The Reliant Robin Space Shuttle: Top Gear Went (Briefly) to Space
Hammond and May strapped a 1992 Reliant Robin to a homemade fuel tank and rockets. The boosters separated perfectly. The Robin didn't.
The Reliant Robin had a reputation long before Top Gear got hold of it: a fibreglass three-wheeler that a lot of people associate with falling over. So in 2007 Richard Hammond and James May took that reputation and asked an obvious question: could it fly?
The plan
In series 9, Hammond and May set out to turn a 1992 Reliant Robin into a reusable space shuttle. Not a model of one: a real, full-size Robin bolted to a homemade external fuel tank with rocket boosters on the sides. Jeremy Clarkson's role was to say the idea was preposterous, which gave the other two a motive.
Neither of them was a rocket scientist, so they worked with the British Amateur Rocket Society. The idea copied the real Space Shuttle: boosters for the climb, a big tank for fuel, and the orbiter (in this case a Robin) separating to glide back down.
The launch
The launch itself is the bit everyone remembers, and it was genuinely impressive. The stack left the ground, the boosters burned and then separated cleanly, exactly as planned.
The fuel tank was meant to let go of the Robin. It didn't. The car and tank stayed joined together, so the Robin never got a chance to glide, and it exploded when it came down. Its only flight lasted one launch.
What went wrong
At the moment that mattered, a three-wheeler and a large tank failed to part company. Everything else about the stack had worked, which made the ending more painful and much better television.
The weirdest bit
The orbiter was a Reliant Robin. You can build a rocket out of almost anything if you add enough rocket. Asking a car people know for tipping over to glide home is the part that stays funny twenty years later.
Afterlife
The Robin that flew was destroyed, but a replica of the full shuttle stack later stood at the World of Top Gear exhibition at Beaulieu in Hampshire. That exhibition opened in 2009 and closed on 3 November 2024, and nobody has said publicly where the replica went next. If you know, the tip line is open.
Want a Robin that just tips over at roundabouts? See the Reliant Robin in the Quirk Database.
Where is it now?
The Robin that flew
DestroyedAs of November 2026Destroyed at the end of its only flight during filming. The boosters separated but the external tank didn't, and the Robin exploded when it came down.
The display replica
Whereabouts unknownAs of November 2026Shown at World of Top Gear, Beaulieu, until the exhibition closed on 3 November 2024; its current location hasn't been published. BBC Studios said it had rehomed most of the exhibition's vehicles and that many would go on public show somewhere else, without naming individual cars.
Seen one of these somewhere, or know where it went? Send us a tip through the tip line, ideally with a link we can check. We never publish a location we can't verify.
Related cars in the Quirk Database: Reliant Robin, Bond Bug.
Fact-check pit lane
Facts in this piece were checked against:
Not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to the BBC, Top Gear, Amazon or The Grand Tour. Show names are used only to identify the episodes we're writing about. We don't use show stills or screenshots. Photos are freely licensed Wikimedia Commons pictures of the vehicles on public display, credited under each one.