It worked. Sort of. After 45 minutes of pushing, sweating, and Clarkson threatening to sue the entire Arabian Peninsula, the cars popped free. The BMW had a cracked sump. The Golf had no reverse gear. The Fiat smelled of burnt clutch and regret. They found Ubar (sort of). They got sunburn in places the sun should never go. Clarkson wore a tea towel on his head. Hammond tried to race a camel (the camel won). May spent 20 minutes explaining the geological history of the sand dunes while the other two threw rocks at his head.
"One cannot describe this heat," Clarkson narrated, wiping his brow with a sock. "This is the heat you feel when you open an oven to check on a pizza, except the pizza is you, and the oven is the entire planet." top gear middle eastern special
Clarkson’s BMW leather seats turned into a frying pan. Hammond discovered that the VW’s air conditioning was a hairdryer pointing at his face. May, in the Fiat, simply removed his shirt, revealing a torso so pale it reflected the sun back into space. It worked
Jeremy Clarkson, predictably, bought a BMW 325i Convertible. "It's a six-cylinder masterpiece of German efficiency," he boomed, as the electric roof failed within thirty seconds of leaving Dubai. The BMW had a cracked sump
"Hammer!" he shouted, digging frantically. "I’ve beached it! I’ve beached the bloody car!"
The Top Gear Middle Eastern Special is not a car review. It is a testament to the absurdity of friendship. You don't do this trip to prove a car is good. You do it to prove that, no matter how hot it gets, no matter how many times the BMW breaks down, there is nothing better than driving into the unknown with your two best idiots.
The defining moment of the special is, of course, the dune. Not a hill. A mountain of sand. Clarkson, in a fit of "power and arrogance," floored the BMW. He made it 200 meters. Then the sand swallowed the Bavarian beast whole.