1984 Top GearSeason 12BBC
First episode: 1984-10-23Last episode: 1984-12-11
Episodes

William Woollard and the Top Gear team return with a review of highlights from the British International Motor Show. There's a detailed look at the new Scimitar sports car and at Reliant, the company that makes it. Sue Baker travels the roads of Southern Ireland in Vauxhall's latest Astra, while, just a stone's throw away from the Motor Show, William Woollard gets to see some of the hundreds of bikes on display in Britain's first National Motorcycle Museum, which opened at the weekend

If you've ever wondered how police drivers chase bank robbers, then watch Top Gear tonight. William Woollard visits the Metropolitan Police Driver Training School at Hendon, which celebrates its golden jubilee this year. Every day on Britain's roads there are eight accidents between vehicles and horses

Giant racing monsters take to the track in a special Top Gear from the first British Truck Grand Prix. William Woollard meets the stars and the working truckers who unhitch their trailers to push five tons of highly-powered steel to the limit round the Donington Park circuit, while reporter Chris Goffey climbs into the cab in an attempt to fight his own way to the final. And between races there's a chance to see spectacular two-wheel stunts, a jet truck and Britain's fastest delivery service -the 170 mph Supervan

Sixty years ago Fiat's new factory at Lingotto in Turm was hailed as a masterpiece of industrial building. Now it has been turned into giant exhibition halls. Today for the first time they house the Turin Motor Show

Have you ever thought how nice your car might look with different-coloured tyres? Perhaps a tasteful shade of green, yellow or blue? It's not as outrageous as it seems, as William Woollard found out when he visited one of the world's major tyre manufacturers at its research and development centre in Luxemburg. Closer to home, Top Gear drops in at a spectacular get-together of Rolls-Royce owners and takes to the racetrack testing 'hot hatchbacks' to the limit

1985 is to be heralded as the centenary of the birth of the car. Karl Benz is usually held to be the father of the motor car. The French, on the other hand, have discovered a gentleman by the name of de Boutteville who had a car running on French roads a year earlier in 1884

For the last programme in the present series William Woollard and the Top Gear team look back at highlights from the past year and forward to motoring in 1985. Chris Goffey tries out the Audi 200 Quattro Turbo to see if it matches up to claims that it's destined to become one of the world's great cars. And in a year when figures showed that one in three drivers is now a woman, Sue Baker reports on their move into another important area of motoring; while Frank Page recalls MG's Diamond Jubilee celebrations