Top Gear (series 12)

Clarkson, Hammond and May see how easy it is to be an HGV driver, by each buying a second-hand lorry cab within a budget of £5,000 - May buys a Scania 94D, Clarkson buys a Renault Magnum and Hammond gets an ERF EC11. Heading for the "Top Gear's Secret Alpine Test Location" (in Bedfordshire), the trio undertake a series of challenges, including power-sliding their lorries, tackling the Alpine course while transporting a trailer with a valuable piece of (unsecured) cargo, seeing how fast their lorry is and attempting a hill start without breaking something precious to them. For their final challenge, they return to the test track, where they find how quickly they can brake after ploughing into an "obstacle" at high speed. Elsewhere, Clarkson is testing out the Porsche 997 GT2 and Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 on the track, and chat show legend Michael Parkinson is in "t'reasonably priced car".

Clarkson and May can't decide if imported Chinese-made cars will be any good, which got them thinking about whether the Communists ever historically built a good car, and are soon taking a look at a range of them, including the Lada Riva, Moskvitch 408, the East German Wartburg. Elsewhere, Clarkson decides to a proper road test like in the old days in response to a complaint, and does a "serious" review of the Ford Fiesta, while Hammond is seeing if the new, German built Veritas RS III is a better track-day car than the Caterham 7 Superlight R500, and Mayor of London (at the time of broadcast), Boris Johnson, tries to drive fast in the reasonably priced car on a wet track.

Clarkson puts the first electric supercar, the battery powered Tesla Roadster, through its paces on the track, while May heads to California to test drive what could be the future of motoring - the hydrogen powered Honda FCX Clarity. Elsewhere, Hammond takes a look back at 50 years of Touring Cars racing history, Top Gear Stunt Man returns to beat the record set by Fifth Gear for the furthest distance by a car off a ramp while towing a caravan, Clarkson sees if the elderly could enjoy a motorised rocking chair powered by a V8 engine, and singer, Tom Jones, is in control of the Lacetti for a lap around the track.

The trio attempt to see if they can do what the Americans couldn't in the Vietnam conflict - get from Hồ Chí Minh City (Saigon) in the south of Vietnam, to Hạ Long city, near Hanoi (Hà Nội) in the north, within eight days. The presenters are impressed to find they have been given 15 million Vietnamese đồng to buy a second-hand vehicle, but quickly discover that it amounts to US$1000 and that cars are expensive in the country. As a last resort, much to Clarkson's chargrin, all three find themselves buying a motorcycle for the journey - Hammond buys a Belarusian-built 125 ccfour-stroke Minsk, May gets a two-stroke Honda Super Cub and an unenthusiastic Clarkson purchases a two-stroke green 1967 Piaggio Vespa, with the trio learning that, should their bikes brake down and be unable to start again, the producers have provided a 1973 Honda Chaly mini-bike as a back-up, complete with a Stars and Stripes livery and an audio system continuously playing "Born in the U.S.A.". On their journey through the country, the trio deal with monsoon weather, sample local cuisine, get silk suits, uncover gorgeous scenary, partake in a motorcycle licence test exam, before finally converting their bikes for a journey across the sea to the finish line - a floating bar within the maze of limestone islets in Hạ Long Bay.