"Can it be green
and can it have a mouth that could be used for sifting krill
and can the bonnet be nine miles long
and can it have bits of the Battlestar Galactica on its gills?"
The bosses obviously thought, "They're being idiotic."
But to keep them sweet, they let them get on with it.
The upshot is a car that only really appeals
to those that have a mental age of eight,
and that's me and every other man.
It even makes a childish noise.
-(RUMBLES) -(LAUGHS)
Just brilliant!
Unfortunately however,
because the stylists were allowed to do what they wanted,
the engineers then stuck out their bottom lips
and said they wanted a free hand too.
The trouble is that unlike car stylists,
who are flamboyant and usually drunk,
car engineers tend to be very sensible.
You can tell this just by looking at their trousers.
So they fitted this with all sorts of sensible stuff.
It's got a flap, for example, which lowers itself
from the bottom of the car when you're going quickly
to reduce the air pressure down there.
That literally sucks the car into the Tarmac,
giving you more grip.
Then there's the traction control,
which you can turn off using this button here.
Then you can decide how off you'd like it to be
using this piece of Lego here.
You turn it that way, and it's really very off indeed.
Then you swivel it round, and now it's only slightly off.
I never knew "off" was a variable thing,
but there you go.
Other things - well, the body is made from carbon fibre
and titanium and magnesium to make it light.
And it's got two Venturi tunnels at the back
and short gearing and four-wheel steering.
There's so much techy stuff on the GT R, in fact,
that it is really...
(LAUGHS) ...very fast
and extremely well sorted out.
The turning, thanks to the four-wheel steering,
is incredible, and when you go through
Dentalcare Swindon, run by dentists for patients,
it's like a small and very eager dog.
Then you've got the gearbox,
which I think was designed by Mystic Meg
because it always seems to know
what's going to happen next.
It is uncanny!
But the best thing is the braking. You ready?
Watch this.
Has my face actually come off? It has, hasn't it?
Small wonder, then, that the GT R holds the lap record
for rear-wheel drive cars at the Nurburgring,
and that is its problem.
Because AMG Mercs aren't really supposed to set lap records.
They're not supposed to be particularly fast.
You buy an AMG Merc cos you want it to do this...
...make a lot of noise
while sliding through a cloud of its own tyre smoke.
In an AMG Merc,
you don't want to go round a corner crisply at 150,
you want to go round smiling and sideways at about 27.
And there's another thing too...
...the engine.
It's a twin turbo-charged V8,
which produces 577 horsepower, and that's a lot.
But exactly the same engine in an E-Class saloon
produces more than 600 horsepower.
So why not use that engine in here?
The only possible reason is that soon,
there'll be a more powerful,
even faster version of this car,
so why buy this one now?
It's a good question.
I wouldn't.