'Top Gear' Season 29 Episode 1: McGuinness, Flintoff and Harris test best company car in exciting premiere
Spoilers for 'Top Gear' Season 29 Episode 1
Another season of 'Top Gear' is in and in the 29th installment, the BBC auto reality show brings in fresh content for viewers. This comes as a delight for motorheads stuck at home thanks to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. The season opener features a fun-filled segment on the trio of Paddy McGuinness, Freddie Flintoff, and Chris Harris testing the best company car for which they choose a Tesla Model 3, Volvo S60 Hybrid, and the BMW 330 respectively.
Tasked to spend 24 hours in the car, they take a trip across Paddy's hometown, Bolton. There's fun with Flintoff peeing in his pants while trying to use the urine bag and he spends a major part of the episode in his boxers. The actual test sees them test the speed of the cars on a race track that sees Harris' BMW come in first with the Tesla coming in a close second. Flintoff is in the spotlight again as he veers the Volvo into a tire wall scratching an entire side of the car.
The second test sees them attempt to make it to the top of a closed multi-story park and Freddie makes it on top this time without any further damage to the lovely Volvo. Except, there's a boo-boo as he forgets to hand over the stopwatch to the other hosts meaning there was no way they could record the time. The final test is the comfort factor of the cars as they batten down at the Reebok Stadium. Trust Paddy to be a bit of cheat to scamper off to a nearby hotel, get a quick wink in and make it back before dawn.
Guess the producers had their revenge as the trio are given fermented fish for breakfast marking the end of an amusing first half. The next part of the episode sees Harris test the Ferrari SF90. The combined petrol and electric motor makes it one of the fastest Ferraris and is insanely overpriced at £400,000 ($521,940). However, the car boasts of a massive 1000bhp under the hood and laps the fastest time ever on the Top Gear race track leaving Harris thoroughly impressed.
It is a good start to the series and with most shows slowly returning to production, 'Top Gear' manages to get ahead of the competition with an interesting chapter to start with. The outdoor drive-in studio to host the show is an ingenious movie and also adheres to the social distancing norms. So it looks like Season 29 is up and running on a solid note.
'Top Gear' Season 29 airs Sundays 8 pm ET on BBC America.
