Extravagant is, I think, the word we all thought when we met ... A lot of money went into that [The Grand Tour's ]. I just thought it would be a good idea to have a bridge from the old to the new and that was a way of saying 'Right, well now look where we are.'

This car is more fun than the entire French air force crashing into a firework factory.

Some say he never blinks, and that he roams around the woods at night foraging for wolves. All we know is he’s called the Stig.

Ecologically speaking, a spilt tanker load is like sticking a safety pin into an elephant's foot. The planet barely notices. After the Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska the oil company spent billions tidying up the coastline, but it was a waste of money because the waves were cleaning up faster than Exxon could. Environmentalists can never accept the planet's ability to self-heal.

I'm a horse of a man!

That [Pagani] Zonda, really! It’s like a lion in orange dungarees. Kind of fierce, but ridiculous all at the same time.

I'd just find a story in Canada and come and do it. Combine harvester banger - actually I've done that: banger racing up in Red Deer [in Alberta, for his 1998 doc series Extreme Machines].