Noted producer-puncher and part-time car presenter Jeremy Clarkson has finally graduated to grumpy old man status. He turns 55 this weekend — officially a pensioner! Here are 55 of the most Jeremy Clarkson things Jeremy Clarkson has ever said.
Image: Getty
1. To Richard Hammond – “You’re the sort of person, I could show you a picture of Paris Hilton and you’d say, what if she turns out to be intelligent?”
2. On the Shelby GT Mustang – “I would buy that car if I was the sort of person that looked at my sister and thought… mmm.”
3. “I don’t like being overtaken. It’s a sign of weakness.”
4. On a sign that says ‘Lane Closed To Ease Congestion’- “What that should say is ‘lane closed so we can impose a preposterously low speed limit on the lane that isn’t closed and then put average speed cameras up so we can catch you speeding, fine you and spend the money on signs with squirrels on them with antlers.’ That’s what that should say.”
5. “I don’t understand bus lanes. Why do poor people have to get to places quicker than I do?”
6. On the Alfa Romeo Brera – “I only have to imagine this in black, with tan leather and I’m nursing a semi!”
7. On the Infiniti Etherea – “Anyway, if you want a melted car named after a tube with urine in it, that’s the car for you!”
8. On racing car drivers – “You just lie down, turn the wheel and if you want to win, go a little bit faster than all the others.”
9. When James said ‘I’m not sure what I’m less of, a woman or a racing driver.’ – “Let’s be honest, you’ve dabbled with both.”
10. On the Citroen Berlingo – “It’s a very good car as long as you want something that’s equipped like a Romanian jail.”
11. “Richard, the Americans are good at herding bison. The end.”
12. “I absolutely hope James May wakes up in the morning and ten thousand insects are in his underpants.”
13. On the Chevrolet Camaro – “So what the Americans have done is said we need some sophistication here, we’ll call the Australians. That is like saying I want some style for my wedding, I’ll get seven crates of lager.”
14. “M3 drivers have no friends.”
15. On a corvette – “Americans lecture the world on democracy and they won’t let me turn the traction control off.”
16. On driving fast – “This car was so exciting, I actually needed windscreen wipers on the inside.”
17. On Richard Hammond getting a ferry – “Because as I see it you’re going to spend all day queuing and then all night in a nightclub on a car ferry dancing with lorry drivers.”
18. “Telling people at a dinner party you drive a Nissan Almera is like telling them you’ve got the Ebola virus and you’re about to sneeze.”
19. “Every year, the world’s Golf GTI enthusiasts congregate in a field in Austria, and they talk about fuel injection and wear jumpers with ‘GTI’ on them. Frankly I’d rather blow-torch my nipples off.”
20. “Just because something is unreliable doesn’t mean it isn’t great. Take, for example, Stephen Hawking. Great man, but most of him doesn’t work.”
21. On the Lada Riva – “This is the same colour as a prosthetic limb!”
22. On the Ford Pinto – “Pintos are like virgin girls. You hit one in the rear and BOOM!”
23. “It’s really sad that you can now buy Hummer aftershave. It comes in a jerry can of repressed homosexuality; you slosh it over your face yelling ‘I’M NOT GAY!’”
24. On the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 – “In many ways then this car is like herpes. Great fun catching it but not so much fun live with every day.”
25. On the Porsche Cayman S – “There are many things I’d rather be doing than driving it, including waiting for Bernard Manning to come off stage in a sweaty nightclub, and then licking his back clean.”
26. On the BMW X5 M – “Still, if you want one, get your nurse to find you a crayon and write out a cheque for seventy six thousand pounds…or if you don’t understand how crayons work, you could spend even more on this rather ugly Audi.”
27. “Okay, engines for the Alfa Romeo Brera: 2.2 liters, 3.2 v6, and you can have a diesel if you’re the type of person who thinks the Mona Lisa should have a moustache.”
28. On the Peugeot 407 Coupé 2.7 V6 HDi SE – “It has the zip of a chairlift. With plodding performance and steady-as-she-goes handling the only thing this car will make you feel like is a cup of Horlicks with a splash of hemlock. Empty-nesters should buy a PlayStation instead, and spend the afternoon shooting crack whores.”
29. On Lamborghinis – “The air conditioning in Lambos used to be an asthmatic sitting in the dashboard blowing at you through a straw.”
30. On the Porsche Cayenne – “Honestly, I have seen more attractive gangrenous wounds than this. It has the sex appeal of a camel with gingivitis.”
31. On the FSO Polonez – ”It’s as reliable and long lasting as a pensioners erection.”
32. On the Suzuki Hayabusa – “I’ll tell you what, Richard. You go around our track on your Hayabusa at top speed and I’ll chain smoke and we’ll see who dies first.”
33. On the Mercedes CLS – “It’s perfect for short trips to the golf club. As a matter of fact, the [Mercedes CLS’s] Satellite navigation screen only lists petrol stations, and golf courses: everything the modern Mercedes driver needs.”
34. “I do not understand why some people refer to their cars as ‘She,’ lovingly. You never screw your car.”
35. On the Dodge Viper – “Tonight, the new Viper, which is the American equivalent of a sports car…in the same way, I guess, that George Bush is the equivalent of a President.”
36. Describing the Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder’s sound – “It’s like listening to the Cirque Du Soleil being chopped up by their own chainsaws.”
37. On the Toyota Hilux – “So it’s very popular in Australia and all the other various bits of the third world.”
38. “When you buy a Honda, well, you’re stuck with a Honda.”
39. On the Lexus LFA – “Can you ever love a machine? Of course you can. John Connor did. And I love the LFA.”
40. “The problem is that television executives have got it into their heads that if one presenter on a show is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed heterosexual boy, the other must be a either black gay or a lesbian. Chalk and cheese, they reckon, works.”
41. On small efficient cars – “We all know that small cars are good for us. But so is cod liver oil. And jogging. I want to drive around in a Terminator, not the heroine in an E. M. Forster novel.”
42 On the Alfa Romeo Brera – “I would not recommend one to a friend. That’s the thing. You wouldn’t because they’re going to spend the rest of their life in cloud of steam on the side of the motorway.”
43. On quitting smoking – “In recent weeks a craving for nicotine has made me angry with everything, even trees.”
44. On driving a lorry – “This is a hard job [driving a lorry] and I’m not just saying this to win favour with lorry drivers: change gear; change gear; change gear; check your mirrors; murder a prostitute.”
45. “The Suzuki Wagon R should be avoided like unprotected sex with an Ethiopian transvestite”
46. On the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren – “That’s the sound of a lot of horse powers!”
47. On the Renault Clio V6 – “In typical French fashion, it just gives up! A bit like the French did with the Germans.”
48. In his column for The Sun – “What’s wrong with global warming? We might lose Holland but there are other places to go on holiday.”
49. On the BMW 1 Series – “I’m choosing the words for my conclusion with even more care than usual. So here goes. The 1 Series is crap.”
50. On the Clio V6 – “It had the worst turning circle in the world – you had to actually go round the world to actually turn it round.”
51. On the corvette – “So if you want a car with Vietnamese suspension that is made out of plastic, this is the car for you!”
52. On the Alfa Romeo Brera – “So what we’ve managed to establish is that the best car here is the worst.
53. On the Volkswagen Phaeton – “This is the first-ever recorded example of a German joke: a Volkswagen that costs £65,000.”
54. On people carriers – “Obviously all of them are uncool. If you buy a people – anyone got one? You have. Basically what you’re saying about yourself, sir, is: you’ve had your children and now you’re just waiting to die.”