Top Gear's Channel Crossing: Amphibious Cars, Round Two
Having sunk in a Staffordshire lake, Top Gear tried the busiest shipping lane in the world. A Nissan pickup with its doors welded shut made it to France.
Most people who sink a car in a lake learn a lesson from it. In 2007 the Top Gear presenters learned a different lesson: that the lake hadn't been big enough. The sequel to their Rudyard Lake amphibious challenge aimed for the English Channel.
Version two of three bad ideas
Each presenter came back with an improved design. James May brought back the same 1962 Triumph Herald sailboat that had won the lake race, now with a collapsible mast and a centreboard keel. Richard Hammond built a second houseboat out of another Volkswagen Transporter, this time with a fibreglass hull and plenty of sealant. The museum that now owns it points out he needed a new one because the first Dampervan had sunk.
Jeremy Clarkson abandoned the Toybota, which hadn't survived the lake, and built a powerboat out of a 1996 Nissan pickup. Learning from his mistakes, he added two lightweight buoyancy drums on the back. He also welded the doors shut to stop the water getting in, which meant the only way into the cabin was through the sunroof. He called it the Nissank.
The crossing
The plan was to leave Dover and reach France, crossing the busiest shipping lane in the world in choppy water. Nobody watching expected a clean result, and nobody got one.
The Herald, the lake champion, was the first casualty. According to the Grampian Transport Museum, it had taken the most damage and its waterproofing gave out, so it didn't make the crossing. The Dampervan's engine wasn't up to the job, so Hammond fitted an outboard bought from Clarkson (the museum puts the price at £1 million, which tells you how the negotiation went). Even so, the Dampervan capsized in the Channel, leaving Hammond and May stranded until Clarkson came back to rescue them.
That left the Nissank, which the museum says was the only one of the three to finish, landing at Sangatte in France.
What went wrong
Choppy sea, a sailboat that was never meant for open water, and a camper van that had already sunk once in a much calmer place. The surprise is that anything finished.
The weirdest bit
A pickup truck you can only enter through the roof, because its doors have been permanently welded shut, became the first of these cars to cross to France. It's terrible car design and decent boat design, which is about what you'd expect from Top Gear.
Two of the three, plus the Herald from the first attempt, survive together in a Scottish museum. The Channel didn't manage what the lake couldn't.
Where is it now?
Jeremy Clarkson's Nissank
In a museumAs of November 2026Grampian Transport Museum, Alford, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Listed in the Grampian Transport Museum Collection, current location 'On display'. The museum closes November to March.
Richard Hammond's Dampervan Mk II
In a museumAs of November 2026Grampian Transport Museum, Alford, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Listed in the Grampian Transport Museum Collection, current location 'On display'.
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Related cars in the Quirk Database: Amphicar 770.
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