Top Gear's Homemade Stretch Limos: Panda, MG F and the Saab-Alfa
Clarkson stretched a Fiat Panda, Hammond made an open-top MG F limo and May welded the fronts of a Saab and an Alfa Romeo together. Then they drove VIPs to the Brits.
Real stretch limousines start out as big cars. That's a lot of the point. In 2007 the Top Gear presenters were given the job of building their own limos, and each of them started with something that had no business being stretched.
The builds
Jeremy Clarkson took a 1992 Fiat Panda, cut it in half and made it very, very long. The verdict on the show when it rolled in, "a giant panda", was hard to argue with.
Richard Hammond went for style over sense with a 1996 MG F, stretched into an open-top "sports limo" with no roof at all.
James May produced the one nobody saw coming. He took the front end of a 1994 Saab 9000 and the front end of a 1996 Alfa Romeo 164 and joined them, so the car had a front at both ends. His explanation was that it was all about choice: Swedish sensibleness at one end, Italian style at the other. One of his co-presenters asked what kind of paint thinner he'd been sniffing.
The tests
Limos have to do more than look long, so the presenters tested each other. One challenge cast them as getaway drivers protecting a VIP: drive up to a roadblock, take paintball fire from the other two, and escape with a J-turn. A roofless MG F turned out to be a bad choice in a paintball fight. Later tests added a water cannon and a stinger.
For the finale, each presenter drove a real guest to the Brit Awards. Clarkson took Radio 1's Chris Moyles, Hammond took Jamelia and May took Lemar. Wikipedia's episode summary describes the trips as having "varying degrees of trouble", which is diplomatic.
What went wrong
The MG F gave its passengers no cover from anything. And May's double-fronted car only made sense from the outside. Inside, he'd carried the Sweden-versus-Italy theme right through the cabin.
The weirdest bit
A car with two fronts and no back. Every car park in Britain still has to work out which end goes in first.
Where they ended up
The Panda spent years at the World of Top Gear exhibition at Beaulieu. After the exhibition closed in November 2024, reports in early 2025 said it was one of the cars that had been scrapped.
Where is it now?
Jeremy Clarkson's Fiat Panda limo
Reported scrappedAs of January 2025Reported scrapped after World of Top Gear at Beaulieu closed (3 November 2024). GB News, citing The Sun, reported that the Panda limo was among the exhibition cars scrapped. We haven't seen an official BBC statement that names it.
Richard Hammond's MG F limo
Whereabouts unknownAs of November 2026No published current location. We couldn't find a reliable source saying where it is now.
James May's Saab-Alfa limo
Whereabouts unknownAs of November 2026No published current location. We couldn't find a reliable source saying where it is now.
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: Fiat Multipla (1998), Renault Avantime.
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