The 28th season of Top Gear has arrived, and the boys are ringing in the new season the only way they know how: car bungee jumping. For a show that has a long track record of insane stunts, this one takes the cake.
As if bungee jumping isn’t nuts enough by itself, Top Gear’s Freddie Flintoff decided to do it inside a car, specifically a Rover Metro, with the goal of getting the benevolent Metro to go from 0 to 60 mph in two seconds. I don’t suppose using gravity to achieve that goal counts as cheating, but to even sign off on this stunt is indescribably nuts. We don’t know what you’re thinking, Flintoff.
It’s powered by a tiny 1.1-liter engine that could barely generate enough horsepower to reach triple digits. The tiny compact can go from 0 to 60 mph, sure, but it takes almost 12 seconds for the car to do it. Simply put, there’s no conceivable way a Metro can cut its acceleration time by 10 seconds without something janky happening.
Turns out, the janky we were looking for came in the form of a bungee jump with no less than the Metro serving as Freddie Flintoff’s ride-of-choice. Truth be told, it’s one thing to stand on a platform and jump on your own volition. You’re in charge of when you want to jump and once you do, it’s over quickly. But to find yourself strapped into a Metro that’s literally hanging from a crane with what we hope are sturdy bungee cords, that’s a different level of crazy. It’s Jackass-levels of crazy.
To his credit, Flintoff didn’t seem all that terrified in the moments leading up to the free fall. It was either that or he just knows how to hide the fear in his eyes. Either way, the stunt went off without a glitch and Flintoff gets to live another day. I’m not the type to minimize an achievement of this magnitude, no matter how stupid it looks from every angle. But this is how Top Gear operates. Top Gear}.
In any event, the video is as riveting as it is dragging, at least in some points. But the latter isn’t all that important considering that it probably took everything out of Flintoff’s common sense. All’s fair in love and car bungee jumping. The stunt happened without any issues, and we get to watch more of Flintoff alongside his co-hosts, Chris Harris and Paddy McGuinness, as the new season of Top Gear kicks off with a resounding bang!