James May's Toy Stories

Attempting to build a full-sized model Spitfire from a giant Airfix kit.

James May Airfix Sptifire

Creating a plasticine garden and entering it for the 2009 Chelsea Flower Show.

Plasticine garden centrepiece.

May designed a garden named "Paradise in Plasticine" made entirely of Plasticine (except for some iron supports) for the 2009 Chelsea Flower Show. He missed out on the official awards due to a lack of "real" flowers but won 'The People's Choice' award and was also awarded a special "Plasticine Gold" Award for his efforts.^[10] May refused to take credit for the garden, the largest of its kind, saying that 2,000 volunteers assisted with the venture.^[11]

Building a life-sized rolling bascule bridge made entirely out of Meccano. In September 2009, May unveiled a life-sized Meccano bridge, made to a length of 23 metres (75 ft) long.^[15][16][17] The scheme was designed at the University of Liverpool by Architecture students John Carroll, Daniel Dobson and Josh Woods, and was then engineered by the design and engineering consultancy Atkins. The bridge consisted of two parts - a swing bridge, and a rolling bascule bridge - which in total weighed about  ¹⁄₂ tonne. It took a combined total of 20 students and technicians, more than 10 weeks to build, enlisting further help from the University of Liverpool's Engineering Department to manage the project. The bridge's two sides had 14 sections within the swing side and 22 sections within the bascule side, with each section requiring around 40 hours to build to a sufficient standard. It was situated in the heart of Liverpool's newly redeveloped Pier Head. As the home to Meccano for more than 70 years during the running of the Binns Road 'factory of dreams' until 1979, Liverpool was an appropriate location for the bridge. It was also believed to be a new world record for the biggest Meccano bridge ever built, with over 100,000 individual parts per side — including 28,000 bolts.^[18] After the successful completion of the project the student project managers were invited to the Lego House in Episode 5 for a party as a reward for their efforts.

Racing two Scalextric cars at the site of former grand prix track Brooklands in Surrey. May re-created the banked track at Brooklands in Scalextric track.^{[19][20][21][22][23]}

The 2.95 miles (4.75 km)^[24] long track was assembled by 400 volunteers who used approximately 20,000 Scalextric pieces. The project faced a number of obstacles as James insisted on using the route of the original Brooklands track, most of which has now been demolished and built over. Obstacles including residential housing, commercial buildings, fences, a road, and the most challenging obstacle — a large pond. The track broke the world record for the longest successful Scalextric track, with the previous record measuring 1.59 miles (2.56 km).

Attempting to build the world's first full-sized house made entirely out of Lego bricks.

The house nears completion

Publicity from the programme-makers called for volunteers to help with the building project.^[28] The response was overwhelming: on Saturday 1 August 2009 huge queues formed at the construction site at Denbies Wine Estate in Dorking, Surrey. Some people started queuing at 4:30 am. 1,200 were given tickets to work on the project while another 1,500 people had to be turned away.^[29][30]

Volunteers made standardised hollow blocks each consisting of 272 standard 8-stud Lego bricks: 12 bricks long by six wide and eight bricks high.^[31][32] The house was completed on 17 September 2009. Overall, the construction project overran by one month.

After the filming of the programme, the programme-makers attempted to sell the house to the Legoland theme park in Windsor. However, the cost of dismantling and reassembling it was estimated at £50,000 which was judged to be too expensive, which led to the deal not going through as a result.^[33] Having spent one night in the house, May said: "I slept in it on Friday and had the best night's sleep for a long time. The bed was a bit hard but I slept like a brick. Knocking it down is just wrong on every level. It's a lovely thing — it will break the hearts of the 1,000 people who worked like dogs to build it."^[34] During the construction, James May noticed that one of the plastic bricks on the outside wall of the house, which was supposed to be entirely red, contained one pink lego piece on the outer rim. He sarcastically stated on air that he "hated" the volunteer who did this, as it upset the colour and balance of the house.

Linking Barnstaple to Bideford with the world's longest model train set. May, who had previously identified the train set as his "absolute favourite"^[39] attempted to build the world's longest model railway. The team hoped that a train would run successfully along the length of the track, built on the picturesque Tarka Trail – a disused 37-mile (60 km) long railway line acquired by the local council in 1990 and which was converted for use as an off-road cycle track.^[40] May chose the site because he thought that people wanted to see a line rebuilt there and because of the dramatic scenery. May joined 400 enthusiasts, including students from Petroc, to build the miniature railway stretching 10 miles (16 km) from Barnstaple to Bideford, in North Devon.^[41]

The attempt by James and his team was disrupted by vandals and thieves, however, who interfered with the track; coins were dropped onto the line, causing short circuits, while some batteries and parts of the track were taken.^[41] Weather also added problems of blocked lines and damage to the fragile track, leading to several derailments, as was shown in the programme.

Simon Kohler, marketing manager of Hornby model railways, said that the train which travels at just 1 mile per hour (1.6 km/h) failed two miles short of Bideford station; but he also told BBC news "Even though the last locomotive gave up the ghost at Instow, we did link the track – in fact I finished it at about 2230 – so we'll just need to wait and see what Guinness make of it."^[41]

2011 Special: Reattempt of the OO-gauge challenge between Barnstaple and Bideford, racing against a German team from Miniatur Wunderland. After the failure of the first attempt, a new toy train challenge occurred on 16 April 2011, as a redo of the original plan, but with a twist, with the episode aired on 12 June that year.^[42] A team composed of Germans from the Miniatur Wunderland (including one of its founders), who had assisted in the first toy train attempt, raced against a team from Britain, again between Barnstaple and Bideford in North Devon.^[43] The new challenge was to race three different types of trains from one end of the track and see who could get to the other station first - The Germans from Bideford, the British from Barnstaple - with each team starting at opposite ends. As well as reuniting previous collaborators, including his friend Oz Clarke, May asked for help from the local marines to guard the components; this stopped the theft of batteries and track, as well as short circuits caused by the placing of coins on the track, which occurred on the previous attempt. A different, sturdier type of track was used, as was a new battery system to power it; the length of track was divided into 100 yard insulated sections with two batteries per train; the operators would leapfrog each other as each train progressed from one section to the next. This time, for most of the route, two parallel tracks were laid to avoid the opposing trains meeting head-on. The British model trains (and the track) were made by Hornby Railways, while the German model trains used were made under the Rivarossi brand, which is also owned by Hornby.

The German Team started at Bideford and the British Team at Barnstaple. The race was a best of three rounds. The first round used steam locomotives, the Germans using a model German DR Class 58.30 and the British using James' own childhood model of LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman – "with realistic chuffing sound", driven by Oz Clarke. Following the last attempt, James had dismantled, cleaned and repaired the whole model piece by piece before reassembly, making it supposedly the finest example of its kind in the country. The second race involved a German DB Class 403 electric train, nicknamed the "Donald Duck", and a British Rail InterCity 125. The third round featured modified trains driven by any power source the teams could come up with:

• The German team originally used fermented sauerkraut to power a small piston engine motor, which started quickly but then fell off the track and exploded. The backup was a standard EuroSprinter ES 64 P electric locomotive, powered by a bank of lithium-ion cells instead of electricity supplied from the track.
• The British team tried a train based on a ducted fan propelling a British Rail Class 395, which while extremely fast, proved too unstable and lacked brakes. It quickly derailed, breaking several wheels in the process. The replacement used an electric motor driven by a hydrogen fuel cell, the workings of which were disguised by an over-scale Thomas the Tank Engine body (although this was removed for much of the route as it made it top heavy).

The Germans were the first to complete the full journey with the Donald Duck. The British then won the second round with their hydrogen fuel cell train, and the third round was also won by the British with the Flying Scotsman after the German DR58 steam locomotive had problems. James May, after the crushing disappointment from the first attempt, was emotional that his Flying Scotsman model had made it to Bideford, and was delighted that the mechanically generated "realistic chuffing sound" was still working.

All six trains eventually arrived at their destination, though during the challenge, several of the engines that finished had problems which were fixed en route. The Flying Scotsman had to have a new chassis block, while the "Donald Duck" had two breakdowns due to a faulty gearbox, with both within view of their finishing point. Meanwhile, both experimental trains that finished had reliable power sources but major issues with top-heavy stability, with the EuroSprinter battery powered engine also suffering with gearbox trouble, while the German steam BR58 limped along very slowly with unspecified problems to finish last of all the trains several hours after the others, arriving at Barnstaple by 2:20am.

2012 Special: Attempt to fly a large unpowered balsa wood glider across the English Channel.^[44] In August 2012, James May and his team decided to take on a new challenge - to build a model glider to a scale of 1:1, and to fly it across the English Channel, as part of a record-setting achievement. The model kit chosen was a of the Slingsby Swallow which he described as "reminiscent of the Keil-Kraft type of gliders I built as a kid". The original plan was to launch the glider from a balloon from a height of 8,000 feet (2,438 m), at the shortest points between Britain and France. However, due to the 2012 Olympics and French air traffic control, they were unable to fly the glider across the Channel; even when their glider was classified as a drone. Instead it was decided that the glider would be flown from Ilfracombe, in Devon, across the Bristol Channel to south Wales. This was the same distance - 22 mi (35 km) - as across the English Channel at its narrowest point. The project had support from "Simmy" (Simeon Oakley), an engineer who has appeared in James May's Man Lab, along with aerospace engineering students from Brunel University.^[45]

2013 Special: Attempt to build a motorbike and sidecar out of Meccano and complete a lap of the Isle of Man TT circuit.^[46]

Meccano Motorcycle on display at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu.

Electric motor assembly.

Following James May's successful attempt to create a bridge out of Meccano in Liverpool back in 2009, a new challenge was made to see if the mechanical toy could be used to create a fully working motorcycle, and then ride it across the Isle of Man.^[47] More specifically, for one lap of the island's famous TT Course, in 2013. The challenge was a daunting one, consisting of many technical and mechanical problems with the bike being made out of Meccano, alongside other issues. The first problem faced was from the island's government, which only gave the go-ahead for the bike to partake in travelling the TT Course, as long as the show promoted the tourism for the area; this led to the bike having to include a sidecar for Oz Clarke, who was brought in to handle the tourism matter. Construction of the bike was slow because of the parts needed, making a chain for the bike, for example, was a time consuming process since they were creating a full-sized functioning bike rather than a small model. Despite being slightly behind schedule, the construction of the bike was completed just a day before the challenge was to be started. As in previous episodes of Toy Stories, the engineering side to the construction was overseen by Sim Oakley.^[48]

However, while the construction had been problematic, the bulk of the problems faced in the challenge only truly began when the main task was to be started. The first problem faced came when the bike's brakes were being tested by the team to ensure that they worked, on the night before the challenge would begin; the front ones were found to be too firm for the Meccano pieces, as they crippled the front wheel and ruined the front forks, forcing the team to repair the damage by remaking the parts. Then the bike had to undertake an MOT test before it could be allowed to perform on the road and the course, which it managed to pass after a worrying amount of time. The next issue came from an unexpected matter; the practice session for the Grand Prix of the main race was cancelled while the group were filming the bike in all its glory, forcing the team to start earlier than had been planned. Despite these initial issues that were faced, the bike was able to function and move on its own power, and began the task in hand, with a police escort protecting it from local traffic as it drove along the course.

However, further problems were soon encountered after it started. The power for the bike was not strong enough as they had hoped for; despite it using several Meccano motors that would be more suited for smaller models, but had been fashioned in a way to work with the bike like a full sized engine, they could not supply the power needed for it to tackle hills or give it good enough speed to cover the length of the course. This led to a motor from a golf buggy (described as Plan B by May), to be used to supply more power, but even this could not get the bike far enough for the pair's liking; only a few miles were covered before May and Clarke had to stop for the night, much to May's disappointment, as they were not allowed to drive the bike at night due to strict rules. The bike had to be carted away for emergency repairs to evaluate the issues.

The following day, the group had to complete much more distance than had been hoped, and continued to have further problems, which began from the back wheel becoming a major issue and needing repairs, and also from the lack of speed, which was needed to cover the remaining miles; the group had to complete the challenge before the TT Race was to be officially started, otherwise they would have to stop and try again another time. Oz was abandoned to tour the island's sights and remove unwanted weight, while May continued on with the challenge, suffering further problems with power, which had origins of a mysterious nature that could not be found. The slowdowns to make repairs to these issues and more, cost time they did not have to spare.

James May attempts to rehabilitate one of Britain's most derided toys by seeing if it is possible for Action Man to do what no toy has ever managed - travel faster than the speed of sound.^[49] In 2014, a brand new challenge was devised, involving the Action Man doll. The idea was simple - to see if a toy (the doll in particular) could break the sound-barrier, and travel faster than the speed of sound (Mach 1) as a result, something that had not been attempted before with any existing toy. In order to achieve the goal, James and his team, including Sim Oakley, the team's engineer, initially thought of replicating a Eurofighter jet aircraft, by using an Action Man sized replica model plane for the doll to use, which would be launched by any potential method that could help it achieve the needed speed. But when testing this possibility out with an air cannon (designed to test real aircraft components), the model plane they used broke apart the moment it was launched at high speed. James had been concerned about the use of the model plane, so the sudden event meant the idea was no longer feasible, and was promptly scrapped.

This led to the team researching other methods and solutions they could use to achieve the goal, and led to them looking at notable historical events that involved breaking the sound-barrier. These included the first manned aircraft to break the sound-barrier in 1947, the Bell X-1 (which was piloted by Chuck Yeager), to the freefall jump by Felix Baumgartner, who broke through the sound-barrier as well and did so in 2012. The latter event involving Baumgartner's jump was chosen as the template for the next attempt, and involved using a weather balloon, which would be launched into the air while attached with a capsule consisting of two components - the main component would contain Action Man and be dropped at a set height of 105,000 ft with the doll parachuting safely to earth, while the other component would have sensors which would remain with the balloon and come down when it burst. Both components would be recovered upon landing, with the sensors checked out by computer to determine the speed the toy had achieved. The first try at launching it failed, as while James was being filmed with the idea, a sudden gust of wind caught the balloon's handler, Steve Randall, off guard and forced it out into open air, with the wind causing the capsule to come apart. Their second try had more luck, yet a slow start caused by recovering the components, meant that it hit a storm on the way up, which brought fear that water caught on the doll would freeze at higher altitudes and thus damage it as a result; concerns which had been raised earlier after a sudden shower hit while preparing the second launch. Despite this, the doll passed the storm unharmed and succeeded in the attempt by falling back to earth without further issues, with both the doll and the instruments recovered afterwards. However, the target speed of 672 mph that the team wanted from the launch, was not acquired; only 249.5 mph was actually recorded. Using Britain's only working supersonic air cannon, owned by BAE Systems, to test how well the toy would handle supersonic speeds when free-falling, the poor result proved to be a silver lining; Action Man would have fallen apart if it had gone supersonic, which would have wrecked a criteria for the challenge - the toy had to be recovered, undamaged in any attempts, for it to be a success. Thus, as exposure to the elements was not viable, further attempts of the idea were scrapped.

Following the failure, the decision was made to look back over their research again, and Chuck Yeager's efforts in the Bell X-1 were this time used as a template; more precisely, the decision was made to use a rocket to achieve the speed needed, detaching the doll from it and parachuting it down to safety. As phone calls were made to find rocket experts to help out with this next venture, James and Sim tested out their template's theory with a prototype, using a commercial firework in which Action Man was attached to it, with a parachute and a small charge to detach the doll from the rocket; this test went wrong, however, as the charge was more powerful than expected, and the doll was destroyed as a result, nearly hitting the pair. While they decided to redesign the rocket to something that could be more feasible along with replacing the doll, the group discovered that their calls for help on the challenge had prompted a rival outfit, composed of rocket enthusiasts, to make their own attempt and be the first ones to get a toy to achieve supersonic speed; led by Dr. Russ Strand, a system engineer, they decided to use the doll, Sindy, to rival James' team, and opted to design a rocket with a one-stage fuel cell. Seeking to beat them, James' team worked hard on creating a two-stage rocket, with boosters, electronic components and cameras to both record the attempt and track down the toy, along with a compartment for Action Man. The team spent their time working on the components and testing out the bits that were essential to them; while testing out fuels to use, a home-made batch proved so potent and powerful, it knocked the testing rig for the rocket engine, which weighed 180 kilos, out of its place, along with the monitoring equipment. The doll's parachute was also tested with a sky-diving group to see if it worked (as it should do, based on a 70s advert about it), and was found to do excellently as a result (though recovering the doll and parachute took awhile), and later during a toy fair, while recruiting more dolls for the attempt, James May found an Action Man space suit from the 60s, and decided to outfit the doll in the clothing for their attempt.