It’s also a gas guzzler, which sets up our next car very nicely: the Toyota Prius. Oh, dear. This is going to get ugly real fast, isn’t it? He begins by pooh-poohing the vaunted fuel efficiency and admits that he loathes the look of it. “What about speed?” he asks a bit rhetorically. “Nope, it hasn’t got any.”

All of this introduces us to “Billy Bob”, who thinks “Deliverance is a documentary and his top three loves are, in reverse order, his cousin, his collection of guns and, at number one, his pickup truck.” Could there be anyone more American? Billy Bob sprays some spittle and then brings out his gun collection (which includes what looks like an anti-aircraft machine gun) and blows the Prius to smithereens. Thanks, Billy Bob.

That settled, we go to a car that Clarkson likes much better – the Ford Mustang. A true piece of Americana that gets beaten by a real, live mustang in a race. Seriously, horse: 38 seconds; car: 40 seconds. “Yes, I’ve seen faster cows than this!” he yells.

Mustang fans should wait before putting on their KKK outfits and setting out in search of a good ol’ lynching however, because that was just the set up. The Mustang by itself might be a good looking piece of garbage, he says, but the idea is to build up the basic model into something “brilliant” and “fantastic” (even if still unable to negotiate a corner). He offers two examples – the Roush Mustang and the Shelby Mustang. Souped up racing versions of the original, it’s the Roush that wins him over, mainly because they actually re-engineered the car rather than jazzing it up on the surface like Shelby.

So of course, he sets up it up against the Lotus Exige S. In a race between the “American Eagle” and the “British Mosquito”, the “plastic toaster from Norfolk” wins because … it can steer around the corners. Can you see a theme here?

Well, okay, but what happens if you pit an Escalade against a Hummer H2 on a race up a steep mountain? The answer is that you’re likely to win – as long as you’re in a Range Rover. He steers with his feet on the steepest part of the mountain, stops to pick up litter, gets briefly lost, chats with his producers and still makes it to the top first. Clarkson can’t contain his giggles as he examines the Escalade and H2 sitting stuck halfway up the slope. “Rotten bit of luck for them.”