Jeremy Clarkson

"It is almost impossible to win a VC. In the hundred-and-fifty years since it was created, the number of British and Commonwealth troops whove seen action is in the tens of millions, but only 1,351 of them have been awarded the Victoria Cross. The chances of surviving a VC action are just one in ten, but if you do survive, the medal can never be taken away from you. You can go to the gallows wearing it. And no matter how many letters you have after your name, VC always comes first."

"I have bought a farm. There are many sensible reasons for this. [...] Land is a better investment than any bank can offer. The Government doesnt get any of my money when I die. And the price of the food that I grow can only go up. But there is another, much more important reason: I can now have a quad bike. I have always loved the idea of such things."

"We see the same sort of thing in Japan. There was never a Mr. Toyota who, since he was a small boy, yearned for the day when he could build a small family hatchback that never broke down. And you can scour the history books until the sky turns green but youll not find any mention of a young Timmy Datsun who stayed up until ten oclock, even on school nights, devising his plan for a car with two milometers. Subarus are made by a romantic-sounding outfit called Fuji Heavy Industries. At night I bet the chairman sometimes forgets he has a car division. Itll just be another entry in his plofit and ross accounts. The only Japanese cars with even a trace of humanity are Hondas, and theres a very good reason for that. There was a Mr. Honda and he did have a vision when he was a small boy. Even today that vision still steers the engineers, and as a result theres a very definite correlation between the S2000 sports cars and those early motorbikes. Its solely because of this link with the past that I like Hondas more than any other Japanese cars."

"Over the years the Flying Scotsman has travelled the world and been owned by pretty well everyone except my wife, and possibly Kate Moss. As I write hes for sale again, for a not inconsiderable 2.5 million Pounds. That may seem a lot for something that no longer has a purpose, even if he is Britains engineering heritage. But he is not simply a machine. Like an Aston Martin DB7 or an F-16 fighter, he works as an art form too, a piece of sculpture. So what if you cant go anywhere in him anymore. Put him in your garden and spend your days just looking at him."

"I have had long soaks in the bath that were more stressful. I have been on tropical beaches that were more noisy. After a while I became so detached from reality that I put on my indicator and tried to overtake the car in front. Sounds fine except for one thing. I was already in the outside lane. I came within an inch of hitting the central crash barrier and to this day I wonder what the chap in the car behind was thinking when he saw a three-ton, £250,000 Rolls-Royce indicate, to show the driver wasnt asleep, and then drive off the road."

"The Alfa Romeo GTV6 had the worst gearbox Ive ever encountered, and the worst driving position and the worst record for reliability. Nevertheless, I bought one. I knew it was a hopeless basket case but Id become smitten by the noise its engine made: a rumble in the jungle at low revs and almost an eerie howl as it neared the red line. I would put up with the massive bouts of truculence, the deep discomfort and the absurdly heavy steering because no car before, or since, has ever made such a glorious sound. It was music to the enthusiasts ears, like a cross between Ode to Joy and Nessun Dorma."

"I mean, it isnt as though the Saab badge stands for anything particularly dramatic. This fighter jet thing seems a bit weak somehow, and anyway it wasnt that long ago when Saab were selling their cars on the safety ticket. And before that, they were doing rallies. The result of all this haphazard marketing is that, today, the cars are almost completely image-free. And that, I suspect, is where their appeal lies. They are sold to people who dont wish to use their car as a style statement, people who simply need four wheels and a comfortable seat so that they may get to work as easily as possible... Were getting somewhere here, because if this is true it explains something else- no one has ever been carved up by a Saab. Think about it: has a Saab ever jumped a red light or tailgated you on the motorway? Have you ever seen a Saab being driven in anything other than a considerate and stealthy fashion? No, and neither have I. This is because the sort of people who are drawn to this image-free environment are the sort of people who dont use their subconscious to drive. They know that to do it properly they have to concentrate, absolutely, on the job in hand. So they do. And thats why they never carve us up."

"Reviewing music has to be the hardest, most pointless job since Twinkletoe-Winkletoe Ffiennes walked to the North Pole wearing nothing but a dressing gown and slippers. Or something. Imagine, please, being instructed to write about the latest All Saints album. Youd listen, hate it, and say so. And a week later, all the 14-year-olds who took it to number one would burn your house down."

"Some say that no machine conceived to kill could ever be called beautiful. Magnificent, maybe, and awesome perhaps. But not beautiful. The thing is though that in the battleships short life of just 90 years it turned out to be a less effective killing machine than amost any other weapon of war. All they did was steam around the oceans, making the people who paid for them feel good."

"Technically, the Hurricane might have been able to win the Battle of Britain on its own. But for keeping up the spirits of the people on the ground while running rings round anything the Third Reich could throw at it? That was the job of the Spitfire, a symbol of British brilliance, a symbol of hope."

"The fact is simple. The Spitfire looked good. It was every bit as dashing as the young men who flew it, and in flight it was as graceful as any bird. Its progress through the sky seemed effortless, as though it was simply riding the breeze and its Merlin engine was only there to provide a suitable soundtrack. You had Mr. Churchill on the radio explaining that wed never surrender, and above you had the Spitfire, and you couldnt help thinking: Yes, we can win this thing. Possibly, just possibly, the Spitfire is the greatest machine ever made."

"[Reviewing Japanese kei cars in this passage.] Then there’s the styling. Or rather, there isn’t. Any attempt to give these cars a tapering roofline or a curved rear end is wasteful of precious capacity, which means all of them look exactly – and I mean exactly – like chest freezers. And because they have such tiny wheels they actually look like chest freezers on casters. And that in turn means they look absurd. And no one is going to spend their money on something that makes them look foolish."