Jeremy Clarkson hates America. He hates the junk they call food, the stuff in “Styrofoam buckets” that “passes for coffee”, the blindingly shiny perfect teeth, and he finds the natives rather thick – both in the head and around the middle. But what he hates the most about America is what it drives.

Their cars are cheaper and have a bit of power, he notes, but that’s because they’re under-engineered rubbish, made out of “melted down action men”. Worse, if the Americans actually manage to stumble upon a proper bit of (European) car-making, like say a Mercedes SLR McLaren, they ruin it – cut to a shot of a fugly SLR tricked out with broad red panels. It’s properly hideous.

But then a funny thing happened. He drove a Corvette C6 and actually liked it. American automakers, it seems, have discovered materials like carbon fiber and devised a method to steer around a corner. Could it be that he was all wrong or is the C6 a fluke? There was only one way to find out – bite the bullet and make the hop over the Atlantic. Jeremy Clarkson’s The Good, The Bad, The Ugly is the result.

It starts out in a style familiar to Top Gear fans around the world – Clarkson ranting on in his inimitable style as the camera pans to take in some stylish shots of America’s Wild West. Well, sort of – it's really just California, except for a couple of visits to Las Vegas, but that’s close enough for a Brit, what with the ominous rattlesnakes and scuttling scorpions, not to mention people who think Asia is a country in Europe and Scotland is next to Austria.

As an added bonus, he’s brought The Stig over despite rumors that “his head would explode if he left the shores of England”. As I find myself mourning The Black Stig at odd moments, I am appalled that they would chance The White Stig thus but he seems to be in fine helmeted form, so that’s all right.

First up, the Corvette Z06 – he races it along a track in Death Valley and rather likes it. He thinks it compares favorably to Ferrari's products and for one-third the price, he ups his ‘like’ to ‘fantastic’. If you think this seems a little too good to be true, you’re right. He takes it out on the road and everything falls apart. The tyres are too loud, the gearbox feels like it “belongs on a plow” and the radio is useless… “In many ways then, this car is rather like herpes: great fun catching it, but not so much fun to live with every day.”