Everybody knew Top Gear was an entertaining show for car people, rather than a straight-to-the-point factual motoring program, so – at one point – we weren’t surprised by its mildly exaggerated segments.
In other words, there were plenty of “fake” scenes, specially developed to look good or be extremely funny on the silver screen, and apparently the Reliant Robin film was one of them (gee, who would’ve guessed?), as Clarkson himself said in a column in The Sunday Times:
“I’d asked the backroom boys to play around with the differential so that the poor little thing rolled over every time I turned the steering wheel.”
Now, this information might disturb and disappoint some car guys who believed – after seeing the episode – that the Reliant Robin was one of the most useless cars ever created, failing to achieve the basic core of an automobile: to get you from point A to point B. Believe it or not guys, it takes more than (some) speed and a tight corner to roll over a Robin, like an angry sumo wrestler, for example.
Mind you, although the car was rigged for comedic effect, it was equipped with a safety system to keep the presenter out of harm’s way, as he continued:
“Naturally, the health and safety department was very worried about this and insisted that the car be fitted with a small hammer that I could use, in case I was trapped after the roll, to break what was left of the glass.”
Anyway, to make matters worse, apparently Clarkson grew fond of the Reliant Robin, as he, May, Hammond and Andy Wilman (the ex-Top Gear producer) bought one each as a company car for the newly formed production enterprise:
“Interestingly the other three did exactly the same so now we have a fleet sitting in the executive car parking spaces at our offices,” he said, adding that in reality, “a normal Reliant Robin will not roll unless a drunken rugby team is on hand.”