McRain, Massive Cars, and (May)onnaise?

It all started as an easy journey from Berwick-upon-Tweed, the most northerly town in England, to the Outer Hebrides, an island chain all the way across Scotland. Along the way, the boys will be trying to answer a seemingly simple question: Why have American cars not caught on in Europe?

Many American things have been easily adopted by Europeans. Clothes, beer, food, and even some of our customs have been seamlessly integrated into many people's daily lives in Europe, and vice-versa. Why have cars from the U.S. not been as widely accepted?

They set out to find the answer to this extremely important question.

Clarkson, in true Clarkson fashion, went big with the Lincoln Continental Mark V. This beast is 19 feet long and about as wide as a full-grown elephant. Jeremy's model was equipped with a 6.6-liter V8 that produces 181 horsepower.

Hammond, of course, chose a green car. Specifically, he arrived in a 1971 Buick Riviera in lime green. This car featured a 7.5-liter V8 engine that cranks out a whopping 250 horsepower, making Richard's car the most powerful of the lot.

And last, (and definitely the slowest), but certainly not least, (in fact it was the biggest car) May arrived in a Cadillac. The Cadillac Coupe DeVille, is quite literally, as May put it is "The Cadillac of Cadillacs." It seemed like a good expression describing the Coupe DeVille, but then I remembered that Kraft Mayonnaise has the slogan "The Mayo of Mayonnaise." After that, every time I saw that car in the special, I was immediately reminded of mayonnaise. So, from this point on, I will refer to the Coupe DeVille as "The (May)onnaise Car." Anyway, the (May)onnaise Car sported an 8.2 liter V8 that produces 190 horsepower. This huge engine is the largest V8 ever fitted to a production car, and that makes this car the least economical of the three.

The guys then spent about five minutes bragging about which celebrities drove the same model car that they were driving. After that, they chatted about Hammond's self-opening boot lid, and the chunk of burgundy missing from May's car. They then had a game of Top Trumps about the displacement of their engines and the horsepower they put out.

After introducing and criticizing each other's cars, they finally got on with the journey. Predictably, almost as soon as they had entered "McScotland" it began "McRaining," and with that, the problems began.

It started small; minor mishaps here and there, but then, as they entered Edinburgh city center, they found that their cars couldn't really navigate the cobbled streets. Of course, according to Hammond, that was "Edinburgh's fault rather than the cars." And then, Hammond's car kept overheating and the radiator would boil over. Then, when Jeremy opened his car's door, it decided to leave half of itself in place and block him from entering, forcing him to climb through the window. After that, he proceeded to break the previously mentioned door.

After this, they decided to race a Scottish car at Knockhill Racing Circuit in Fife. The cars did not put up remarkable times, ranging from 5 to 17 seconds slower than the Hillman Avenger they were up against, but would you expect three enormous boats to put up amazingly fast times?

After this, they commented on the fact that Richard Hammond had, quite remarkably, not collided with anything so far.

Next up, they were informed that they had to stay in caravans because of the Covid-19 virus, which had caused hotels to shut down. After eating a healthy meal of a variety of deep-fried foods, they sat down to watch some cars from the 60s racing on Mr. Wilman's laptop. The next morning, they found out that they had to tow their own caravans behind their cars because of the virus. This of course led to many modifications to their caravans to make them stylish and more livable. Hammond made his caravan into an Airstream, Jeremy did a low-rider style caravan, and James, well, he made his own caravan look like a cow.

Some other notable occurrences include flooding James' caravan, having a USA vs USSR demolition derby race, many scientific experiments, getting lost in the middle of Scotland, breaking down, losing the A9, crashing, crashing again, Jeremy's caravan deciding to run away and plunge into the woods, getting stuck in a ditch, Hammond's caravan tipping over, abandoning 2 caravans, staying in a castle, eating deep-fried food, a montage of American built sports and muscle cars, racing muscle cars, breaking a muscle car, a perfectly straightforward shooting weekend, a support group for American car lovers, cackling maniacally, squeaky tires, building a bridge out of floating plastic, sinking a boat, and modifying their American cars to be more American.

Hammond improved his Riviera by adding a massive, windshield blocking supercharger to the front, and a Plymouth Roadrunner style wing at the back. The (May)onnaise car was lowered 3 inches and given a side-mounted exhaust. Meanwhile, Jeremy added Radial T/A tires to his Mark V and also fitted a can of nitrous to his car.

Some features of this film include staggering visuals, rain, mountains, forests, amazing scenery, beautiful lakes, great cinematography, awesome roads, interesting information, laughs, pranks, and of course, stunning cars.

I loved the Lochdown special, it is quite possibly my favorite Grand Tour special. The three beautiful land yachts the guys drove were absolutely magnificent. The Mustang, Charger, and Camaro that they drove were amazing pieces of machinery. From filling James' caravan with water to a caravan plummeting into the woods, and a USSR vs USA demolition derby, Lochdown brought me plenty of laughter. It genuinely seemed like one of the old Top Gear specials. I highly enjoyed it and definitely recommend it.

Also, since they spent their advertising budget on Covid-19 safety protocols, I thought I'd do my part in helping them advertise and give you the link to Lochdown. www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B086VX4PSS/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r

Thank you so much for reading and be sure to keep your eye out for the Wheels N' Axles podcast coming soon!