Ford SportKa) vs. racing pigeons.
    • Car (Mazda MX5) vs. racing greyhound. Despite Hammond's insistence that he was using the ancient Japanese art of Beatidogu, the greyhound won.
    • Car vs. traceurs. Captain Slow was soundly defeated — by the time he arrived, the freerunners had managed to climb almost to the top of the building.
    • Car vs. rock climbers. On the way up, the climbers beat Clarkson by a couple of minutes. On the way down...the climbers used a parachute.
    • Car (Fiat Nuova Panda) vs. marathon runner (A.C. Muir): Clarkson raced the marathon runner across London during rush hour...and lost.
    • Car vs. bike vs. boat vs. public transportation: May (car), Hammond (bike), Clarkson (boat), and The Stig (public transportation) see who can cross London the fastest during morning rush hour. The car came last, prompting Clarkson to tell May that he ruined Top Gear.
    • Car (Nissan GTR driven by Clarkson) vs. Japanese bullet train (ridden by Hammond and May) May and Hammond were soundly beating Clarkson until Hammond missed a train and Clarkson managed to avoid heavy traffic in Tokyo. They were neck-and-neck until the final stretch, which was essentially a footrace from different sides of an island to a statue at the top. Clarkson won by a few minutes.
    • 1949-era "Race to the North" (Jaguar XK120 vs. Vincent Black Shadow motorbike vs. 60163 Tornado steam train). The car won, with May driving; the train with Clarkson was a close second. The bike stopped after a fuel tank error and wasn't able to finish. The race was hard on two of the presenters, with Hammond winding up cramped and uncomfortable and Clarkson collapsing to the floor and remaining there until May revived him with beer.
    • Car vs. the postal service: Hammond and May (taking turns driving) tried to see if they could beat a letter posted in the Scilly Isles to its destination address in the Orkneys. They lost
    • Motorhome races
    • People carrier races
    • Bus races (double decker vs. single decker, vs. a shuttle bus, vs. two "bendy buses''); all in the name of finding the best bus for London city streets. Of course a huge part of the fun was wondering when the driver of the double decker was going to roll his bus over. The single-decker won.
    • Airport vehicle races
  • Road trips: The presenters embark on a two-to-three-day drive to some significant destination in new cars they have chosen for themselves, in order to give a thorough evaluation of the power, speed, handling, quality, and ride comfort. There does not appear to be a budget, but the cars must fit into a general genre (e.g. lightened supercars, American muscle cars), subject to the willingness of the manufacturer to lend a car for the presenter to test. On two occasions, Clarkson (Ford GT) and Hammond (Dodge Challenger) have undertaken the trip in cars they personally own.
  • Challenges: Of two varieties. Top Gear "cheap-car challenges" are designed to test the presenters' ability to select a decent car, by requiring each one to purchase a specific type of used car on a tight budget and then complete several tasks assigned by the producers. These generally involve a timed lap, a brake test, a ride-quality test, a build-quality test, and a maintenance test (by allowing each presenter to use whatever money he has left to fix or improve his car). Top Gear epic challenges are designed to push the bounds of what can be accomplished with cars. Some of these overlap with Overseas Special (see below) and have resulted in noteworthy accomplishments. In the Polar Special, Clarkson and May became the first persons to reach the North Magnetic Pole by motor vehicle (while drunk, or at least drinking, no less, because on the ice they were technically in international waters and thus exempt from drunk-driving laws — or, to be precise, they thought they were). May was also the first person to go to the north pole who didn't want to be there.
    • "We're not driving, we're sailing"
  • The Power Lap: Most weeks one of the presenters (usually Clarkson or Hammond) does a more-or-less conventional track test and review of the week's featured car. After that review, he turns the car over to the show's "tame racing driver", The Stig, for a Power Lap. The Stig takes the car as fast as he can around the Top Gear test track, and at the end of the segment the presenter reveals The Stig's lap time and posts it on a board.
    • A standard feature of the Power Lap is the introduction of The Stig, which follows a specific pattern. The presenter starts by saying that it's time to turn the featured car over to the show's tame racing driver, and then adds a humorous description of The Stig (sample; the description changes every week): "Some say that he thought Star Wars was a documentary, and that he recently pulled out of I'm A Celebrity because he is scared of trees... and Australia... and Koo Stark... and Ant... and Dec. All we know is, he's called the Stig." These are frequently Ripped From The Headlines, and the most popular are scathing attacks on minor celebrities of the week ("And, long before anyone else, he realised Jade Goody was a racist pig-faced waste of blood and organs").
    • The fastest ever Power Lap was done by a BAE Sea Harrier, in 31.2 seconds. It went a bit wide on some of the corners, but the pilot claimed that he could have kept it in bounds, and still set the lap record.
    • The fastest Power Lap by an automobile was 58.2 seconds, by the 2004 Renault Formula 1 car. Given that the best of the world's supercars manage in the 1:18 range, that's stinking fast.
      • However, neither of those times was recorded on the official Top Gear lap board, because to qualify for the board the car must be street legal — able to go over a speed bump and using road-legal tires during the lap. The 1:10 time set by the Ferrari FXX driven by Michael Schumacher in Season 13 was removed from the board on the next episode because the car was using racing slicks.
  • Star in a Reasonably Priced Car: Most weeks the show features a (usually British) celebrity guest. Prior to filming the show, the guest receives some coaching from The Stig, and then takes the reasonably priced car out for a fast lap around the Top Gear Test Track, which is taped. During the show itself, Jeremy Clarkson interviews the guest, and at the end of the interview the taped lap is shown in the studio (and onscreen for the viewer). At the end of the taped lap, Clarkson announces the star's lap time, and posts it on a leaderboard. For the first several seasons the reasonably priced car was the Suzuki Liana; in recent seasons the Liana has been replaced by the Chevrolet Lacetti (however, when the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car is a Formula 1 driver the Liana is brought out of retirement for the segment; also F1 drivers' times are listed on a separate leaderboard, because of their exceptional driving skills compared to the garden-variety celebrities who are usually featured in this segment). The current fastest time, 1:45.8, in the Lacetti belongs to Jay Kay, singer for the acid jazz group Jamiroquai and the slowest belongs to comedian Jimmy Carr (who, ironically, had the second fastest time in the Liana). Any time better than one-fifty is to be proud of, and postings under 1:46 will elicit gasps from the audience.
  • "Stunts" (for lack of a better term): The Top Gear crew have been very creative in finding entertaining things to do with (and to) cars:
    • Drive 'til you get bored: to test the comfort and enjoyability of the Jaguar XJ, Clarkson devised a test to see how far he could drive it before he got bored with it (he ran out of country).
    • 24 hours in a small car: Hammond and May spent a day in a Smart Forfour to evaluate the company's claim that the car's interior was as comfortable as a lounge.
    • Helicopter gunship and tank evasion: Clarkson drove a Lotus Exige in an evasion pattern trying to prevent a WAH-64D Apache attack helicopter from getting a missile lock on the car. A couple seasons later, he performed the same stunt, substituting a Challenger 2 tank and its gun for the helicopter, and a Range Rover Sport for the Exige.
      • In another variant on this stunt, Clarkson compared the Mercedes SLK55 AMG to the Porsche Boxster S by driving both cars through a British Army urban combat training facility while attempting to evade expert snipers from the Irish Guards, firing at him using special laser targeting systems designed for "live fire" combat simulations.
    • Clarkson also set out to discover if a mid range Ford Fiesta could be used by the Royal Marines in an amphibious assault. The result: amazingly, yes.
      • Just before that he drove the same Fiesta through a shopping mall while being "chased" by a Corvette. While reviewing various aspects of the car.
      • "I just broke the speed limit...INDOORS!"
      • Fun fact: This set of tests were after someone wrote in complaining that they didn't do the good old fashioned standard tests like they used to in the old format days. Apparently the old standard road tests include things like marine assaults and car chases. This is why reading 'The World According to Clarkson' is a surreal experience.
    • Conversion of motor vehicles into amphibious vehicles: On two separate occasions, Clarkson, Hammond, and May were challenged to buy used vehicles, convert them to be amphibious, and then drive them across a body of water (a freshwater lake in the first episode; the English Channel from Dover to Calais in the second). And on both occasions, Hammond's conversion sank.
    • Escaping a submerged vehicle: With several trained divers as backup, Hammond was dropped into a deep pool in a car to see if it really is impossible to open the doors and windows while said car is sinking. This was left in the world's least nerve-wracking cliffhanger.
      Hammond: And we'll find out later if I die.
      • When the segment resumed, Hammond was eventually able to open the door and swim out. However, it took so long for the pressure to equalize that he ran out of air and had to get oxygen from a diver with him in the car. When they dropped the car into the pool a second time, he opened the door as soon as the car hit the water and escaped unaided.
    • "Extreme" test driving: Six foot, five inch tall Jeremy Clarkson once test drove a 1961 Peel P50 — a tiny, one person car — by driving it into and around the BBC television studios, including into an ersatz "Top Gear production meeting."
      • If you were watching BBC News 24 when Clarkson's test drive was being filmed, you might have seen something go across in the background...
    • Converting subcompacts into stretch limos: and then driving several celebrities to an awards show in their conversions.
    • Car football (soccer): Using a giant inflatable ball, two teams of professional drivers (captained by Hammond and May) played a football match using Toyota Aygos. Several seasons later, the winning team of Aygos defended their title against a team composed of Volkswagen Foxes. The VW Foxes won, not least because it was the same team of Aygos and most of them were damaged.
      • And in a variation on that theme, one of the events in the Top Gear Winter Olympics special was a game of car ice hockey, between two teams of Suzuki Swifts. As before, one team was captained by James May, the other by Richard Hammond, and the match was "refereed" by Jeremy Clarkson.
    • Destruct testing a Toyota Hilux pickup by, in order, driving it down stone steps, scraping it along walls, driving it into a tree, tying it to a jetty and leaving it to be submerged by the rising tide, driving it through a shed, dropping a caravan on it, hitting it with a wrecking ball, setting it on fire, and finally placing it on top of a 240 foot block of flats and demolishing the flats. No spare parts and no tools other than what would be in a normal car toolkit were used. It still started.
      • It now occupies a place of honour in the main studio.
      • Shortly after the show aired, Toyota released a new version of the Hilux called the 'Invincible', and Clarkson had one modified by Arctic Trucks for the Polar Special.
    • Going on a caravan holiday. As both Clarkson and Hammond hate caravans and it ended up burning down (after crashing several times and getting lost) this was Better Than It Sounds.
    • Playing "car conkers" using two cars (or caravans) held aloft by electromagnetic cranes. This is sometimes the fate of a car that the presenters really don't like, as was the case in the episode where Clarkson tries driving an early-model FSO Polonez.
    • Playing 'car darts' using old cars, an air cannon and a large dartboard painted on the floor of a quarry. Extra points were awarded to the person who also destroyed the caravan conveniently placed on the bulls-eye.
    • Converting a Reliant Robin three-wheel car into a space shuttle (with the help of a team of Rocket Engineers, of course). The challenge was, that if they got it high enough and could then land it (via remote control), the European Union would grant them funds to build a full sized one to go to space. It got to the required height but couldn't release itself from the main fuel tank, and crashed down in a ball of fire.
    • Customizing a Soviet-built Lada into a sports sedan. Granted, this required enlisting a team of technicians from Group Lotus, a fortnight, and about £100,000.
  • The Cool Wall: From time to time, Clarkson and Hammond rate the coolness of various cars by placing photographs of them on a large board labeled (in decreasing degree of coolness) "Sub Zero", "Cool", "Uncool", "Seriously Uncool". The decision had nothing to do with the quality of the car; the two criteria of how cool a car is were 1) how much the presenters believed that actress Kristin Scott Thomas would be impressed by that car, subject to the rule that 2) any car owned by one of the presenters would automatically be ruled "uncool" on that grounds alone. Interestingly enough, when Kristin Scott Thomas actually appeared on the show, it turned out that she liked the cars Clarkson and Hammond had called "Uncool", and was less than thrilled with the ones they had decided were "Cool". Since then, Clarkson and Hammond have substituted their appraisal of the reaction of BBC news anchor Fiona Bruce for Scott Thomas's as their decision rule.
    • Don't forget the DB9 Fridge, complete with dry-ice smoke, created when the Aston Martin DB9 was deemed too cool for the "Sub Zero" rating. Exactly why a fridge is considered sub-Sub Zero has never been addressed — at the very least, it should be a DB9 Freezer.
    • Hammond once attempted to put a superbike on the wall in the "Cool" section, prompting Clarkson to remove it and the wall around it with a CHAINSAW.
      • Clarkson loves to tamper with Hammond's Cool Wall decisions. Once Hammond was so adamant on a decision of his that Clarkson had to place it high up where Hammond couldn't reach.
      • When Clarkson slipped two discs in his back, Hammond got revenge by placing his choices very low, where Clarkson couldn't reach.
      • Hammond also used a scissor-lift to place a card a long way out of reach during a dispute. Clarkson responded by hitting the Emergency Stop switch, preventing him from getting down again. Hammond was stuck up there for the rest of the episode.
      • At one time, while Clarkson was on the waiting list to purchase a Ford GT, he moved all Fords on the Cool Wall to the top of the "super cool" section. Hammond quickly moved them back where they belonged.
  • Overseas Specials: A combination of Road Trip and "Cheap-Car Challenge." Traditionally appearing once a season, these are entire episodes dedicated to the trio making their way across a country in cheap cars they bought there, while performing challenges. They often have an ostensible purpose (e.g. the Botswana special was intended to demonstrate that two-wheel-drive cars are good enough for most terrain) but their main charm is the scenery, the humor of the challenges, and the chemistry of 'three mates mooching along.' Unlike the road trips, the presenters usually have to rough it, camping out overnight and having limited access to the amenities of civilization. These specials tend to be rich with Continuity Nods and Running Gags, and often include an encounter with the Stig's local cousin.
    • US Special (Southern United States - aired February 2007): The presenters bought used cars for US$1000 in Miami, Florida and then drove to New Orleans, Louisiana to see whether it is more economical to buy a car for the use of two weeks than to rent one. Originated the tradition of painting slogans on each other's cars.
    • Africa Special (Botswana - aired November 2007): The presenters bought cars locally for less than £1500 and attempted to cross "the spine of Africa", including the Makgadikgadi Pan (the world's largest salt flats) and the Okavango Delta. The presenters' successful crossing made them the first to cross the Makgadikgadi by car. Originated the tradition of an odious emergency backup vehicle as a penalty if the presenters' own cars broke down. This is also the special in which Richard Hammond "met" Oliver, his beloved 1963 Opel Kadett.
    • Vietnam Special (aired December 2008): The presenters purchased used motorbikes for 15 million dong (ca. £600 or US$1000) and attempted to travel the length of Vietnam. Along the way, they amused themselves by buying each other odd, bulky presents and watching the others struggle to carry these items on their bikes. The backup car for this special was a bike painted in the colors of the US flag, blaring "Born in the USA" on speakers.
    • South America Special (Bolivia and Chile - aired December 2009): The presenters bought off-road vehicles for less than £3,500 over the Internet and attempted to drive from the center of the Bolivian rainforest to the Pacific coast in Chile. On the way, they had to build a temporary bridge over a ditch, ford a river, negotiate the terrifying Yungas Road in Bolivia, and cross the Andes mountains. The special put all three presenters through the wringer, as their worst fears (heights, insects, and manual labor) were present in abundance, making this their most harrowing episode since the Polar Special.

The Australian version, obviously named Top Gear Australia... is actually not that bad, though Your Mileage May Vary. The hosts for the first season, Warren Brown, Charlie Cox (now being replaced by James Morrison for the second season) and Steve Pizzati bring their own brand of entertainment to the normal Top Gear format... The first episode alone had Warren using a small car as Great White Shark bait. And let's not get started on the other crazy things they've done.

A US version, planned by NBC and to be co-developed by BBC America spent ages in Development Hell - partly due to BBC America's reluctance to take part in an American version of a show that is already watched by millions in its original form in that country; partly because NBC decided that the originally planned host, Jay Leno, would be better deployed doing a Prime Time comedy/variety show 5 nights a week (Don't ask how that worked out) and they couldn't figure out who else to host it. Jeremy Clarkson, speaking in Australia at an event connected with the launch of Top Gear Australia, confirmed that Top Gear USA has been canceled, stating that when samples of the prospective show were shown to US focus groups, the focus group members "... just don't understand a single word we're on about. They just don't get it really." This is ironic, since the original British version — as mentioned above — enjoys a good deal of popularity in America and is BBC America's second highest rated show after Torchwood, even though episodes on BBC America are Edited For Syndication.

Has an official, legal and above-board YouTube channel - see also "YouTube", below.

This show provides examples of:
  • Abhorrent Admirer: Richard Hammond gets a fan letter, ostensibly from a mentally-disturbed prisoner about to be released on parole....named Stuart.
  • Above The Ruins: Hammond and May cackling over the devastation after their 'car darts' game.
  • Acceptable Targets: Too many to list, but they're particularly fond of slamming Labour politicians, environmentalists, the politically correct, America, France, Germany, Switzerland, The Midlands and anybody working for the Health and Safety Executive.
    • Also Acceptable Ethnic Targets (in the broader sense): the constant joking about the height of both Richard Hammond (shorter than average) and Jeremy Clarkson (taller than average).
      Clarkson [during the "man with van" challenge, while the presenters were loading cargo]: Richard really did have a size problem, and his van was pretty small too.
  • Adult Fear: Clarkson and May, driving over the sea ice during the Polar Special.
    • All three presenters while driving over the Yungas Road in Bolivia, especially when Clarkson was trying to pass an oncoming car.
    • And again while Clarkson and May were driving down the giant sand dune to the Pacific Ocean.
  • Agony Of The Feet: May, during the DIY Caterham 7 challenge.
  • The Alleged Car: Every now and again.
    • One example is the FSO Polonez, a Polish-built Fiat 125 derivative which so offended Clarkson that he decreed it be used to play conkers with the aid of an electromagnetic crane. And just about every car in the segment answering the question "Did the Communists ever produce a good car?" Answer: "No".
      • Technical answer: Sort of. Hammond cites the Ferrari F50 as being the best communist car in the world, being as it was produced when the Italian Communist Party controlled the city of Modena, where the Ferrari factory is.
    • During challenges of the "buy-a-cheap-car-and-endure-a-series-of-tests" variety, one of the presenters will usually discover he has bought the Alleged Car. Perhaps the best example: Clarkson's Maserati from the "Italian Supercars for Less than a Second-Hand Mondeo" challenge. Its engine completely disintegrated while under power.
    • Inverted by the emergency backup vehicles the producers will sometimes provide. Said cars (on one occasion it was a bike) are always mechanically reliable, yet all three presenters will hate them for one reason or another and rather be dead (or spend all night desperately fixing on their purchased bangers) than drive it.
      • Speaking of Alleged Bikes, Clarkson's Vespa during the Vietnam challenge was horribly unsuited to the area, slow, fragile and falling apart, and Clarkson's modifications (adding about a dozen mirrors to the front) didn't help.
    • The Top Gear homemade electric car, the "Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust". Autocar magazine didn't think much of it, although hilariously they still ranked it higher than the Reva G-Wiz (a real mass produced electric car).
  • The All Solving Hammer: If Jeremy Clarkson is ever in a garage, be assured that a hammer is not far away.
  • Amusing Injuries: Anything that isn't life-threatening is played for humor. Even Hammond's accident comes up for laughs every now and then, but only well after the fact, and very delicately.
  • And The Winner Is: A Volkswagen Beetle in the Botswana episode, much to Hammond's dismay.
  • And This Is For: During the American South challenge, the presenters were told to paint offensive slogans on the other's cars, with points awarded if the person driving said car was arrested or killed. They took on the job with a surprising lack of reluctance
    Hammond: [painting Clarkson's car] Revenge for all those height gags. Every time he's called me "Hamster."
    Clarkson: [painting May's car] This is for every time you've been late and lost.
    May: [defending his work to a genuinely dismayed Hammond and Clarkson] All the times you drove into the back of my Cadillac.
  • And Zoidberg: A voiceover gag, usually coupled with a Verbal Backspace
    Presenter: And with the cars at the start line, we were ready for the off. [beat] Well, two of us were.
    [cut to one of the other presenters out of his car, unable to get the car started, facing the wrong direction, etc.]
  • Angrish: Get Hammond flustered or angry enough and he will lose the ability to speak coherently.
  • Angst What Angst: The presenters allegedly have a pact (mentioned in the context of Hammond's accident but apparently still in force) that, should any of them die, the remaining hosts would appear at the beginning of the next episode, make a mournful comment, pause for a moment of silence, and then say, "Anyway," and cheerily continue with the show.
  • Animal Testing: All of the official Top Gear t-shirts sold at their online store have written on their label: These t-shirts were tested on animals. They didn't fit.
  • Annoying Laugh: James May.
  • Answer Cut: From the Vietnam special:
    Hammond: Do you think [Jeremy's] enjoying his first biking experience?
    [cut to]
    Clarkson: [riding his scooter, alone, on a dark street] I AM THE MOST MISERABLE HUMAN BEING ALIVE!
  • Anticlimax: A regular occurrence, but often happens when the audience least expects it. An example would be when they drove an F1 car indoors, and it managed... 90mph. They still broke the indoor speed record.
    • The biggest one of these was in Season Eleven, where, after years of hype, the Bugatti Veyron finally did a power lap... and finished fourth on the overall board before being immediately bumped down to fifth by a new Zonda. As Clarkson noted, they actually did end on a bombshell for once.
    • Arguably, any time a car does a lap on the track, gets placed on the board, then is immediately taken down for violating one of the rules (too low, slick tires, what have you).
  • Anvil On Head: After 12.06 when May and Clarkson set a Morris Marina on fire, they received so much hate mail from the Morris Marina Owners Club that subsequently whenever the car appears on camera, it is almost guaranteed to be destroyed, usually by a piano falling on it.
  • Anyone Can Die: Due to the nature of the show, the presenters might be seriously hurt or even killed while filming. That being said, every effort is made to minimize the risk.
  • The Apple Falls Far: During the South American Special on the North Yungas Road, also known as El Camino de la Muerte — The Road of Death.
  • Appropriated Appellation: "Hamster," and to a much lesser extent "Captain Slow." "The Stig" was also the name stuck on new boys at Clarkson and Andy Wilman's old school — it has since become synonymous with white clothing and sheer automotive badassery.
  • Aside Glance: Hammond and May excel at these, usually as nonverbal commentary on whatever Jeremy Clarkson is doing.
  • Ask A Stupid Question: The V8 Blender
    [Clarkson puts on ear muffs]
    May: Is it loud?
    Clarkson: [points to the V8 sitting on the floor] Is it loud, James? Yeah, 'course it's loud.
  • A Simple Plan: Usually subverted — it always seems the team can devise an easy solution to the seemingly impossible task they are given, but with each of the three hosts vying to get his idea in first it never is. A source of several running gags.
  • Arson Murder And Jaywalking: The list of famous people who owned a Mercedes 600 Grosser.
  • A Team Firing: Clarkson trying (and failing miserably) to hit biathlon shooting targets with an MP5A5 machine pistol during the Winter Olympics special.
    May: The great thing about Jeremy's shooting is that you are perfectly safe just as long as you stand right in front of the target.
  • A Team Montage: Used occasionally when the week's challenge has the presenters working together (or separately) to modify their rides. Lampshaded three times: 1) in the Winter Olympics special, when the theme to The A Team was used as background music for the A Team Montage of the boys preparing the rocket-powered Morris Mini and the Lillehammer ski jump for the Mini's ski jump attempt, 2) was hummed by James May in the Vietnam Special during a montage of the boys modifying their cycles into watercraft (so they can make it to the finish at the bar in Ha Long Bay), and 3) was played in the Bolivia special, when Clarkson announced it was time to "find a workshop and cue the music."
  • Backed By The Ministry Of Defence: Top Gear frequently has appearances from members of the British Army, Royal Marines or Royal Air Force, taking part in all sorts of hijinks under the guise of car tests. This includes a tank/an attack helicopter/snipers from the Irish Guards hunting down Jeremy Clarkson as he drives a car or SUV, and more recently Clarkson reviewing the new Ford Fiesta in part by using it in a Royal Marine beach assault and playing a motorised version of British Bulldog with various armoured vehicles and a Mitsubishi, Richard Hammond racing a British Army parachutist or RAF pilot flying a Eurofighter Typhoon (Hammond's first shot at driving the Bugatti Veyron), and a BAE Sea Harrier doing a Power Lap.
  • Badass Arm Fold: Some say his elbows don't bend...
  • Badass Decay: Jimmy Carr posted the second fastest time on the original Star in a Reasonably Priced Car board, but ended up bottom of the board on his attempt when they switched to the Lacetti. To be fair, he was doing well on his timed lap... until the slight matter of him crashing out on the last corner came up.
  • Badass Driver: ...and that he and Michael Schumacher have never been seen in the same room...
  • Badass Grandpa: Michael Gambon, who in his first time on the track clipped the last corner and nearly rolled the Liana. He ended up being airborne and taking the corner on two wheels at one point. The last corner was renamed "Gambon" in his honor.
    Clarkson: Last time tonight's star was here he performed so well, a corner was named after him. Please welcome Sir Michael Follow-Through!
    • He then clipped the corner again in the Lacetti. When Jeremy questioned him on this, he claimed "I don't know, I just don't like it".
  • Berserk Button: Hammond's allegedly whitened teeth (after much teasing from the other two).
  • Better Than It Sounds: The very show itself is made of this trope: Three middle-aged men arse about with cars and a whole bunch of the BBC's money. You wouldn't think much of this premise just reading it, but the results are brilliant.
    • Also many of the stunts and challenges are the embodiment of this trope. The Caravan Holiday. The amphibious car conversions. A Star In A Reasonably Priced Car. The list is potentially endless...
    • Get this: Top Gear actually managed to rent an entire shopping mall just to test the Ford Fiesta against a Chevrolet Corvette once. The result: Quite possibly the coolest modern car chase scene in your life (or at least since a similar scene was filmed for the movie The Blues Brothers).
  • Beware The Nice Ones: On the rare occasions May gets fed up with his co-presenters, what he does to them is usually much crueler than what they've been doing to him.
    • In the Bolivia special, he nearly "macheted [Clarkson] to death" when Clarkson trod on his frazzled nerves on the frightening cliffside "Road of Death."
  • Beyond The Impossible: What unbelievably hard task can the producers set the three presenters this week?
  • Bilingual Bonus: In a recent challenge segment, Clarkson, Hammond, and May were competing against the hosts of German car show D Motor, who often spoke in their native language. Let's just say that the translations from German were often incomplete (or left out entirely) for decency reasons.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Several of the races
    • Clarkson (Bugatti Veyron) vs. May and Hammond (private plane/Eurostar rail system) race to London: Clarkson won but claimed the victory was "hollow" because he would have to live the rest of his life knowing what the Veyron was like to drive but never owning one.
    • Hammond (Ferrari Daytona) vs. May (carbon-fiber superboat) race to Saint-Tropez. May arrived first, but Hammond claimed moral victory on the basis of the Ferrari's style (which May conceded). Hammond was nevertheless disappointed that the French Riviera had lost much of its glitter
      Hammond: [sitting in a traffic jam] Oh, now this isn't right. Holiday homes for sale... Burgers... Traffic. [sadly] The car's still brilliant, but the world has changed...
    • The 'review' of the new Aston Martin, which ended the 13th season.
  • Blasphemous Boast: Clarkson once described a car he was reviewing as having this kind of torque. I forget the exact quote.
  • Blatant Lies: One very good example, in the lorry driving challenge Richard Hammond's cargo (a small car) had fallen out of the trailer during the alpine course. Afterwards, when Jeremy Clarkson showed up:
    Jeremy Clarkson: This is totally ... so anyway, how was your car?
    [Pause, as May and Hammond exchange glances]
    James May: Car's...
    Richard Hammond (interrupting May): Stolen! That's what it is, I've just thought of it now: stolen. The damnedest thing.
    • Also in the British Leyland challenge, one of the tests required the presenters to drive their cars to the top of a steep hill, put the handbrake on and get out of the car. Clarkson's car couldn't even get to the top of the hill, but generated so much smoke while he was trying to get to the top that he claimed he'd completed the test, it just happened that no-one saw him do it because of all the smoke. Naturally, everyone believed him.
      • That entire challenge was full of Blatant Lies about the quality of British Leyland's vehicles which, despite the presenters' claims to the contrary, are regarded by just about the entire world as So Bad They Were Horrific. Although it did end up being somewhat justified at the end when it turned out that the Austin Princess was actually a pretty decent (if not especially fast) car.
    • Top Gear throws out lies like this on a regular basis, especially if a presenter thinks it'll make his car (or cars in general) sound better. When in the Car vs. Boat vs. Bike vs. Public Transport challenge the car (driven by James May) came in dead last, all three presenters banded together to claim that the footage had been edited, going so far as to claim that the Thames didn't exist and Jeremy Clarkson had been killed when his boat exploded (as stated by Clarkson himself).
    • The episode with the Hammerhead Eagle iThrust car was an entire exercise in blatant lies, basically from start to (almost) finish.
  • Blind Idiot Translation: While Clarkson and May are attempting to operate one of the earliest production cars, with instructions "translated" from the original French
    Clarkson: [reading] "For making the carriage walking at the first speed, take back the drag of the wheel backward crowbar of the right and take completely and progressively back the crowbar of embrayage to you..."
  • Bold Inflation: Clarkson and occasionally Hammond.
    Hammond: Nobody outside of a comic strip is called "Max Venturi, Lamborghini Tester"!
  • Boring Invincible Hero: Jeremy lampshades this trope when he interviewed Michael Schumacher:
    Jeremy: Are you finding it boring when one person just endlessly wins?
  • Bottle Episode: (rare non-fiction example) Top Gear occasionally has an episode where the presenters tell us they've "spent all the money" and can't afford their normal mix of insane stunts and expensive cars.
  • Bound And Gagged: During the Top Gear vs. D-Motor episode, Clarkson tells Hammond that May has been replaced by the Stig to win a race.
    Hammond: Some say you saved our bacon.
    May: Others say I was bound and gagged in the locker room.
    • In Series 14, Clarkson is seen tied up in a chair so that Hammond and May can work on their car sculptures uninterrupted.
  • Brief Accent Imitation: German, Russian, Australian and American English have had their share of gefingerpoken
  • British Brevity: At most, a series will have eleven episodes. Top Gear makes up for that by having two series a year.
  • British Teeth: Inversion: the continual comedic accusation leveled at (and denied by) Richard Hammond that he has had his teeth whitened.
  • Broken Aesop: At the end of the episode recapping Richard Hammond's unfortunate debacle with the jet-powered car at 288 mph.
    Clarkson: The thing is, though, we have learned an important lesson today, thanks to Richard — do please remember: speed kills.
    [Cut to Hammond, looking incredulous and very much alive.]
  • Butt Monkey: Hammond is usually the one to get drowned or struck by lightning for the stunts, while in the Car vs. Something Else challenges Hammond is always the one to cycle across London or try to reach the North Pole with a dogsled, while May or Clarkson drive.
    • Amusingly, and much to the chagrin of the other two, Hammond often wins anyway.
      • Hammond's also the youngest and in the best shape, so he's the one that has to do physical stunts by default.
    • James (AKA "Captain Slow"), on the other hand, is frequently mocked for being slow, dull, old-fashioned, and obsessively tidy.
      Clarkson: All he's done, all morning — he files. He takes stuff out, and then puts it back and files it where it's supposed to be.
    • As Season 12 amply demonstrates, rule of thumb dictates that Clarkson has his fair share too. See the Vietnam Special for proof.
  • Caffeine Bullet Time: Hammond on a buzz from carmelized coca leaves in Bolivia.
  • Camera Abuse: Often. Cameras, high-speed vehicles, and rough roads/seas are a bad combination.
    • In the "police cars" challenge, Clarkson smeared petroleum jelly on the lens of a camera to get a dramatic 'soft focus' [read: hopelessly blurry] effect for his power lap.
  • Candid Camera Prank: The "paint offensive slogans on your cars and rile the locals" scene in the American South special is one of these which went wrong.
  • The Captain: Clarkson. His leadership is so obvious and unquestioned that the German hosts of D Motor called him "Top Gear Boss" for most of their crossover episode.
  • Cardboard Boxes: Hammond is granted points for his use of this trope in the second hand police car challenge.
  • Car Fu: The live show.
    • Also, the motorhome and bus races, where the 'no contact' rule somehow slips everyone's mind before the end of the first lap.
  • Cargo Ship: The show is pretty much the embodiment of this trope. Clarkson has had an abusive relationship with his Ford GT, fell in love with the Bugatti Veyron and claimed he wanted to elope with a Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera.(He has also licked various cars on camera, most recently the Audi R8 V10.) Hammond has fallen in love with Oliver the Opel Kadett and a Pagani Zonda. Both Clarkson and Hammond wanted to have some 'alone time' with a picture of an Alfa Brera.
    • Taken to extremes by Hammond, who now co-hosts another show, Blast Lab, with Oliver.
    • In Series 14 James May found himself enamoured of a Dacia Sandero while in Romania — an affair which was tragically cut short when it was destroyed by a lorry.
      • He should have named it; maybe it would have lived then.
  • Car Meets House: Clarkson's Volvo in the car-for-a-17-year-old challenge. In all fairness, it could have been a pack of roving anarchists.
  • Carrying A Cake: James May's cargo in the "Lorries" challenge was a giant wedding cake, which met a predictable fate. Clarkson and Hammond (pile of straw + electric heater; unsecured car, respectively) fared worse, however.
  • Casual Danger Dialog: Clarkson, fleeing through a shopping mall while "baddies" pursue him in a Corvette, divides his time between reviewing aspects of the Ford Fiesta he is driving and commenting on the shortcomings of the 'Vette.
  • Catch Phrase: Numerous.
    Jeremy Clarkson: "...and on that bombshell, goodnight!"; "How hard can it be?"; "Still. Could be worse.."; "I went on the Internet... and I found this." "POWERRRRRR"
    Richard Hammond: [while introducing a stunt] "...I think you can see where this is going." "Don't like that."
    James May: "Oh... cock."
    Any of the presenters: "Nobody in the whole of human history has ever said that before"; "A series of challenges"; [Introducing the Stig] "Some say... And that... All we know is, he's called The Stig".
  • Cats Are Mean: James May's cat Fusker. May has stated (on Something For The Weekend) that his cat loathes his guts and, just like Richard Hammond (whose wife Mindy gave him the cat), is always trying to kill him.
    • And during Series 14:
      Clarkson: (pointing at May) He said the other day, when I said I'm going to set my dog on his cat, 'oh, he won't be able to do it!'
      May: What, your gay dog comes round to see my cat? Get his bloody head kicked in!
  • Caustic Critic: Probably all the presenters at times, but especially Clarkson.
  • Character Development: All three. Over the course of 12 seasons, Clarkson has become sharper on some issues and mellower on others; Hammond has become slightly less reckless; and May has become bolder and freer.
  • Character Filibuster: This trope was designed for May. He often goes on rants so long-winded or into such meticulous detail about physics, they've actually shaded it by fading out between scenes, coming back later to find that he is still talking.
  • Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys: A favorite expression used by Clarkson when discussing the French. May be modified to fit the occasion: e.g. during the Val Thorens ice race the other drivers were "cheese-eating sideways monkeys."
  • Chekhov's Gun: The remote to James's sound system in the "perfect car for a seventeen year old" challenge.
  • Cliff Hanger: Each episode has one or two main films; the longer ones are often interrupted at a tense moment and resumed towards the end of the show. (Since the presenter in the film is usually right there in the studio while the film is being screened, not much tension can build, so this is sometimes played for humor).
  • Cliffs Of Insanity: El Camino de la Muerte ("Death Road", aka Yungas Road) in the Bolivia special, and to a lesser extent the Andes mountains.
  • Cluster F Bomb: Richard Hammond
    [while stuck in road construction in Italy on a road trip to find the world's best driving road]
    Hammond: We come all the way here in these cars and you [bleep] it up because you're a [bleep] feeble-minded [bleep]. Utter utter [bleep]! [Bleeeep] useless!
    • And during the race across London, when Hammond was repeatedly stopped by traffic signals:
    Hammond: Bloody lights! Bloody [bleep] [bleep] [bleep] [bleep] lights! [bleep] hate them!
  • Come For The X Stay For The Y: Tune in because of one's interest in cars; continue tuning in because the show is hilarious (how many Americans have discovered the show).
    • Or come for the Stig, stay... for Clarkson.
      • Or come for the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, stay for Clarkson.
      • Actually it's more like come for the tropes, stay for [insert presenter's name here]
  • Comedic Sociopathy: Constantly, bordering on With Friends Like These
    • To give an example: one challenge had the three presenters try to get a lorry moving from a hill start without rolling backwards. In order to "motivate" them, each of them had a prized possession placed directly behind the vehicle. When it was Clarkson's turn, his drum kit was placed behind the lorry, but he managed to get it moving without rolling, so the drum kit escaped unharmed. That is, until Hammond and May walked over and smashed it up, claiming, "You were so close!" when Clarkson returned. Clarkson immediately knew what had happened, and was not pleased.
  • Comic Trio: This shuffles around quite a bit, although Jeremy's usually the schemer, with Richard and James trading off on the stupid/going along with it and the helpless.
  • Companion Cube: Oliver, Hammond's 1963 Opel Kadett.
    • Hammond loves his dear old motor so much that during the 12th season episode Lorries he forfeited one of the challenges because if he failed, he would have backed into (and probably over) Oliver with a semi-articulated truck.
  • Completely Missing The Point: After teasing from both Hammond and May over Clarkson's interview with Will Young, where they imply that Clarkson's in love, Jeremy asks "are you suggesting Will Young is gay?".
  • Consolation World Record: On more than one occasion. Hammond may or may not have set an official British record for land speed before his accident (the run before the crash was 314 mph, breaking the previous record of 300.3), but the dangerous accident at 288 mph may well have set a record (unofficially) for fastest land crash. (After learning the speed record requires making two runs in opposite directions and then averaging the speed, Clarkson joked Hammond would need to go out and crash again).
    • They also inadvertently set the world indoor speed record with an F1 car. And almost set it with a Chevrolet Lacetti...
  • Continuity Nod: Occasionally in dialogue; more often these happen when a vehicle from a previous adventure appears in a subsequent episode. The ultimate Continuity Nod is the mangled Toyota Hilux permanently on display in the studio, which looks like a tragic wreck to anyone unfamiliar with the series.
  • Cool And Unusual Punishment: The emergency backup vehicles, which are invariably 1) something hateful to all three presenters, 2) completely inappropriate for the setting, or 3) both.
    May [During the Vietnam Special]: If [Hammond] turns up on Bruce Springsteen, I'll feel quite sorry for him, but I'll still laugh.
  • Cool Boat: Several
  • Cool Car: Numerous vehicles, with the most notable being the Bugatti Veyron, with nearly 1000bhp although as of the 12th season, it has not managed to topple the Gumpert's first place Power Lap time. The Top Gear presenters honored the Veyron in 2009 by naming it the Car of the Decade. Then there's the Cool Wall of course, where supercars are usually rated 'Uncool' — for the obvious reason. The Koenigsegg is the exception because even The Stig crashed it, and anything that tricky must be cool.
  • Cool Plane: The Eurofighter Typhoon
    • Clarkson also had an English Electric Lightning fighter in his garden for a while.
    • The WAH-64 Longbow Apache they used to chase a Lotus Exige around the test track
    • When challenging their German counterparts, the lads turned up in... Supermarine Spitfires. The coolest of the cool planes.
    • The Boeing 747 permanently parked at the test track has its own movie career, it played the part of the prototype airliner in Casino Royale
  • Cool Train: The steam-powered BR Class A1 60163 Tornado in the London-Edinburgh race. Doubly cool on the grounds that its fire was stoked by Clarkson.
  • Cool Versus Awesome: Bugatti Veyron v. RAF Eurofighter Typhoon... and that's only one example.
  • Costume Test Montage: Jeremy Clarkson, picking a suit to drive the Audi TT in.
  • Cough Snark Cough: In the Botswana special, when Clarkson's Lancia Beta Coupe has broken down. Again.
    May: [cough] Beetle!
  • Could Say It But: In Season 6, Clarkson did this as a way of sneakily previewing a car (an Aston Martin V8 Vantage) he wasn't technically allowed to announce yet. May and Hammond played along with a chorus of "I would have really like to hear that" and "Oh, I wish you could have told us that."
  • Couldn't Find A Pen: Jeremy declared that the Dodge Viper was a car "so sophisticated, it could write its own name." He then proceeded to write the word "Viper" on the test track, using skidmarks.
  • Cowboy Bebop At His Computer: Played for laughs, with the presenters always getting computer terminology wrong ("if you own an internet, why not visit us at Top Gear Dot Internet Dot Website Slash BBC London W12") and some celebrities' names, like mixing Puff Daddy / P Diddy's names to produce "P Diddly".
    • And again with references to 'GameStation', 'Facetube' and 'YouBook'.
  • Crack! Oh, My Back!: Clarkson injured his neck quite badly in a Nissan GT-R in Season 11, and a second time when driving through a brick wall in the Lorries challenge in Season 12.
  • Crazy Awesome: The rare occasions where Clarkson's Tim Taylor Technology-based plans actually work, such as the Toybota/Nissank car-boat conversions.
    • James May could have summed up Finnish drivers as this and it would have worked.
    • Clarkson built a V8 powered blender. Then he used it to make a smoothie out of beef (and bones), Bovril, chilis, Tabasco, and (for added bite) a brick.
    • Attempting to turn a Reliant Robin into a space shuttle. Even if it failed, the idea was in itself downright epic.
  • Credits Gag: One of the show's favorite tropes, pretty much always rolled out for the specials:
    • The Botswana special episode had all the names in the credits as Archbishop Desmond (person's surname).
    • The earlier America special featured names such as "Cletus Clarkson", "Ellie-May May" and "Bubba T. Stig"
    • The Polar Special had all the names read "Sir Ranulph (surname)".
    • The Winter Olympics special had all the names read "Bjorn (surname)", except for Hammond, May and The Stig, who took the names "Benny Hammond", "Agnetha May", and "Anni-Frid Stig" respectively.
    • The Vietnam special had them all listed as Francis Ford (surname).
    • After an episode which featured a challenge to test reasonably-priced hatchbacks by taking them for a lap of the test track with a large dog in the car — with disqualification resulting if the dog looked sad at the end of the lap — the credits ended with the undisclaimer: "Some animals were harmed in the making of this programme".
  • Crowning Moment Of Awesome: Settle in and get comfortable; this will take a while.
    • Each presenter has one or two according to the opening title montage: currently Hammond has the Bugatti Veyron/Eurofighter Typhoon race and his attempt at driving a Formula One car; May has the Reliant Robin shuttle launch; and Clarkson has the Peel P50, his "giant Panda" limo conversion, and the race across London during morning rush hour.
    • Michael Schumacher coming onto Top Gear.
    • Jay Leno's guest appearance.
    • Two Words: Toyota Hilux.
    • Crossing the English Channel in a Toyboata Nissank; especially as things had gone so badly beforehand, and they almost rolled it getting ashore.
  • Crowning Moment Of Funny: So many it has its own page
  • Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: Hammond's return to the show after his accident.
    • The Hilux rolling into the studio. What?
    • The goal of the American roadtrip was to buy a cheap car, drive it from point A to point B, and resell it. Point B happened to be New Orleans, still devastated by Hurricane Katrina twelve months after the initial disaster. What do you think the guys did with their cars? (Well, James May tried to, but nobody wanted his car even as a gift. It wasn't even the one stinking of bloated dead cow.)
  • Curse Cut Short: while Clarkson was reviewing a new Ford Fiesta in an attempt to do a "proper" road test, the segments kept ending when he tried to say that an aspect of the car was sh-
    • Likewise, when James and Jeremy were doing challenges in their own classic luxury cars, Richard's introduction ended just as he was about to call them twa-
      • Since he only got out the 'tw', he could have been about to say "twits". Well, it's within the realm of possibility, anyway.
  • Damn You Muscle Memory: When the presenters or a guest operates a vehicle with an unfamiliar layout. A recent example was the Vincent Black Shadow motorcycle, which stymied Hammond at first because the brake was where he expected the gear lever to be.
  • Deadpan Snarker: James May
  • Deep South: Which they drove through with slogans on their cars like "country and western is rubbish", "NASCAR sucks", "Hillary for President" and "MAN-LOVE RULES OK", with predictable consequences.
    • Apparently "Hillary for President" and even "manlove rules OK" would have probably elicited nothing more extreme than horns and rude comments, but you don't slag C&W or NASCAR.
  • Defcon Five: Clarkson, like so many others, got the Defcon levels wrong when he said that stepping up his Bugatti Veyron (the world's fastest-ever production car) to no-spoiler fast mode took him from Defcon 3 to 4.
    • In another episode, he announced that it was time to go to 'Defcon Stig'.
  • Delicious Distraction: In the "Polar Special," May succeeded in distracting Clarkson with several gourmet food items and a bottle of Chablis from some secret stash.
  • Description Cut: Tends to follow statements like "X and I were doing our best to help Y" [cut to shot of Y working furiously while the other two ignore him].
    • Done very amusingly in the segment featuring the race across London during the middle of rush hour. Not quite the same, as it's not referring to a specific person, but entertaining anyway
      Jeremy Clarkson [in a boat on the Thames, leisurely cruising]: This has to be the most stress free and relaxing Monday morning rush-hour commute since the dawn of time.
      [Cut to the helmet camera of...]
      Richard Hammond [on a pedal bike, dodging traffic, lots of noise]: Oh no, not another set of sodding lights... Ah, bloody hell!
  • Determinator: The Jaguar XJ6 that went from Basel to Blackpool on one tank of diesel despite Jeremy doing everything he could to waste fuel. Did we mention Basel is in Switzerland?
    • Also the Audi A8 that drove from London to Edinburgh and back again on a single tank. At one point Clarkson noted that the Germans had actually "made a car that runs on air".
    • And the modified BMW used in the Britcar 24-hour race. With less than an hour to go, Clarkson (who was driving) claimed the car wanted to finish and he was just "willing it on"
    • The Hilux.
  • Dis Continuity: BBC America would like to pretend the Black Stig never existed: none of the episodes with him have ever aired on that channel. Oddly, the reference to him mentioned in Nitro Boost remained in their cut of the episode.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Usually played for humor. Usually.
    • In the Polar Special (in which the three presenters attempted to reach the magnetic north pole, two in a truck and one with a musher and dogsled), this was played dead straight when the three of them started feeling the effects of the cold, exhaustion, and isolation. They began threatening each other with physical harm for tiny infractions, and Clarkson destroyed May's can of "victory Spam" with a shotgun for no apparent reason.
    • May waving his machete in Clarkson's face. Although how "disproportionate" this was depends on if you're as tired of the "oh dear, I've run into the back of May's car" Running Gag as he is. When May was already under stress from driving a winding cliff road with no safety rail. Beware the nice ones, indeed.
  • Distracted By The Sexy: Used for comedic effect in one episode, where the cameraman is Distracted By The Sexy, and the camera drifts over to film some beach volleyball players instead of James May and the Honda FCX Clarity he is reviewing.
  • Does This Remind You Of Anything: The presenters' "examples" of car-logo Christmas gifts quickly degenerates into, well...
    May: [holds up a sword with pork chops on it]This pork sword —
    Clarkson: James, don't do the pork sword. [holds up a stuffed rooster with an Audi logo attached] This cock-
    Hammond: Has it got four rings on it?
    Clarkson: Yes it has!
  • Dont Try This At Home: Conspicuous by its absence.
    • Although they did have a strongly worded warning against insurance fraud in the perfect-car-for-a-17-year-old-boy challenge.
  • Double Entendre: Quite often. Sometimes leads into Does This Remind You Of Anything.
    [while doing the brakes in a Caterham 7 kit-car challenge]
    Clarkson: The nipple is off.. the tube is in the hole... I will be needing some pump
    May: You should feel it go stiff now
    Clarkson: Pump, man, pump. Braking happening?
    Hammond: Oh yeah, that's much better... yeah, that's hard.
  • Downer Ending: The (epic) Aston Martin Vantage V12 feature at the end of series 13 convinced more than a couple of people that it would be the last episode of the show, or at least of Clarkson's tenure on it. (Neither was true.)
  • Driving Stick: Several of the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car guests have had to go around the track in an automatic because they can't work out what a clutch pedal is for. You wonder why they'd go on a show about driving really. The occasional American or German has gotten lost in the gear pattern (which is the same on RHD as LHD, but "backwards" as far as muscle memory is concerned...)
    • One word: ratings. Probably due to some Executive Meddling.
    • Hey, that list of automatic users includes Christopher Eccleston!
  • Eagleland: The show and presenters, especially Clarkson, are infamous in some circles for hating on Americans and American cars — see Deep South above. Clarkson especially views Americans strictly through Flavor #2 glasses, which has provoked negative responses from viewers, and not just Americans. At the same time, all three of the presenters have favorably reviewed American cars. Two of Jeremy's favorite cars are the Dodge Viper and the Ford GT. May likes Cadillacs for their style and comfort. And Hammond owns a Dodge Charger and will like just about any traditional American muscle car (he chose the new Dodge Challenger during the American Supercar Challenge precisely because of this).
    • Clarkson's most Anvilicious moment of Yank-hating actually came in one of his other BBC programmes, Speed. After listening to Chuck Yeager claiming that the USAF invented the moving horizontal stabilizer (or 'Stabilator', actually first seen on a British aircraft), he cracks and decides to parade around Washington DC with a megaphone and a large sign with a list of British inventions shouting "We Invented Everything!". When he's "arrested" and put in a cruiser he tells the cops "You're going to put me in a car? That's a German invention, got nothing to do with you".
    • Even with all the America bashing, the show is a huge hit in the US. In fact, it could be argued that it's among the reasons it's popular.
    • In the Vietnam special, the punishment for having your motorbike break down was to have to use a bike painted in the colours of the US flag, playing "Born in the USA". Remember what happened over 30 years ago.
      Clarkson: Children, if you are watching this at home... and you don't know why this is inappropriate... ask your parents.
    • While they claimed in the US Supercar Challenge that they got in trouble with the US State Department because of their road-kill stunt, I've always thought that it was their condemnation of the US response to Hurricane Katrina that really got them into trouble.
  • Eat The Evidence: Richard Hammond has eaten things to keep Jeremy Clarkson from getting his hands on them, including a cardboard picture of a car (intended for the Cool Wall) and a piece of paper with the points for that week's challenge (which would prove Clarkson won). His nickname of "Hamster" is quite appropriate.
    • The fact that Hammond won wasn't actually in dispute. It was his claim that Clarkson had somehow racked up an improbably huge score on the final test of that challenge, which meant Hammond beat him by a single point (which would probably annoy Clarkson more than if Hammond scored a big win).
  • Eat That: On the American South special, the presenters were told that dinner would be whatever they could find on the side of the road. Clarkson somehow found and retrieved an entire dead cow. May promptly announced he had become a vegetarian.
  • Edited For Syndication: Rather clumsily, to make room for ad breaks on Dave — ironic, as sitcoms and panel games are generally unedited, taking up an awkward 40-minute place in the schedules. Dave's parent company often also comes under criticism for EFSing documentaries on their other channels.
    • Also edited for ad breaks on BBC America.
    • Dave also occasionally makes additional edits, such as beeping out swears that weren't beeped in the original BBC version. The most egregious example being during the £25,000 classic car challenge, when James's "Cock!" upon seeing Jeremy's time in the slalom is bleeped.
    • Some of the music is also changed in the Dave edit which can completely kill a moment in some cases.
    • In at least one case they edited the music on the iTunes distribution of an episode: in the Vietnam Special every shot of the "alternate transportation" (a gleaming motorcycle sporting US flags and painted in a red, white, and blue US flag motif) was accompanied by Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" as background music. In the iTunes release, the BGM is changed to "The Star Spangled Banner".
    • This can cause some problems if there's a running joke in an episode. Example: 13x02 (at least in the BBC America broadcast) edited out the news, including a part about having a 'crisis', which made future references to having a 'crisis' look like an inside joke. Also, a line from Clarkson about "separating the men from the Grindrs" loses its humor since the part where Stephen Fry shows Clarkson the Grindr app was edited out.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: The Stig. Some say he became so popular that they swapped his black coveralls to white ones to make him stand out more.
    • And some say he was the original drummer for the Who before suffering athlete's hand and going into the far more glamorous world of Top Gear. All we know is: he's called The Stig.
    • The original "Black Stig" was replaced because it became publicly known that he was really former F1 racing driver Perry McCarthy. It is part of The Stig's contract that if his true identity is ever revealed, he will "die" and be replaced.
      • In Series 13, Stig was unmasked on-show, revealing him to be Michael Schumacher! Yes, THAT Michael Schumacher!...possibly. The presenters cracked a joke about it when rumors began to spread that Schumacher planned to return to F1 to replace the injured Felipe Massa.. just about the time Top Gear filming usually ends. Convenient...
  • Epic Fail: The presenters are seldom satisfied with ordinary, garden-variety failure, especially with Clarkson around.
    • May actually has the best track record of the three main presenters when it comes to the challenges, but when he loses, he loses BIG. For instance, in the race across London he came last by over half an hour, coming behind even The Stig who was using London's notoriously congested and delay-prone public transport services, and in the white van test Clarkson and Hammond got scores of 21 and 10.5 respectively, whereas May got -3,999,993.
      • To reiterate: May got -3,999,993. Hammond got 10.5 and he flipped his van during the police chase test.
    • And how could we forget the homemade convertible? The final test, after exceeding 100 MPH and surviving lion filled safaris, was to make sure it can survive a car wash. How does it do? It falls apart, they are forced out of the wash, and then the convertible goes up in flames.
    • And you can't forget their attempt to make amphibious cars. "None of them were seaworthy. Mine was still on fire."
  • Escalating War: Most road trips.
  • Estrogen Brigade: Top Gear has a remarkably solid female fanbase for a show oriented around manly pursuits. The trap is probably baited with hamster, but Clarkson, May, and even The Stig have their devotees.
    • This is made fun of on the show frequently: all three have been featured in this context in magazines and suchforth, but only Hammond tends to appear on lists of "hottest male celebrities" (once in a gay magazine, technically making him testosterone bait as well). That said, all three main presenters have won the dubious title of Heat magazine's "Number One Weird Crush" in consecutive years, and there was a campaign for The Stig to win it in 2009 — though sadly he only managed third place.
  • Every Car Is A Pinto: Replace the word "car" with the word "caravan" and you're close. The team will not rest until every caravan on Earth is destroyed violently.
    Clarkson: [Series 4, episode 4] You know, that's the nineteenth caravan we've destroyed on this program in twelve months!
  • Every Episode Ending: Most episodes end with Jeremy Clarkson saying "...and on that bombshell, it's time to end..." or variants thereof with few exceptions. Such as when Clarkson was caught and devoured by a pack of hunting dogs...
  • Everything's Better With Dinosaurs: During Clarkson's review of the BMW Z4 and Nissan 370Z in series 13, the test track was inhabited by dinosaurs for no apparent reason. It's pretty awesome anyway.
  • Everything's Cuter With Kittens: One episode has Clarkson discussing the finer points of twin turbocharged engines, but before he launches into his explanation, he remarks that some people in the audience tend to find such explanations boring, "so here's some soft little kittens for you to look at." The screen splits halfway between Clarkson and a mound of cuddly little kittens.
  • Everythings Precious With Puppies: When they found out a dog is a better "girl magnet" than a hot car.
  • Evil Laugh: James May at the beginning of the Limousine Challenge while talking about the car he was going to use to make his limousine.
  • Executive Meddling: One of Clarkson's pet peeves, often lampshaded with snarly references to Health & Safety.
  • Extreme Omnivore: in Season 12, May nonchalantly took a drink of Clarkson's "manly V8 smoothie", which was composed of raw beef (with bones), Bovril, tabasco sauce, chilis, and "for added bite" a brick, blended in a blender powered by a Corvette's V8 engine. The nonchalance abruptly ended when the full effect of the taste hit.
    May: I've got the name for it: the Bloody Awful.
    • In another show, James ate bull penis and rotten shark...and outlasted Gordon Ramsay, who reached for the sick bucket after eating the shark.
    • And once he and Mika Hakkinen bonded over a cup of "hot reindeer blood". (Or possibly just coffee...)
  • Face Palm: All the presenters have done this to each other at some point.
    • Jeremy Clarkson facepalmed during the 14.02 news after an unexpected audience reaction:
      Clarkson: Now. We have to just touch on something, don't we, before we go because—
      Audience: [laughter]
      Hammond: No, no, no, no!
      Clarkson: [facepalm]
      • Not a complete surprise as they were talking about May's 'fizzing spot behind his penis' thing just before it.
  • Failure Is The Only Option: Subverted, averted and played straight — amazingly, sometimes within the same episode.
  • Fan Nickname: The presenters' In Series Nicknames (Jezza, Hamster, and Captain Slow) have been taken up by the fanbase. The presenters collectively are sometimes called the Top Gear Three, or TG3 for short.
    • Also "White Stig," distinguished from the former "Black Stig" by the white color of his racing suit.
  • Fanservice: You know Madison Welch wasn't invited to be on the show because of her extensive knowledge of cars...
    • Subverted with Jodie Kidd: no-one really expected anything out of her other than some eye candy, but she actually topped the "Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car" rankings when she appeared on the show, and held that title until the following season.
    • Fan Disservice: In the "find driving heaven" episode, the combination of lots of sun and lack of air conditioning caused May to drive naked by the end of the episode. But (pardon the pun) your mileage may vary.
    • In a way, Michael Schumacher's lap in the Liana was fanservice to all the people who watched celebrities go round that track for years and wondered: "What would it look like if he took a wrong turn? What if he stalls the car? What if he loses control and crashes into the camera at the side of the track?"
  • Fascinating Eyebrow: Richard Hammond.
  • Fast Forward Gag: James May explaining to the other two how to figure out if the Morris Mini they've chosen can actually go over a ski jump successfully.
  • Flanderization: Even producer Andy Wilman has acknowledged that the presenters have been narrowed down to one or two basic personality traits. ("Jeremy is walk through a door rather than open it, Richard's massively accident prone and cheeky chappie, and James is a pedantic nerd.")
  • Flying Saucers: In 14.07, during Hammond's review of the Lexus RX 450h. One wonders if Andy Wilman spends time on this site looking for ideas....
  • Foreign Queasine: Hammond was mysteriously "not hungry" for most of the Vietnam special
    May: [looking at the menu] Um, well I think this thing here is a sort of squid thing with some... weird paste.
    Hammond: [unhappily] Don't like squid.
    May: Okay, well you can have crab, with...
    Hammond: Don't like crab.
    May: Razor clams.
    Hammond: Don't like clams.
    • In the end he eats a bowl of rice... krispies.
  • Four Temperament Ensemble: Almost: there's only three of them
    • Jeremy Clarkson - choleric
    • Richard Hammond - sanguine
    • James May - phlegmatic
    • It could be argued that Andy Wilman, the executive producer, would be the melancholic one.
      • Or the Stig.
  • Friendship Moment: Rare, but they happen.
    May [on a frightening mountain pass at night with no headlights and nothing visible except the back of Hammond's Toyota]: Hammond, I want to say something to you that I wouldn't say at any other time.
    Hammond: What?
    May: Please don't leave me.
    Hammond: Oh God, those words are going to stay with me for a bit, I'll struggle to get over that. [more sincerely] No, I won't.
    • Probably the most important one happened off camera: Clarkson and May were among the first to get to the hospital after Hammond's accident.
  • Friend To All Children: Hammond.
  • Fruit Cart: Close — a flower cart, as part of an obstacle course in the car-for-a-17-year-old challenge. The presenters lost points for not hitting it.
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: Absolutely anything that Richard Hammond says in episodes of Top Gear relating to "flying through the Pearly Gates backwards in a fireball" (or similar) that was recorded before his miraculously non-fatal high-speed crash.
    Hammond: I love that vision of just blasting through the gates, backwards, in a flaming Swedish supercar! "Yes! I'm here! Where are the women?"
    • Hammond described the 10,000hp afterburner on the Vampire as "possibly the biggest accident you've ever seen in your life." Before he drove it.
    • Similarly, there is a clip of Jeremy Clarkson saying that "no series would be complete without an earnest attempt to kill Richard Hammond" which the BBC had to remove from its website some time after the crash.
    • Reruns of the episode where Hammond managed to roll his van during the police chase challenge have omitted Clarkson's "Well, we've just killed Richard Hammond. If you'd like a job presenting Top Gear, please write to the BBC..." gag.
  • Funny Background Event: In the tractors challenge, Hammond attempts to herd sheep with the "assistance" of Top Gear Dog, while Clarkson and May have a conversation in the foreground
    • At one point in the "car for a 17-year-old" challenge, The Stig can be seen putting his head into a photocopier.
    • Such is their skill that they can even invoke this trope on other BBC shows.
    • There is a picture of Will Young on Jeremy's desk as they phone shop for car insurance for their fictional 17-year old children.
    • The Season 14 finale had a moment where James' introduction to the next segment was interrupted by Hammond crashing an electric-powered skateboard into part of the set behind him.
  • Funny Money: In the Vietnam special, each of the trio were given 15 million dong to buy transportation. Though they were initially delighted to have "inches of money," this turned out to equal just over US$1,000, which was not enough to buy a car, so they had to make do with motorbikes.
  • Fun With Subtitles: In the episode where the lads make their own electric car with a noisy diesel generator to charge the batteries.
    Hammond: [shouting over the noise] Well that's brilliant! It's a hybrid. We've built a Prius!
    [This is an appalling racket. We are useless at everything.]
    Clarkson: You don't think the producers are messing with the subtitles, do you?
    [I am a big fat bald idiot.]
    Hammond: No, they wouldn't do that.
    [And I'm a short arse.]
    • Also, the episode after the cheap rear-wheel-drive car challenge, "translating" a song in French as a rant about that episode's Morris Marina destruction.
  • Gargle Blaster: The V8 Smoothie (aka the "Bloody Awful").
  • Gearhead Show: aka Petrolhead show in the UK.
  • Geeky Turn On: During his stint as a Scooterman, May is so impressed by his fare's knowledge about her car that he asks her to hold his helmet and gets her phone number so he can ask for help if he has trouble with a road test. Later, in the studio:
    Clarkson: That Audi woman you had, she was amazing!
    May: Yeah, I, uh, found her strangely attractive.
    Clarkson: Nothing strange about the attraction there, she was great!
    • This trope is also one reason May has so many female fans.
    • Jools Holland (during his interview as SIARPC) gushed to Clarkson about May's 'great mind'.
  • Genius Bonus: On occasion. For example, in Romania, they are granted permission to drive through the tunnels underneath the former People's Palace (currently a government building).
    Clarkson: This, we feel, is not something that would be allowed in Britain.
  • Gesundheit:
    James: What would you say if I said, Perodua Kelisa?
    Richard: Ooh, bless you!
  • Getting Crap Past The Radar: In the introduction to the review of the Lamborghini Reventon (the 'v' in "reventon" is pronounced almost like a 'b'), Clarkson mocks Hammond by repeating his words, substituting 'b' for 'v' until the Hamster nearly bites him. Clarkson concludes, "But with this, you would get a lot of 'badge'." After a confused blink Hammond gets it — the expression on his face has to be seen to be believed.
    • Helps, of course, that "a lot of badge" is a frequently used expression in car circles (in terms of marque snobbery).
    • When taking part in an ice race in France and noting that all the other cars are far more powerful, Clarkson told Olivier Panis, an F1 driver, that it was like "bringing longbows to a bow-and-arrow fight". With Panis out of the way, Clarkson comments:
      I mentioned Agincourt once, but I think I got away with it.
    • A recurring gag is fake sponsorship names on racing cars the Top Gear team drive. You think they'd arrange it so that opening the door wouldn't turn "Larsen's Biscuits" into "LARSEN'S BISCUITS". You'd be wrong...
      • On the other side, it had PENISTON OILS.
      • In the Ice Racing Episode, all three got in on the act, with AMERDEA DU FROMAGE on Hammond's car, C'ESTLES BIEN CHAT! and SOPHARTEL INDUSTRIE on Clarkson's car, and RESTAURANT PETIT ENTREE and COQ JOLI yaourt auxfruits on May's car.
  • Gilligan Cut: Jeremy in the Vietnam special: "Still, at least I'd been assured it wouldn't rain."
  • Glasses Pull: Hammond does this during the first American Road Trip special, upon seeing New Orleans one year after Hurricane Katrina.
  • Good With Numbers: James May.
    May: [at the end of the British Leyland challenge] We got 20p for every yard you covered — you did 1,500 yards, so...
    Hammond: Uh..
    Clarkson: That's, um...
    May: It's £300, you half-wit.
    • During the news segment in Series 12, Episode 06, May claimed to have calculated the total number of engine revs that his 25 year old Porsche had sustained in its lifetime  *, which prompted this reaction:
      Hammond: Wow! So you must actually have done everything there is to do in the whole world, to get to the bottom of the list of everything a human being can do. What's it like on the top of Everest? Is it good?
      May: It's alright.
      Clarkson: Richard, I went to a dinner party the other day, and I sat next to a girl who said she couldn't believe that James May was still single.
      Hammond: There's your answer... Theerrreee's your answer!
  • Green Eggs And Ham: On the various specials, two presenters are usually quite thrilled about the upcoming challenge while a third is glum. The third presenter usually cheers up before the end, while one of the enthusiastic pair finds the adventure isn't what he expected it to be.
    • The stick in the mud is usually James May, though in the Vietnam Special it was Clarkson. This opened up a world of comedic possibilities.
  • Groin Attack: Clarkson to May with a paintball gun during the limousine challenge.
    May: The rules said hits on the car, not hits on the wedding vegetables.
    • James returned the favor in Season 13, when he accidentally hit Clarkson in the "plums"
    • And Hammond accidentally headbutted May in the "gentleman's region" during the Vietnam challenge.
    • Clarkson gets nailed by a paintball fired out of an F-1 Car's exhaust in Season 14 Ep5.
  • Growing The Beard: When James May joined the show in the second series. The previous presenter had only been there to talk about second hand car deals with Hammond and Clarkson during the news segment. The producers belatedly realized that that's what Top Gear Magazine is for.
    • And the current format was itself a beard-growing after a sharp decline in the popularity of the original format of the show, which seemed to entirely feature car reviews. Giving it quirkiness and cranking up Clarkson's ascerbic observations paid off for the relaunch.
  • Hachimaki: Clarkson wears one near the end of the Japanese segment where he, driving the Nissan GTR, races Hammond and May, who are riding the bullet train.
  • Hammerspace: Clarkson pulls a hammer out of nowhere in Season Twelve to test the construction of a Lada.
    • If one looks closely at that sequence, one can figure out how Clarkson did it. But on first viewing, it's awesome.
  • Handicapped Badass: Sound guy Kiff McManus managed to hold his own while steering Jeremy's double-decker car during the Top Gear vs. D Motor competition despite his artificial arm coming off during one of the last laps.
    • He once had a fight with a shark! He lost, which explains why he's missing an arm.
    • One fan wrote in to say he could have done a much better lap than TV presenter Richard Whiteley. Normally, these letters are just thrown away, but since the writer was totally blind they took him up on it, with Clarkson guiding him from the passenger seat. He completed the lap, in a quicker time, and a lap time marked 'Blind Man' went on the board above Whiteley's.
  • Hates Being Touched: May, apparently
  • Heavy Sleeper: Hammond claims to be one of these in real life. James May dozed off on-camera after the epic private plane/Bugatti Veyron race.
  • Her Code Name Was Mary Sue: While riding the Vincent Black Shadow in the Season 13 "Race to the North," Hammond did most of his narration in the style of a radio drama about a motorcycle hero named "The Black Shadow."
  • Heterosexual Life Partners
  • He Who Must Not Be Heard, and The Voiceless: The Stig (also The Faceless with his helmet), and Top Gear Stuntman.
  • Hey, That's My Line!: "Back to the studio"
  • Hilarious In Hindsight: Schumacher talking about what he does now that he no longer raced becomes amusing with the announcement that he's coming out of retirement.
  • Hilarious Outtakes: As if you needed another reason to buy the DVDs....
  • Hilarity Ensues: The predictable result of just about every task which the producers give to the presenters in any given episode.
    Clarkson: How hard can it be?
    Hammond: Don't say that!
    Or: Hammond: Oh God!
  • Holiday In Cambodia: Notably averted: in the Vietnam special they acknowledged it would be a disservice to history not to refer to The Vietnam War and its legacy, but at the same time they presented the country as so much more than "that place where a war happened".
  • Horrible Camping Trip: Most notably, the caravan holiday segment, which started with an accident and a carsick dog and only went downhill from there. Eventually the trio's caravan was totally destroyed in a grease fire started when Clarkson tried his hand at cooking.
  • Hot Blooded: Richard Hammond
    Clarkson: [watching Hammond do a fast lap on an unfamiliar track] It's The Fast And The Furious, this.. the very furious, I should imagine, knowing Hammond.
    Hammond: Oh, for God's sake! Where's the bloody apex?!
  • Ho Yay: Predictably, there's slash fiction about the presenters (they pile the subtext on like logs). Less predictably, Jeremy Clarkson is apparently in love with Will Young.
    • Even Hammond and May picked up on Clarkson's crush on Will Young.
    • Clarkson also has a framed photo of him on "his" desk.
    • "The Stig was very happy, knowing that I now had to kiss his helmet." (one of Clarkson's other car shows, admmittedly, but it still counts. Check the last minute or so.)
  • Hype Backlash: Has been present to a degree from day one of the revamped show, mostly from people that preferred the original version. However, this has intensified lately, to the extent that several newspapers used the much lower ratings of the late-2009 series (which in all probability were actually caused by it going directly up against The X Factor results show and I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here) along with some remarks on Andy Wilman's blog to gleefully claim that the show was tanking in the ratings and on the verge of being cancelled by the BBC.
    • Wilman fired back a few days later, pointing out that the "tanking" ratings did not reflect Top Gear's considerable number of HD and iPlayer viewers.
  • Hypno Fool: Averted. Hypnotist Paul McKenna hypnotized Richard Hammond when he appeared on the show in Series 4 but Hammond under hypnosis was still entirely himself, just bewildered by things he ordinarily has no trouble understanding (like which buttons and dials do what on a car).
  • Hypocritical Humor: When Autocar magazine panned their home-built electric car (the Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust), the presenters were visibly disappointed, complained that it would destroy their sales, and opined that people who review cars for a living can't possibly recognize real genius anyway.
  • I Always Wanted To Say That
    [The lads' Renault Avantime has caught fire, forcing them to abandon their tuning efforts]
    Clarkson: This is something I've wanted to do— I've worked in television twenty years, never had the chance yet, okay, [pause for breath]
    May: "Back to the studio."
    Clarkson: Hey, that's my line! That's what I wanted to say! [May starts running and Clarkson gives chase] May! May, you bastard!
    Hammond: [to the camera] Yeah. What I thought I'd do is put the fire out, and then say—
    Clarkson: [over Hammond's shoulder] "Back to the studio!"
  • I Call It Vera: Richard Hammond named his 1963 Opel Kadett "Oliver" during the Botswana Special.
  • Idiot Ball: Each presenter has held it at least once. Perhaps the best example is when Jeremy Clarkson put the lit bowl of a Porsche-branded pipe in his mouth (joking that it was a rear-engined model and thus the "hot bit goes at the back.") Unsurprisingly, he burned his tongue.
  • Idiot Savant: The Stig. Assuming he's actually human, of course.
  • I Got Better: Lampshaded in the 'car for a 17-year-old' challenge, after Hammond rear-ended a car and Clarkson pronounced him dead.
    Hammond: Don't worry kids. I got better.
  • I Know Mortal Kombat: In one episode, Jeremy Clarkson drove a racing car (a Honda NSX) around a track (Laguna Seca) he had done thousands of times in Gran Turismo 4 on the PlayStation and found it considerably more difficult in real life. Partly because he couldn't take the same risks when failure would mean time in hospital instead of restarting.
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Clearly, Clarkson was the valedictorian. (See the Winter Olympics special)
  • Incoming Ham: Do you even have to be told it's Jeremy?
    Clarkson: [from across the studio] That is DISGUSTING!
    Hammond: Oh, dear! I fear Jeremy may be heading this way with an opinion!
  • I Need A Freaking Drink: The finish line for the race-type challenges is almost always a bar, where the winners rejoice and the losers console themselves.
  • In Series Nickname: Jezza, Hamster, and Captain Slow - names which have been eagerly adopted by the fanbase (see above).
    • Clarkson has also called May 'Slow' and 'Captain Horrid' and has referred to Hammond as 'Teeth' and 'Officer Barbie'.
  • Insufferable Genius: Clarkson, arguably.
  • Irish Travellers: May scolded Clarkson for using a hammer during the Caterham kit-car challenge, saying that it was "the tool of a pikey," which goes a bit beyond Unfortunate Implications. For shame.
    • See also the lorry challenge, where Clarkson uses the term too:
      Clarkson: I think he's going to be quite cross with us..!
      [Jeremy and James are pushing Hammond's Opel Kadett to the hill start challenge area]
      Clarkson/May [together, quietly imitating a despair-stricken Hammond]: Nooo..!! [laughing]
      Clarkson: Have you seen what he's done to the number plate?
      [James leans back and peers at the "OLI V3R" number plate]
      May: Oh, for God's sake..!
      Clarkson: Personal plates. He is such a pikey!
    • Hammond got one as well in Season 13, though he pointed to a pie and a key rather than say the offending word. Shortly afterward:
      James: You're such a steak and kidney door opener.
  • Ironic Echo Cut: An occasional voiceover gag.
    Clarkson: [narrating] This is the Stevens-Duryea, which has eight clutches... and what kind of dullard would think that that was brilliant?
    May: [looking into the engine compartment, fascinated] That's brilliant!
  • Irrevocable Message: According to May's humorous recap of events, the Porsche Panamera mail chase in Season 13 was one of these.
  • Isn't It Ironic: Possible aversion in the use of Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" to enhance the Americanness of the replacement bike in the Vietnam Special.
  • I Take Offense To That Last One: After James May has reviewed a Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe and commented that he thinks it suits him because it's stylish and contemporary.
    Clarkson: Every time I see you, those are the words that pop into my head: stylish and contemporary.
    May: Thank you.
    Clarkson: ..after other words like for instance: beige. Stannah Stairlift. The War. Homosexual.
    May: I object to the beige.
    • In a recent series, Jeremy rattles off a list of people someone claims Top Gear has offended.
      Clarkson: The Daily Star, in an editorial, has said that we've upset the Scouts and the Catholic Church and they say that we can add those august organisations to other people we've offended including lorry drivers, Scots, Malaysians, Germans, blind people, anti-hunt protestors and smokers. I'm sorry... this sort of gutter-press claptrap gets just so far up my nose! How dare they?! How dare they suggest that we... would be rude to smokers?
  • It's Going Down: Caravan? Morris Marina? Don't get emotionally attached: it's doomed.
  • Jerkass: Mostly Clarkson, but all three presenters have their moments from time to time.
  • Jonas Quinn: Whoever is playing the White Stig, replacing Perry McCarthy. James May as well; he replaced Jason Dawe.
  • Kayfabe: It's unknown how many of the stunts are scripted or 'enhanced' — the caravan lighting on fire in the above-mentioned caravan holiday certainly was — but they call attention to the existence of the script themselves sometimes, including the disagreements. May has said that they never fabricate the results of their races or challenges, but they do shoot additional scenes to help tell the story.
    • One example: the "Blind Man" lap (see Handicapped Badass, above). When the blind viewer did his actual timed lap, he was guided by The Stig in the passenger seat. For the taped version shown on the air, the blind man drove around the test track with Jeremy Clarkson in the passenger seat, and the tape was edited to make it seem that it was Clarkson riding shotgun during the timed lap.
    • And another example: in the Vietnam special they presented Jeremy Clarkson as inexperienced and relatively incompetent at riding a motorbike, even though in an earlier series (1995's Jeremy Clarkson's Motorworld) Clarkson had quite competently ridden motorbikes — in Vietnam!
    • Tesla Motors weren't amused when the show pretended that the electric Roadster had run out of charge when it hadn't. The figures quoted for the car's range were correct, but the car wasn't dead when Clarkson pushed it into a garage.
    • An aversion: Autocar magazine really did "review" the Top Gear made Hammerhead Eagle iThrust, and really did say that it's styling was 'unlikely to win fans amongst those of us blessed with the gift of sight'.
  • Killed Off For Real: The original Stig.
  • Kill It With Fire: The fate of the first Morris Marina to appear on the show.
    • The cause of death of the Nissan Sunny in Series 2; also that of at least two caravans.
  • Kinda Busy Here: Averted. No matter what Clarkson's driving or how fast he's going, he always seems to have time to take a call from one of the other two
  • Kryptonite Factor: James May can't focus on the task at hand when things (especially his tools) are out of order. Naturally, the other two take advantage of this whenever it might be funny
  • Lampshade Hanging: The presenters are aware of and often reference the fact that the average viewer at home could never get a car like the hundred-grand supercars they often review.
  • The Lancer: Hammond to Clarkson, especially in earlier seasons. May and Clarkson are more of an Odd Couple.
  • Large Ham: Clarkson.
    • And he's proud of it too - when shown a parody of himself, he actually gave the guest (comedian Harry Enfield, Star In A Reasonably Priced Car for two episodes and the man who performed it) tips on how to better it by pausing as long as possible before delivering the scene-closing line.
  • Laser Guided Karma: Hammond and May are always just as helpful to Clarkson as he is to them.
  • Leitmotif: After the Toyota Hilux destruct-test challenge, "La Resa Dei Conti" from For A Few Dollars More (which had been used extensively in the sequence and was previously a Recurring Riff) came to be associated with the Toyota alone.
  • Le Parkour: In one of the challenges James May, in a car, races two traceurs. And gets beaten like a red-headed stepchild.
  • Let's Get Dangerous: In Season 7, Captain Slow (Ferrari F430) easily outran Hammond (Pagani Zonda) and Clarkson (Ford GT) on a winding mountain road in France, earning their mildly astonished respect. He explained afterwards that while he can indeed drive fast, he usually prefers not to.
    • May's inability to drive fast has become something of an Informed Flaw: In subsequent seasons he took driving lessons with Formula One legends Sir Jackie Stewart and Mika Häkkinen and acquitted himself well. He also drove the Bugatti Veyron to its top speed (253 mph) on a closed test track in Germany.
      May: It's no wonder Michael Schumacher retired, he's slower than me!
  • Lets Get Out Of Here: The three presenters run away when they realise their convertible people carrier has set the car wash on fire.
    • Also Clarkson and Hammond in the lorries challenge, when May has failed the hill start test and ruined his own piano. ("Um.. run." "Keep the porn!")
  • Literal Cliffhanger: Averted in the Bolivia special... but just barely.
  • Lock And Load Montage: Parodied in the "race across Japan" challenge when Hammond and May, preparing for a final charge, assemble their weapons with many a click and snap — but it's a pair of folding bicycles. For extra spoof points, they both look faintly ridiculous riding them.
  • Lost In Transmission: In the introductory segment of the Honda Civic Type R review, Clarkson shows off how the boot of the old R could hold an excellent set of speakers. Cut to inside the car, where the chugging baseline drowns out his dialogue, until ...
    Clarkson: ...ten pints of Stella and a dollop of chlamydia.
  • Made Of Explodium: Homemade convertable top + automatic car wash = oops.
    [The three take their convertible people carrier through a car wash]
    Clarkson: Uh... it's on fire.
    Hammond: What?! It can't be on fire! [looks] It's on fire.
    Clarkson: It's on fire. Just run. Just run.
    [The three run off... and after the film]
    Clarkson: The thing is, we managed to set fire to something that's basically made of water!
    Hammond: How did you do that? Did you see the owner of the car wash afterwards?
    Clarkson: He was...
    Hammond: Cross. Very cross.
    May: He was especially cross when I rang him up and asked if we could have our three pounds fifty back.
  • Made Of Iron: The Toyota Hilux straddles the line between this and Determinator, natch. Post-crash Hammond is both. Cheat death and come out none the worse for wear, you might be able to join us...
  • The Magnificent: Clarkson styled James May "the slowest man on earth" on top of his existing "Captain Slow" monkier. May has recently retaliated by bestowing the title "the world's least (sometimes "most") practical man" on Clarkson.
  • Man Child, Quantity: Three.
  • Man Hands: May and Clarkson arguing about the size of a car's grille (that May thinks is too 'gawping'):
    Clarkson: Yeah, listen, but Uma Thurman's got big hands. You're not going to say, 'Get out of my house', are you?
    May: Yes.
  • Man On Fire: In the Top Ground Gear Force charity special. During the Ground Force-style fast-forwarding bit a blazing man runs into shot and is put out with a fire blanket. It is never really explained.
  • Manly Tears: Jeremy Clarkson, of all people, after successfully completing the Britcar 24-hour endurance race.
  • Mauve Shirt: Steve, the director of the "Top Gear Technology Centre."
  • The Mean Brit: Clarkson
  • Memetic Badass: And now it's time to hand things over to their tame racing driver. Some say he "sees" in binary, is half robot, hunts wolves, once punched a horse to the ground, appears on high-denomination bank notes in Sweden, always faces magnetic north...*breath*...leaks hydraulic fluid from his knees, sleeps upside down like a bat, is illegal in seventeen states, his breath smells of magnesium, he has a speedometer and rev counter where his eyes should be, he was Darth Vader's roommate in college, his nose is made of Ferrero Rocher, he was officially the last king of Scotland, he has a house on the planet Mars, he is petrified of snowmen...*breath*...he has no shadow, his lungs are supercharged, all of Lionel Richie's songs are about him, that his testicles are on upside down, that his snore makes the same sound as a Bugatti Veyron, his skull is made of solid platinum, that when he brakes hard milk comes out of his nose, that he is the secret Teutonic love-child of Michael Schumacher and Sabine Schmidt...*breath*...that he makes the noise of a camera shutter when he blinks, both his hearts have variable valve timing, his left elbow must be lubricated with WD 40 every six months (or five thousand miles, whichever comes sooner), if he was a Beatle he'd be Ringo, that his voice can only be heard by cats, that he was invited to become part of the Green Lantern Corps but refused on the basis he has no concept of the colour green, that he thinks the credit crunch is some kind of breakfast cereal and that he was the original drummer for the Who before developing athlete's hand and entering the infinitely-more glamorous world of Top Gear. All we know is - he's called the Stig
    "No, that's much, much too exaggerated, it's only nine."
  • Memetic Mutation: The Stig again. You can buy "I Am the Stig" t-shirts, and also "I Am Not The Stig" t-shirts.
  • Mood Whiplash: In the Polar Special, a scene with the presenters trying (and hilariously failing) to ski is immediately followed by a scene in which they meet Sir Ranulph Fiennes and see images of his badly frostbitten hand. The Polar Special itself is also much darker and more serious in tone than the regular show.
  • Morally Ambiguous Ducktorate: Some say The Stig is terrified of ducks....
    • And that he knows two facts about ducks, and both of them are wrong...
  • Most Wonderful Sound: Like a good engine note? Like a good engine note in a tunnel? Man, are you in for a good time.
  • Mr Fixit: Steve, the director of the "Top Gear Technology Centre," who became something of a Mauve Shirt after the Britcar 24-Hour Race.
  • Multi Track Drifting: Various racing segments, often stunts done for the sheer hilarity. Racing double-decker cars with the top steering and the bottom accelerating and braking (the Top Gear vs. D Motor challenges), racing MPVs (people carriers), racing camper vans (RVs), racing airport vehicles, and racing buses (including "bendy buses" and double deckers!). And they were all awesome.
  • My Car Hates Me: When the Alabamans started throwing rocks and they had to make a quick getaway, James May's car needed to be jump-started.
  • My Hovercraft Is Full Of Eels: May attempting to ask directions in Romania with a phrasebook which has been purposefully mistranslated, leaving him saying things like "Let's buy a glass door with full double glazing" and "These boxes are not the same size" to the puzzled locals.
    • Also, while not a mistranslation, the only German phrase May knows sounds like an example - it means "Naturally Hans is wet; he is standing under a waterfall."
      "I use it all the time!"
  • The Napoleon: At 5'7", Hammond is nearly a foot shorter than Clarkson and is probably the most pugnacious and thrill seeking of the three.
  • Neat Freak: James May
    May: The only thing I keep in my car is a little paintbrush for cleaning dust out of the switches.
    Hammond: You're scaring me, mate...
    May: And I always like to have the air vents lined up so they're really completely symmetrical.
  • Never Live It Down: Hammond will never let Clarkson get over his rather enthusiastic interview with Will Young.
    • It's not as if Hammond will live down his accident, either. Despite promising to never mention it again, it does crop up from time to time. Hammond even does it to himself, saying at one point in their news item, "can I please not be the one to try it?" when talking about some absurdly powerful car that was just being released at the time.
      • Entertainment journalists don't seem to want to let Hammond forget it, either, since they've mentioned it in practically every article written about Hammond since.
    • And before all of those, there was Hammond's infamous "I AM A DRIVING GOD!!!"
  • News Parody: Almost every episode has a humourous 'car news' segment, which often goes off on odd tangents such as alternate uses for tampons, the price of bull sperm, ridiculous road signs, viewer complaints and more - always done with a healthy dose of the presenters mocking each other.
  • The Nicknamer: Clarkson.
  • Nitro Boost:
    Clarkson: Why don't we use nitrous?
    Hammond: Do you remember what happened to the first Stig?
    Clarkson: He fell off an aircraft carrier.
    Hammond: Because?
    Clarkson: ..yeah, we used nitrous.
  • Noodle Implements: In the South America special in Season 14, the producers give the lads a box containing a chainsaw, a couple of winches, rubber tubing, condoms, tampons, petroleum jelly, and Viagra. ("I know we're going to be in the jungle a bit together, but that's a bit extreme." "What kind of party are they planning?") Averted, since they did indeed find a use for all of them.
  • No Sense Of Direction: James May. He recently claimed that he has an electrical imbalance in his brain which causes him to visualize Britain upside-down.
  • Not A Scratch On It: The presenters did a two week feature to see how durable the Toyota Hilux pickup truck is. In the first week, Clarkson drove it down a staircase, rammed it into a tree, dropped it from a crane, drove it into the ocean and left it there overnight, set it on fire, dropped a caravan on it, swung a wrecking ball at it, and drove it through a modular building. The next week, May set it atop a tower of flats several hundred feet high... which was scheduled for demolition. It went down with the building and had to be pulled off the debris pile. And it still started.
    • The cast realised the magnitude of the achievement and now display the disfigured Hilux prominently in their studio, on a tilted podium.
    • Toyota subsequently released a model called The Invincible. Clarkson and May used two which had been specially modified for Arctic use (one for themselves and one for the camera and support crew) in the Polar Special.
    • Richard Hammond complained to Jonathan Ross during an interview that he was disappointed he had no cool scars resulting from his near fatal crash.
  • Nothing Can Stop Us Now: "How hard can it be?" Hilarity Ensues.
    • Lampshaded by Hammond on returning from his crash: "Oh, how I've missed the pang of dread I feel whenever you mention the words 'How hard can it be'!"
  • Not So Above It All: James May, at times.
  • Not This One, That One: The tow car for the caravan holiday is a shiny! sexy! Lotus E-.... er, no, it's a Kia.
  • Nurse Jenny: The Stig's cousins (African Stig, American Stig, Communist Stig, and Green Stig, to name just a few).
  • The Obi Wan: Sir Jackie Stewart and Mika Hakkinen have both given James May lessons on how to drive "properly."
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: The music that accompanies the appearance of the VW Beetle in an episode set in Africa, the car one of them will have to drive if their own breaks down and can't be repaired. Ironically, the VW ends up doing better than the other three cars in the challenge.
  • Only Known By Their Nickname: All we know is... he's called The Stig.
    • Allegedly, because...some say his first name really is "The"
  • Overdrive: The Britcar 24-hour endurance race.
  • Overly Long Gag: The special gearbox on a new Porsche Boxster Spyder. Hammond has to spell it out because he claims he cannot pronounce it.
    Hammond: [slowly and with intense concentration] It's a Dee oh pee pee ee ell. Kay. You. Pee pee. Ell. You. En gee. Ess. Gee. Ee. [with finality] Tee. [beat] Ar. [beat] Ii ee. [beat] Bee. [lengthy beat] Ee.
    [the word "Doppelkupplungsgetriebe" appears on the screen]
    • When the Lancia Hawk Stratos kit car did an incredibly slow time around the track in Series 14, Hammond and May joked that if Clarkson had been the one to build the car it still wouldn't have made it around the track by now...or now...or now. This ribbing continued all through Clarkson's closing monologue and the end credits.
  • Paper Thin Disguise: On a couple occasions the presenters have tried to pass off The Stig as James May. No one finds this convincing.
    May: Some say: he has a stripey shirt, just like mine...
    • May tied his hair back and wore a gaffer tape mustache to pretend to be an 'independent test driver' for their homemade electric car.
  • Percussive Maintenance: Jeremy Clarkson's general attitude to car maintenance. ("Hammer.")
  • Periphery Demographic: Although this is a show for the petrolhead, many people watch it who know fuck all about cars: they're in it for the hilarity. At least one such person was shocked to learn that Top Gear is actually a legitimate car show, not a parody.
  • The Pete Best: Jason who?
    • For the American audience, what first Stig?
  • Phrase Catcher: The Stig. See "Catch Phrase".
  • Pimped Out Car: A frequent feature, taken to such extremes as the convertible limo, the ninja truck and the Toybota/Nissank amphibious vehicles.
    • Hilariously reversed in a special segment called "Quaint My Ride," in which Clarkson had an old Merc equipped with stone floors, comfy armchairs, a chandelier, a tea service and a functional fireplace.
  • Pixellation: When presenters or guests let loose with a profanity, their mouths will be pixellated (along with the audio being bleeped, of course), no doubt to prevent lipreaders from taking offense. Happens a lot during the "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" segment, as the celebrity drivers often get a bit excited doing their fast lap around the Top Gear test track.
    • And the survival instructor in the Arctic episode, an ex-special forces guy, is described as "a man with a pixelated face".
    • Also, the Porsche-branded pipes were pixellated in re-runs, as the segment was filmed following a ban on smoking indoors. This elicited complaints.
  • The Points Mean Nothing: The scores are having less and less influence over which presenter "wins" a challenge.
  • Political Correctness Gone Mad: The show in general and Clarkson in particular are the direct antithesis of this trope, and frequent complaints are heard from the PC branch of the Moral Guardians. There's a belief among fans that there are actually people who watch Top Gear for the sole purpose of finding something to take offence at.
  • The Pollyanna: Any presenter trying to defend the worthiness of the car he has chosen for a challenge in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary. Expect Blatant Lies and maybe a Verbal Backspace or two.
    May: [trying to make the best of being stuck in a Morris Marina]: Oh, come on! It's not so bad. Um... it's well-equipped.. no, it isn't well-equipped, to be honest, it's got one dial. It's tastefully upholstered... it isn't tastefully upholstered, really.. it's brown. But the seats are velour. And look how well it's worn!
  • Poor Mans Porn: Clarkson starts the News in 02.03 with a warning to parents:
    Clarkson: You probably think that your teenaged children are buying these top shelf magazines to look at this kind of thing [shows picture of scantily-clad women], and you probably think that's normal, okay? Well, they're not. [turns the page] What they're actually looking at is that. [shows Citroën Saxo VTR advert] They're cutting out pictures of this sort of car and taking them to the lavatory.
    • The way the three presenters talk about cars sometimes makes one wonder if they take Auto Trader with them to the lavatory....
  • Porn Stash: In the "start on a hill without rolling backwards and smashing your most treasured possession" challenge of the lorry driving episode, the prize to the winner was "a year's supply of gentlemen's literature". We could clearly see it was a collection of top-shelf magazines.
  • Power Trio:
    • James May: The Smart Guy and often teasingly referred to as "Captain Slow", because he does most things slowly and carefully, has a penchant for spending as much (or more) time ordering his toolbox as he does working with his tools (quite possibly a sufferer from obsessive-compulsive disorder), and often scolds the other hosts for being careless. Has a tendency towards Gosh Dang It To Heck and Unusual Euphemism. Also, he plays piano. Definitely the superego.
    • Jeremy Clarkson: A loud, brash Smug Snake. He's rude, likes explosions and luxury cars, is a devoted believer in Tim Taylor Technology, is exceedingly vocal in his dislikes, and let's not get into his politics. Almost certainly the id.
    • Richard Hammond: A risk-taking adrenaline junkie prone to Cluster F Bombs... also most likely the id. But he's somewhat nicer than Clarkson and less pushy, and he seems to have a better rapport with the other two than they have with each other, so he may narrowly qualify as the ego.
  • Power Walk: Sort of. If the three presenters are driving three cars, there will inevitably be at least one wide shot of the three in a flying-wedge formation.
  • Precap: In two senses. In the first episode of each new series, the presenters show previews of all the stuff that is to come that was already filmed for that season. The best stuff is saved for the actual episodes that they appear in. Additionally, nearly every episode has an introductory voiceover telling the viewer about the "main" features of the week's episode.
    Clarkson (series 8, episode 2): Tonight, I ruin the tranquility of the Yorkshire dales ... Richard ruins Iceland ... and we all ruin a local radio station.
    Clarkson (series 13, episode 6): Tonight, Jeremy wears goggles... Richard falls down a small slope... and James says hello to a man!
    • Spoofed in a Series 3 episode where the precap featured things they'd like to do (Queen Elizabeth II as the Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car, anyone?) but couldn't afford, because they were out of money.
  • Precision F Strike: James May
    [on the "Top Ground Gear Force" special, after Clarkson has destroyed May's shed. Again]
    May: What time is this program on? Is it 10 o'clock?
    Clarkson: Yeah.
    May: Is it 10 o'clock on BBC2?
    Clarkson: Yes.
    May: Are we beyond the watershed?
    Clarkson: Yes.
    May: You're a fu--
    [hard cut to]
    Hammond: Guys!
  • Presenter Appeal: A surprising number of the vehicles that come up for review are boyhood Dream Cars or contemporary vehicles that have captured the interest of one of the presenters.
  • Product Placement: Both parodied and lampshaded. But the presenters aren't shy about pointing out the ones that don't make the grade, as evidenced by the Cool Wall.
    • It's The BBC, they're not supposed to advertise...
  • Quicksand Sucks: While trying to move the grounded barge that their 4X4's have been floated in on, Clarkson gets stuck in river mud and starts to sink, to much laughter from the other two. They eventually pull him out with one of their 4X4's and rope.
  • Ratings Stunt: The episode which aired footage of the 300mph crash which temporarily brain-damaged Richard Hammond was timed to compete with the finale of Big Brother on Channel 4.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: James May. Although he is teased for having 'lady's hair', wearing flowery shirts and listening to Bach, he claims to be the only 'proper bloke' on Top Gear because of his love of brown beer, pies, tools and fart jokes. He's also the best shot with a rifle, and has a machete and knows how to use it.
  • Real Song Theme Tune: "Jessica", by the Allman Brothers Band
  • Red Baron: "All we know is, he's called The Stig."
  • The Red Stapler: Inversion; for a show which spends most of its time talking about unaffordable supercars, Top Gear has a reputation as being able to destroy an everyday car's sales with a single negative word. Manufacturers will occasionally refuse to provide a car for the show to review, fearing they'll hate it, but this tends to rile the presenters more, and they'll often name and shame such cars before going on to review them "covertly" anyway.
    • One notable case is the Opel Vectra (Vauxhall in the UK). Vectra was trashed roundly by Clarkson and Opel actually blamed him for their poor sales. BTW, for American car fans, the Vectra's American mutation is the Saturn Aura.
    • The presenters spent an entire series mocking the forthcoming Dacia Sandero before it had even been finished. By the start of the next series, Renault had canceled the UK release (of course, this was probably for "unrelated reasons".)
    • Lampshaded in the American Muscle Cars special (San Francisco to the Bonneville Salt Flats); Richard Hammond noted that Chrysler refused to loan him a Dodge Challenger on the grounds that Top Gear always criticizes their cars. Hammond got around this by going to a local dealership and buying one.
      • During one episode May joked that certain dealerships have started asking "Do you know Jeremy Clarkson?" and denying entry to anyone who does.
    • On the other hand, when the team demonstrated the durability of the Toyota Hilux pickup truck, Toyota released a new model, named in honor of the achievement, called The Invincible.
      • In fact, there's a television commercial in the U.S. for the American version of the Hilux, the Toyota Tacoma, which features footage from that episode. They don't mention that it's Top Gear, only that the stunt was done by "some automotive experts in Europe" (grossly underestimating Top Gear's American fanbase and its ability to recognize the scene).
  • Refuge In Audacity: The presenters (particularly Clarkson) live and breathe this trope.
    • During a contest with the hosts of D Motor, a similar German motoring show, Clarkson commented the BBC had asked them not to mention the war. Clarkson, Hammond, and May then turned up in Supermarine Spitfires, the theme tune to 633 Squadron was played twice, they held an "Axis v. Allies" drag race contest (during which Clarkson cracked a joke about the Italian Lambourgini changing sides) and had one contest where the winner was the first to complete a lap, then place a towel on a sunbed to claim ownership. That's just some of the gags...
    • Like Clarkson describing a BMW with such features as "a sat-nav (GPS) that only goes to Poland" and "ein fanbelt that will last a thousand years"?
    • Some of the cheating in the challenges certainly qualifies.
    • From the first episode of Series 12:
      Clarkson: This is a hard job and I'm not just saying that to win favour with lorry drivers. Change gear, change gear, change gear, check mirror, murder a prostitute, change gear, change gear, murder. That's a lot of effort in a day.
    • Clarkson's Volkswagen ad, which featured Polish citizens milling about in panic and ended with the caption "Volkwagen Scirocco TDI: Berlin to Warsaw in one tank".
    • Another Clarkson, this one an outtake: "Come to England, the birds have got great tits." The 'birds' in question were too busy laughing to take offense.
  • Relax O Vision: Not censorship, but rather an anti-boredom motive.
    Clarkson: Now I'm going to talk about all the German technical stuff but for those not interested in all that, on the left-hand half of the screen we'll be showing kittens!
    • Played straight in the Bonneville Salt Flats special. Claiming they have visas to visit America to film a factual review but not to do an entertainment program, Clarkson censors several scenes because they're getting dangerously entertaining.
  • The Revival: The original Top Gear was cancelled in 2001. When the show was relaunched in 2002, the focus shifted toward humour and crazy stunts with the cars sometimes merely an afterthought.
  • Ribbon Cutting Ceremony: In one segment, Jeremy Clarkson is asked to open a municipal swimming pool. Clarkson decides that the only way to do so in style is by doing so with a Rolls-Royce. Emphasis on "with". Hilarity Ensues. In addition, Clarkson demonstrates that a Rolls should not be used as a flotation device.
  • Ring Ring CRUNCH: An annoying talking device meant to remind diesel drivers to put the correct fuel in their vehicles. Clarkson killed it with a hammer.
    • James May once shot his mobile phone, apparently.
      May: Yes. It made annoying noises. Digital stuff is my technological blind spot. I got so cross that I got my Beretta, took it into a field and blew it to bits....If technology annoys you, I highly recommend shooting it to death. It's very cleansing.
  • Rousing Speech: Subverted. Clarkson attempts several of these during the 24-hour road-repair challenge and succeeds only in irritating the crew. May eventually takes his megaphone away and throws it under a steamroller.
  • Rule Of Cool: The basis behind many of the projects and challenges. Why race a Bugatti Veyron against an RAF Eurofighter Typhoon? Why attempt to turn a Reliant Robin into a space shuttle? Why do any of the things they do? Because they're cool, dammit!
  • Rule Of Funny: The basis behind the rest of the projects and challenges. Why turn a truck into an amphibious vehicle? Why launch a car on a rocket only to see it hit the ground and then explode? Why make James May try to drive fast? (Or why let him get lost — actually lost — on a race track?) Because it's funny, durn it!
  • Rummage Sale Reject: James May has a collection of incredibly loud shirts. He especially favors a purple-and-pink striped number. One of them, a white shirt with a blue flower pattern, even has its own fanbase.
    • Let alone the ridiculous outfits they end up wearing in Vietnam, matching their bikes and cargo.
  • Running Gag: One of the show's favorite tropes.
    • Gags pertaining to the presenters themselves.
      • The stylized introductions of the Stig; Clarkson's love of hammers, chainsaws, and powweeeeeerrrr; the frequent characterization of presenter James May as "Captain Slow" or similar, because of his generally unaggressive and leisurely driving style; and of course comic hints that one presenter is concealing an embarrassing personal secret — that Hammond has had his teeth whitened; that May is gay and/or is enamoured of one of the others; and that Clarkson has a crush on Pop Idol winner Will Young. Although the last one might be true...
    • Gags that last a season and then are dropped without much warning. These usually appear in the "News" section of the episode.
      • Series 11: Comedy updates on the forthcoming Dacia Sandero, "I went on the Internet and I found this..."
      • Series 12: "Are you wearing that for a bet?", referring to a piece of odd clothing being worn by one of the presenters.
    • Gags pertaining to the specials.
      • The presenters painting slogans on their own (or the others') cars; the presenters buying odd, useless, or unusual gifts for each other; a Credits Gag with the presenters and crew amusingly renamed; a penalty for breaking down in the form of a backup vehicle that no one wants to drive; and someone driving into the back of James May instead of braking. By Series 14, in the Bolivia Special, an irate James mentions that "it wasn't funny three series ago and it isn't funny now", and threatens to behead the next person who does it to him.
    • Gags pertaining to specific cars or other vehicles.
      • If a Morris Marina is seen on screen, you can bet harm will come to it before too long. This got lampshaded in Series 14, where Richard claimed that they got a Morris Marina that already had a piano dropped on it (really a Marina with a piano tied onto the roof) for a race. It then got a second piano dropped on it.
      • Between this and James's pianos typically getting hit by a vehicle, don't expect them to last long either.
      • Caravans exist for the sole purpose of being destroyed violently.
      • Cars entered in public races have fake sponsorship decals affixed to their sides in such a way that when the lettering is truncated by the opened door, it spells something amusing. (e.g. "Penistone Oils" becomes simply "Penis").
  • Sand In My Eyes: James May after taking the Bugatti Veyron to its top speed of 253 mph.
    "I'm pretty confident that is as fast as I'm ever gonna go in a car. Incredible. That is— It's made my eyes water."
  • Scenery Porn: In the overseas episodes. The Vietnam special made particularly heavy use of this in the service of the feature's main objective: to show the country as more than "just that place where a war happened." The Polar Special also featured some truly stunning cinematography.
  • Schmuck Bait:
    Hammond: This is the red naga chili. On the chili Richter scale, it measures just under one million heat units. You can't handle this with bare skin, you have to wear gloves. You don't chop it up and put it in your food, you just touch it against the ingredients and that's enough. This is your BMW Z4 M.
    [pauses, then licks chili]
    Hammond: GUH!
  • Screams Like A Little Girl: Hammond during the Bolivia Special in response to the insect life and the snake in his car.
  • Sein Language: "...in the world."
  • Seinfeldian Conversation: Pops up now and again, usually when the presenters are waiting for their challenge or Jeremy and Richard are waiting for Captain Slow. The best was in the lorry challenge, where they were discussing what Yorkie bars came out when.
  • Selective Squick: I'm sure Scandinavians wouldn't bat an eye at this, but reindeer blood? Really James?
  • Self Deprecation: May's first appearance on the revived Top Gear
    James May: [on buying a used car from a "classic cars" magazine listing] Mind you, you'd have to be a complete idiot to buy one of those. [gets into an old Bentley T2] This one's mine.
  • Shaggy Dog Story: Arguably, the whole of the Mallorca classic car rally in Season 13, but particularly Hammond's car: a badly-broken 1953 Lanchester, which he tolerated only because he believed it was built by his grandfather. It wasn't.
  • Shipper On Deck: Oddly enough, talk show host and one-time Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car Jonathan Ross apparently ships Clarkson/Hammond.
    • And then there's Hammond and May, both of whom jokingly ship Clarkson/Will Young
  • Shrouded In Myth: The Stig, based on the Running Gag introductions almost every episode.
  • Sliding Scale Of Silliness Versus Seriousness: Very much on the "silly" side.
  • Smug Snake: Jeremy Clarkson, in every sense. During one episode the studio audience actually booed his success at a task, a reaction which Hammond loved.
    • Even better are the two (!) Simon Cowell interviews. Battle of the Smug Snakes!
    • And from Season 12:
      May: And now the news. And it's great news ladies and gentlemen, it's news to warm the hearts of nations. Jeremy Clarkson has lost his voice! [Audience cheers and applauds]
  • Something That Begins With Boring: In the Polar Special.
    • And again in the "Economy Run" episode.
  • Sorry I Left The BGM On: In the charity special Top Ground Gear Force the music was provided by a military brass band, whom Jeremy had to stop before continuing his monologue. In a second instance he, May and Hammond were arguing and he went as far as destroying a trombone to achieve silence.
  • Sorry Billy, But You Just Don't Have Legs: Aversion: when Richard Whiteley set an atrocious time on the Top Gear test track, a blind fan wrote in to say he could do better. And then did (with Jeremy Clarkson riding shotgun and guiding him through the track).
  • Sound Effect Bleep: In order to keep the show suitable for its pre-watershed slot, most of the swearing is either bleeped or drowned out by a horn or car radio.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: Top Gear tends to pull music from other sources, including Pirates Of The Caribbean, Backdraft, and The Dark Knight, as the BBC's music library is simply huge. So you'll be wondering why there are pirates in Iceland or why Chairman Kaga is a pyro (in a Soundtrack Dissonance times two).
  • Spell My Name With A The: The Stig (of course).
  • Spiked Wheels: Clarkson adds Boudicea spikes to his "improved" police interceptor in the police car challenge. Needless to say, it doesn't work out exactly as planned.
  • Spinoff Babies: Advertisements for Series 13 featured child versions of all four presenters, including a Li'l Stig. Adorable.
    • Continuing in the commercials for Series 14.
  • Spoof Aesop: Especially when it comes to environmental matters or money saving. Usually in the form of a "Top Gear Top Tip".
    • One of the best: the "American South" special, in which they traveled across the southern United States in cars purchased for no more than $1,000 US. After nearly crashing into a river due to bad brakes, getting chased out of a gas station by an angry mob for having slogans such as "MAN-LOVE RULES OK" and "NASCAR sucks!" painted on their cars, and witnessing firsthand the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina (which inspired them to donate their vehicles to local families), they all learned a valuable lesson: Don't go to America.
  • Spot Of Tea: Often, and sometimes under the most outrageous circumstances (i.e. while floating in the Bay of Dover after one's amphibious vehicle has capsized.)
    May: Oops, sorry mate, the cup sank.
  • Squick: Several of the challenges have involved eating dubious items, like roadkill or snake.
    • Also, when one presenter teases another with a little homoerotic subtext, expect to see the second person twisting in comical discomfort.
      Hammond: When we left the action, Jeremy was in the lead just approaching Doncaster, I was in second place and as you would expect Captain Slow was bringing up the rear...
      May: Steady.
      Hammond: ...Hoping to take me from behind.
      May: Yeah alright.
      Hammond: And then press home his advantage and take Jeremy in the tunnel...
      May: Stop saying things like that!
    • And
      May: I really enjoyed our day out together, Richard. It's not very often I get to take someone out for a nice dinner.
      [camera switches to Hammond, who is now looking somewhat concerned]
    • And on the caravan holiday, when the trio realize they are parked near a noisy and active train crossing
      May: It's alright. It's romantic.
      Hammond: Don't say things like that! I'm on the same bed as you!
  • Stealth Pun: The Stig and Richard Hammond fighting over the little trophy for the Golden Cock Award in 2009. Apparently Stig really likes the cock, though Hammond clearly wanted Stig to give him the cock.
  • Stiff Upper Lip: All three presenters. Clarkson and Hammond can both keep up a steady narrative even in tense situations (i.e. driving through a shopping center being chased by a Corvette; sitting in a car slowly filling up with water), and May blends it with Deadpan Snarkery for comic effect.
  • Straight Man: May. Paradoxically, he stands out compared to Hammond and Clarkson because they're so over-the-top and he's completely ordinary
  • Stuff Blowing Up: Almost every episode. In fact, it's noteworthy when they don't do it.
  • Surprisingly Good Vietnamese: In the Vietnam special, Clarkson actually learned enough Vietnamese to understand the oral driver's exam, and answer the question directed at him. Predictably, Hammond and May were shocked.
    Clarkson: Did you not bother learning Vietnamese before you came here?
    Hammond: Well, no!
  • Swiss Moment: In the 2009 "car for a 17-year-old" challenge, when Hammond is getting an insurance quote for a teenage driver and claims to have had no accidents in the last five years, accompanied by a quick, guilty grimace at the camera. Humorous when you consider his line of work; funnier yet if you have seen the show; utterly brilliant when you remember he was nearly killed in 2006 in the infamous Vampire crash.
  • Take Our Word For It: We don't see what Clarkson has found on the internet each week, only the response from the studio audience. At one point Jeremy joked that there's more to the internet than "Abi Titmuss's 'Lady Garden'" and those who have attended filming have confirmed that the unseen screen shows "particularly nasty porn".
  • Take Over The World: Top Gear Live World Tour in 2008 started off with the three presenters driving over Tower Bridge in a tank.
  • Take That: In the 2008 Christmas show, Clarkson joked about how lap footage would be improved by playing a CD of V8 engine noises as a Take That to fan allegations that a lap soundtrack had been falsified earlier in the series.
    • After Clarkson and Hammond have been discussing a campaign by the author Bill Bryson against needless roadside signs and clutter, and generally agreeing with the sentiment behind it, May launches into this fabulous rant: "I think that man is a danger, frankly. If there is one thing I can't stand it's beardy, sanctimonious, patronising Americans in tartan trousers coming to England and trying to persuade us to turn into a museum. He wants the East End for the cheeky Cockney chaps pushing wheelbarrows full of eels and he wants northernists to be industrialists with big braces and blokes dying of consumption - Good morning Bill, I've got the consumption, it's tradition alright. I say Bill, if you're watching - OK, now you won't be watching because we're not talking about steam engines or longboats or bear-baiting - but IF you've happened to tune in by mistake: We're not interested in your views of stupid Americans who come over here with their big video cameras saying Gee, I love your history, it's just so old. SOD OFF!" Cue a large round of applause - as much as the Brits like Bill, May touched a nerve there.
  • Take That Critics: Clarkson again.
  • Talks Like A Simile: Clarkson yet again (also in his newspaper articles). The effect is amplified by the fact that many of them reference random subjects pulled out of nowhere apparently on the spur of the moment.
    "It's an Audi! It weighs as much as the moon!"
    [responding to another critic who has said car X is better than car Y] "Yes, in the same way that treading on a rusty nail is better than having sex with the entire sixth form of a girls' school!"
  • Tank Goodness: Clarkson, driving a Land Rover, tries evading a British Army Challenger 2 tank.
  • The Tape Knew You Would Say That: During Simon Cowell's lap in Series 10, Episode 5.
  • Team Pet: Top Gear Dog, a female Labradoodle owned by Hammond.
  • Technology Porn: especially with the camera swooping over the glossy curves of expensive cars.
  • Teeth Clenched Teamwork: Rare is the co-operative Top Gear project that does NOT go this way. Perhaps the best example is the episode where the boys built their own Caterham.
  • Tempting Fate: Whenever Clarkson sets his jaw, looks into the camera, and says, "How hard can it be?" Inevitably, Hilarity Ensues.
    • For a while now they've been lampshading this by having Richard Hammond shout "Don't say that!" (or similar) when Clarkson says his catchphrase.
  • That Came Out Wrong: Often. Whether a given instance is genuine or just playing to the Rule Of Funny is sometimes up for debate
    Hammond: [gleefully riding a Vincent Black Shadow motorcycle] I am now straddling my boyhood hero! [beat] No, no wait, that's not right, no.
  • That Makes Me Feel Angry: In the "Polar Special" (Clarkson, Hammond, and May's attempt to reach the magnetic north pole), James May finally tells Jeremy Clarkson, "I'm so unspeakably outraged with you." (Granted, this is after they have been in extreme cold digging a path through an ice boulder field for days and are both exhausted past the point of civility.)
  • Thats No Moon: The presenters looking down the giant sand dunes along the Chilean coast and suddenly realizing a) they're huge, and b) they'll have to drive down them.
  • Theme Tune Cameo: Happens "accidentally" in the San Francisco to Bonneville Salt Flats episode: the Allman Brothers Band song "Jessica" (the Top Gear main theme song) comes on the radio while they're filming a 'factual' review of American muscle cars in America.
    May: I wasn't expecting to hear that.
  • There Are No Therapists: James May often falls afoul of the obsessive compulsive disorder he swears he doesn't have, spending more time naming and filing his tools than actually using them to complete a job.
  • They Changed It Now It Sucks: Believe it or not, there are some people who think the show's original, pre-2002 format was better, and that the current series is just one giant adolescent fantasy on acid. Others believe that the first series of the new format, with Clarkson and Hammond there to provide the entertainment and Jason Dawe providing more serious discussion was a happy medium between the two formats, and that it's gone too far to the "entertainment" side since then.
    • It may be a bit early to tell on this one, but since roughly the lorry driving challenge, the presenters seem to have pretty much given up on the actual competition aspect of the challenges and either use some strange and random criteria to decide the winner, or just pick whichever vehicle actually seems the least suited to the challenge in hand. Again, it's not too obvious if this is a permanent thing, but it's not stopped some getting up in arms about it.
  • Tim Taylor Technology: Clarkson is a frequent advocate of this approach: for example, during the episode the team were challenged to build amphibious cars, he demanded to have his vehicle powered by two massive outboard motors, which would have given it half the horsepower of a Formula 1 racing car.
    • In another episode he fitted a large turbocharger to his car's engine for an endurance race, making it the fastest car there but only able to do one lap at a time before the engine overheated.
    • Even Hammond got in on the act during Top Gear Ground Force, creating a barbecue out of a jet-engine, complete with a turbo-powered skewer for the chicken. It was a side-splitting epic failure.
    • V8 Blender.
  • Time Compression Montage: In episodes featuring long road trips or extensive work on a car. Sometimes spoofed by showing a series of clips that suggests the work of hours and then revealing that only a minute or two have passed.
  • Tongue On The Flagpole: Jeremy Clarkson during the Polar Challenge. In a variant, it was a metal hex nut he was holding with his mouth — but since he was standing on the polar ice north of Canada at the time, it had the same effect.
  • Too Soon: The show received criticism for broadcasting a feature in which they demonstrated the importance of taking care on level crossings by crashing a locomotive into a car, shortly after a train crash had made the news. More reasonable voices pointed out that it was an ideal time to broadcast it with rail safety high in the public consciousness.
    • Someone else also pointed out that whenever they chose to air the segment, someone would get offended.
    • This trope was intentionally flaunted when Richard Hammond returned to the show after his near-fatal high-speed crash. Jeremy Clarkson even made a point of saying "speed kills" and asked Hammond if he was "now a mental".
  • Totally Radical: In a wry and self-deprecating way (of course) during May's review of the life-size FAB1
    May: I'm not sure I really understand "bling," but I think this must be it. I mean, it's got 24-inch rims and blacked-out glass. It's.. wicked.
    [at the end of the review]
    May: [in the car, throwing up a 'sign'] So I aks you... is I bling?
  • Transplant: The Stig sometimes appears on Clarkson's other car related shows.
  • Trash The Set: Unintentionally. The barn storing the props for the show was destroyed by fire, probably arson. The Cool Wall was lost as was their furniture for the News segment. Series 10 featured the burned and melted remains of the Cool Wall as well as 'new' (i.e. second hand and ugly) furniture, and snarky comments that their rivals on Fifth Gear might have been the ones to set the blaze.
    • The Caravan Holiday episode, where the caravan they were using is 'accidentally' set on fire at the end of the show. (James May claims that it started by accident, but that they decided not to rush to put it out as it made for great television!)
    • During the news segment filmed closest to Christmas (and thus the end of that series), it's practically a tradition for the Christmas tree and/or the car-themed gifts to be destroyed in some way.
  • Troll: Clarkson on the Stig. Generally refers to racing drivers (and by that association, the Stig) as having a very small brain and worthless opinions.  * Also, this quote:
    Clarkson: We don't know its name, we really don't know its name, nobody knows its name, and we don't wanna know, 'cause it's a racing driver.
  • Trophy Room: After the show won an Emmy they kept it in a toilet in their offices, which are little more than portable cabins. The Top Gear set does have other 'trophies', such as the indestructible Toyota Hilux.
  • Two Gamers On A Couch: A conservative-leaning but self-deprecating and witty middle-aged men equivalent (and there's three of them).
  • Understatement: Any time you hear the phrase "That's not gone well."
    • Jeremy, after testing the V8 blender: "I'm not sure this works."
  • Unfriendly Fire: May, manning a paintball-shooting 'tank,' opened fire on Clarkson's car during one of the D Motor crossover challenges
    Hammond: James, what are you doing!?
    May: Shooting at Jeremy.
    Hammond: But he's on our side!
    May: Yeah, but why wouldn't you?
    [pause]
    Hammond: You're right, you would. Fire!
  • Universal Drivers License: Both played straight by driving unusual vehicles on little or no training and subverted in the historic cars segment.
  • Unreliable Voiceover: The presenters' narration (especially Clarkson's) frequently contradicts events as seen on-screen. Played for humor.
  • Unusual Euphemism: As Top Gear is a family-oriented show (to a point) broadcast before 9pm, the team often use these and have any cursing censored, visually and audibly.
  • Vanity License Plate: 0LIV3R
    • The modified Toyota Hilux used by Clarkson and May in the Polar Special had a TY07 HLX plate.
    • May owns a Champion 8KCAB Decathlon light airplane with the registration number G-OCOK, though it has not appeared in the show
  • Verbal Backspace: Often.
    [while driving a rough-road course, with points lost if pieces of the car are shaken loose]
    Clarkson: [having just lost a door] Still. I'd only lost one thing.
    [a side mirror falls off]
    Clarkson: Two things.
  • Very Special Episode: The team will often contribute to televised charity fundraisers by changing their usual format and embarking on challenges completely outside their field of expertise to raise money, just for the hell of it.
    • The best of these is probably Top Ground Gear Force, where the team's attempts at improving five-time Olympic medal winner Sir Steve Redgrave's garden went so horribly wrong it couldn't have been accidental.
    • Runner-up: Top Gear of the Pops, where they forced asked McFly to write and perform a song that had to include words of their choice ("sofa","administration" and "Hyundai")... without the words "love","baby" or "heart".
  • Victory Gloating: Only to be expected from Clarkson and Hammond, but even James May will do a smug victory dance
  • Visual Pun: On occasion. For example: Hammond's review of three new hatchbacks ended with him in the Volkswagen Golf on a driving range.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: All three presenters, who can't resist making jabs at each other (and honestly, that's a large part of the attraction of the show). Occasionally borders on With Friends Like These
    • Really, the only clue that the Top Gear presenters are genuinely fond of each other is that none of them has snapped and murdered the other two. Yet.
  • Watch The Paint Job: Oliver. Pretty well averted however, in that despite the dangers of driving cross country through the spine of Africa, and despite Clarkson and May's best efforts in the lorry challenge episode, no harm has yet befallen Oliver.
    • Played straight with Hammond's Dino... er...Ferrari that he bought for the "Italian Supercars Cheaper Than A Two Year Old Ford Mondeo" challenge, as after he lovingly restored it, it was damaged on the horrible BBC game show Petrolheads. He didn't react well.
      • It's a good job this was before he "met" Oliver. If they had used his Opel for that, he probably would have become violent.
    • Also, the kiddy car Hammond was hypnotised into thinking was a Porsche 911.
    • May finally got his hands on a Dacia Sandero in the Romania episode... only for it to be utterly wrecked five minutes later when a truck driver "accidentally" backed into it.
  • Weaponized Car: The 'Turn A Car Into A Bond Car' segment in 01.05
  • We Have Reserves: Jeremy Clarkson's attitude towards cameramen.
    • And fellow presenters.
  • What Could Have Been: James May was originally planning to present the Vampire rocket-car segment but had to back out due to a schedule conflict. Particularly frightening because Hammond said he only survived the car sliding upside down at 180 mph because when the roll cage dug in, he was short enough that his head remained clear of the ground. Hammond is 5'7". May is 6'.
    • On the other hand, if May had been presenting that segment, he probably wouldn't have taken the car for an additional last-minute run.
  • What Could Possibly Go Wrong: "How hard can it be?"
  • What Does This Button Do: A conspicuous lever in May's Alfa Romeo/Saab limousine. Naturally, Hammond pulls it. (It uncouples the steering between the Alfa and Saab halves, making the Alfaab Salfa Romeab all but undriveable.)
  • What Do They Fear Episode: Bolivia Special: May is afraid of heights and has the worst time on the Yungas Road. Hammond is phobic toward insects and spends the entire time in the rainforest freaking out. (Clarkson claimed he was only afraid of manual labour.)
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not Awesome?: The editing — particularly the background music — frequently pushes scenes from their challenges and races to epic levels of Awesome.
    • Top Gear is well recognized in the professional film and television industries as having some of the world's best editing and production values.
      • Boring But Practical: The magazine has revealed that they shoot most of their rolling action shots from the opened back of a Ford Mondeo hatchback, rather than a purpose-designed camera rig.
    • The intros often play into this trope as well — in an episode that had a European rally race and dinosaurs on the track Jeremy Clarkson's introduction went "Tonight: I wear some GOGGLES! Richard Hammond FALLS DOWN A SMALL SLOPE! James May SAYS HELLO to a MAN!"
    • Hammond and May racing against a letter being delivered by Royal Mail. Complete with dramatic shots of mail being unloaded from planes and sorted.
  • What Do You Mean, It Wasn't Made On Drugs?: After Clarkson's "normal road test" of the Renault Twingo 133:
    Hammond: What was that? An acid trip?... Seriously, how much Night Nurse  * did you take before you did that film?
    • Also, the anti-drunk driving PSA Bacardi asked them to show during Schumacher's interview. As Jeremy put it:
    Clarkson: Forgive me on this, forgive me. I have quite literally no idea what that's all about.
  • Why Did It Have To Be Snakes: Richard Hammond says "I have several recurring nightmares. One in which I am presenting a radio show and can't work the desk, another in which I find myself on stage with a truly catastrophic band. I am only waiting now for Top Gear to make me run naked through a shopping centre on a Saturday and I will have completed the set."
    • Also, Jeremy HATES motorcycles. This was a problem when they had the Vietnam roadtrip. Hilarity Ensued.
  • Wiper Start: Richard while hypnotised into believing he couldn't drive.
    • Also May, after nearly half an hour of attempting to start a tractor.
    • Again with May, during the 'Best Driving Road in the World' segment, when he cannot get his Aston Martin V8 Vantage N24 started at the end of a ferry trip.
  • Women Drivers: Subversion. Sabine Schmitz, who Clarkson would replace Hammond with because she's a better driver, better looking, speaks better English and is taller.
    • And the team aren't averse to recommending what they would consider "a girl's car" if it's a whole lot of fun.
    • Not only a subversion but a Crowning Moment Of Awesome when Sabine mocked Clarkson's 9:59 time around the Nürburgring in a diesel Jaguar with "I tell you something, I do that lap time in a van," and then hopped in the Jag to beat his time by over 45 seconds — without ever having driven that car before.
      • Alas, when the time came to do Clarkson's lap time in a van, Sabine came up just a bit short. Try as she might, she couldn't get the Ford Transit to do the lap any faster than 10:08, even though she'd stripped the van (by removing the hub caps, spare tyre, toolkit, and Richard Hammond) and attempted slipstreaming behind a Dodge Viper. Granted, they did supply her with a UK-spec right hand drive one.
        Clarkson: You said you were scared; was it dangerous?
        Schmitz: Yes, it was really dangerous.
        Hammond: You didn't tell me that; you said it was perfectly safe!
    • Don't forget sailboat racer Ellen MacArthur, who held the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car lap record until the Liana was retired, despite having little applicable experience.
  • The Woobie: Typically averted: Rule Of Funny and Stiff Upper Lip generally turn a suffering character into a Butt Monkey rather than a Woobie.
  • The World Is Just Awesome: Usually takes place during a road trip or special episode. Some examples:
    • The three presenters looking at the sunset from the top of Kubu Island in Botswana.
    • Looking down the Stelvio Pass during the 'best driving road' segment.
    • Standing at the side of the road in Vietnam looking at the view of the valley.
  • You Blockhead: Often.
  • You Fail Biology Forever
    [while playing "Car Sauna"]
    Hammond: Given that we are made of... what percentage of us is water?
    Clarkson: Ninety-eight percent.
    May: [quickly] Or less.
  • YouTube: Mostly illegitimately, of course, but the BBC has put up segments on the official Top Gear account, a playlist on the BBC Worldwide account, and a playlist on the main BBC account (not available in the United States).
  • Zany Scheme: Half of what Clarkson does after saying "How hard can it be?"

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