[Autocar]

For the moment we've got these four videos — about 38 minutes or so. If they go down, or if you want to watch the rest — feel free to hit the YouTubes and pop a new video in the comments below. Thus the "Open YouTube Thread" we speak of in the headline above. Enjoy.

For the moment we've got these four videos — the first 37 minutes or so. If they go down, or if you want to watch the rest — feel free to hit the YouTubes and pop a new video in the comments below. Thus the "Open YouTube Thread" we speak of in the headline above.

Part I of IV

Part II of IV

Part III of IV

Part IV of IV

And unfortunately, that's all we got for now. Have a more complete set of YouTube vids? Drop in the comments below. Until next week...good night!

Like the AK-47 assault rifle and the RPG–7 bazooka, the Toyota pickup truck has become an icon of irregular armies worldwide. When mounted with an anti-aircraft cannon or a rocket laucher on its bed, it is called a technical and technicals have helped militas wage and win war against armies equipped with mechanized divisions. There was even a conflict in 1987 called the Toyota War, in which Chad’s Toyota-equipped troops defeated Muammar al-Gaddafi’s Libyan army.

The practice is not local to Africa. In Afghanistan, it was an influx of Toyota pickups from Pakistan’s ISI spy agency which transformed the Taliban from a Kandahar militia to a force which took over most of Afghanistan with remarkable speed, defeating established mujahideen commanders with decades of experience.

This has nothing to do with good guys, bad guys or tribal affiliations and all to do with the Toyota pickup’s extreme reliability on hostile terrain. You have no doubt seen the famous Top Gear episode where a Toyota Hilux is subjected to every manner of destructive testing short of a thermonuclear explosion yet it keeps on ticking—but you may not have seen this image from 2002, where US Special Forces soldiers ride in a quad cab Toyota identical to the ones used by their Taliban foes:

But all that may be about to change.

The only clue is a few pixels of an illustration which accompanies Seymour Hersh’s latest piece for The New Yorker, where he reports on the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal—or its lack thereof. It was created by the acclaimed French illustrator Guy Billout and if you lean in close, the truck you see the Taliban soldiers riding in is rather striking:

It’s not a Toyota. It’s a quad cab Dodge—a Dakota to my untrained eye, but it could be a Ram as well. This might be an inconsequential detail if the magazine in question was not The New Yorker, famous for their fact checking team. And the truck is definitely not some sort of generic placeholder pickup: it has a Dodge grille.

Cooperation between American companies and the Taliban would not be without historical precedent. Back in 1995 before they conquered Kabul and became host to Al-Qaeda, Unocal executive Marty Miller was involved in negotiations with the Taliban leadership for a natural gas pipeline which was to run from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, straight through Taliban territory. While the deal eventually fell through, Miller visited Kandahar several times and at one point even had Taliban leaders flown to Houston for Christmas, of all holidays.

Perhaps Toyota, with its humbling losses and its exit from Formula One, has gone over the hill—while Chrysler has found itself a particularly lucrative market for trucks, where demand for new vehicles is guaranteed not by rebates but by American firepower. And nobody likes to stick with a loser. Least of all the Taliban.

Photo Credit: SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images, TERENCE WHITE/AFP/Getty Images, Paula Bronstein/Getty Images, Guy Billout, EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images, U.S. Air Force

Lego Stig is part of a grand series of racing minifigs, most of them based on Formula One drivers:

Photo Credit: Phil Birkitt

Bizarrely, Top Gear apparently refused to feature the Ultima GTR because they thought it couldn't clear a speed bump. To drive home the roadability of the GTR, Ultima drove the vehicle to and from the Top Gear track in Surrey, a feat the track-only Ferrari FXX and many other supercars featured on the show likely couldn't manage.

The Ultima GTR famously holds the Guinness world record for 0-100-0 MPH, achieving the acceleration and braking run in just 9.4 seconds. There's no secret to the vehicle's performance; it's powered by a 720 HP chevy small block and weighs just 2,160 Lbs. In comparison, the FXX makes 860 HP and weighs 2,546 Lbs.

The company stated:

British supercar manufacturers and multiple world speed record holders Ultima Sports Ltd have this week smashed Michael Schumacher's £1million Ferrari FXX track car lap record on the circuit as used by Top Gear TV with their Ultima GTR720 road car.

The Ultima GTR720 recorded a blistering 1min 9.9secs lap time, which demolishes the previous record of 1min10.7secs set by seven-time world Formula 1 champion Michael Schumacher in his Ferrari FXX track car. To put things into perspective the Ultima is almost 10 seconds per lap faster than the fastest road car that Ferrari produces which is the renowned £450,000 Enzo.

The successful lap record attempt was independently timed, verified and recorded by Plans Motorsport using their GPS DL-1 data logging equipment. It wasn't a test conducted by Top Gear TV themselves as the producers have seemingly ignored repeated requests to feature the British Ultima GTR to date.

"We are all absolutely thrilled with this lap record. I could see that the Formula 1 inspired Ferrari FXX looked supremely quick in the hands of Michael Schumacher, but I had every belief that it wasn't a match for our legendary Ultima GTR720 road car. I wanted to prove a point from the minute I witnessed the Schuey lap time on TV but the top gear track was fully booked for several months. At the first available opportunity we took our Ultima GTR720 road car that has previously recorded a lap time of 1min12.8secs (see www.ultimasports.co.uk/Content.aspx?f=record8) and adjusted it to more of a track biased set up rather than road car settings in the same manner as Michael Schumacher's track only non road legal Ferrari FXX. Our Ultima GTR720 road car stormed around the track at the kind of pace that would have placed it at the front of the grids in international GT racing, it was for sure a spectacle to behold. To better the lap time of the greatest driver of our generation in arguably the worlds most developed and expensive modern day track car is a perfect illustration of the sheer brilliance and mind blowing pace of our British Ultima GTR. Of course unlike the Ferrari FXX, which is not road legal, we were able to drive our road car back home afterwards. I would also like to clarify to everybody that our GTR720 will clear all speed humps and anybody whom doubts this fact is welcome to visit our factory so that we can demonstrate this to them first hand."

Ted Marlow, Managing Director of Ultima Sports Ltd commented:
"Well what can I say? I have been driving Ultima's now for over 25 years in hundreds of different Ultima cars with a huge range of different configurations and so I was pretty confident that the GTR720 would do the business.
The Enzo FXX is no ordinary Ferrari having been developed using Formula 1 technology and extensively tested by the 7 times Formula 1 world champion so to beat this lap time certainly proves the magnitude of our achievement.
The Ultima is a perfect illustration of the effectiveness of the KISS principle and enables us to offer an affordable supercar that can outrun the likes of Michael Schumacher in his own £1million Ferrari FXX track car. Simply put we have created automotive history by producing the worlds fastest all round road legal supercar and this new record together with our extensive catalogue of existing world speed records is unequivocal proof of the Ultima GTR's engineering excellence. Ultima fans can rest assured in the knowledge that we still have significant room for lap time improvement in the future as there is always our 800hp variant to put through its paces yet, and of course the keys to our Ultima GTR720 are always available here for a certain Mr. Schumacher should he like a shot at improving our new lap time record further still........."

The Ultima GTR720 is a fully road going production car with standard features such as air conditioning, stereo system and sealed luggage compartments etc and is often used as a daily driver. The car is equipped with a standard production 720bhp Chevrolet V8 engine option built specifically for Ultima by our OE engine suppliers American Speed.

What's next? Well we are all very content and absolutely delighted here at the factory. Over the past several years we have set a catalogue of world beating times including several world speed records which remain unbeaten. We have superb worldwide demand for our product with full order books and this is where we will focus our time and effort by continuing to provide our existing loyal customers and new customers with a first class service. Previous testing has shown that we can also take the Nurburgring lap record with a road legal lap time somewhere in the region of 6mins30secs which sure is tempting to prove someday although there are no plans set as yet......

[via Ultima]

BBC film crew frantically raced to the scene to check whether James May and the rest of the crew were injured. Although they were unable to reach the airship, a helicopter filming the stunt gave them the all clear.

The stunt was believed to be the end of a race between James May in an airship and co-presenter Richard Hammond in a Lamborghini. Hammond is believed to have not hurt his head in any way this time. We think. But he still likes asparagus. (Hat tip to Eric!) [via Daily Mail]

In addition to being fairly unoriginal, Marty McFly owns the manure shtick, we can't help but notice that they're against global warming and yet dropped a bunch of methane-producing material on his front step. Might as well have tried to spray old CFC hairspray in his face. [Gaurdian]

Over two million individual bricks have been used in the project so far, with another million planned for completion. As you can see, they're assembled into larger, hollow building blocks that are then stacked to create the walls. Small window bricks are interspersed throughout the structure to help bring light inside, while a wooden frame appears to support the entire structure. Once it's completed, May will move in for two to three days, where he'll sleep on a Lego bed, pee in a Lego toilet and wash himself in a Lego bath.

"If I wake up buried under a pile of bricks, I'll know it's gone wrong," says the Top Gear presenter. [via The Daily Mail and Flickr]

Caterham R500 immortalised – in LEGO
The Caterham Superlight R500 won accolades across the board in 2008, including the prestigious Top Gear Car of the Year.

But you know you've really made it when you're built in LEGO.

LEGOLAND designers were so impressed by the R500's achievement in winning the BBC's top motoring decoration last year that it decided to capture the moment in its famous coloured plastic bricks.
Taking their place within the 40 million-brick MINILAND, one of a number of attractions at LEGOLAND, Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, plus the elusive Stig, can be seen huddled around the famous Caterham Seven in a motorsport-themed area.

As well as gaining the Top Gear award, the £38,000 Caterham Superlight R500 proved its giant-killing potential by outpacing supercars like the £1 million Bugatti Veyron.

LEGOLAND'S chief model maker, Guy Bagley, said: "My colleague remembered that the Stig had put the R500 through its paces and how incredible it was on the track. It's such a timeless and iconic car that it was a ‘no-brainer' as our choice for the motorsport area, having already decided to feature Top Gear. Its design lends itself particularly well to our bricks, too."