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Hello and welcome to TG2 Cars and Stripes, a show where two salt-of-the-earth British guys, that's me and him, drive a load of American cars in America. And in this episode I get to drive a 900 horsepower Mustang as quickly as I can through the middle of New York, which, spoiler alert, isn't very quick. And I get to drive two Japanese cars but they're cars that should be in the UK and they're not. You can only buy them in America. Yeah, this one really annoyed me because how do we not get a Toyota hot hatch in the UK? We were the hot hatch kings. I know and it's a proper hardcore rally spec heartland hot hatch sort of thing that should fly over here. It's ridiculous. So the campaign to bring all the good cars to the UK starts here. I'm afraid to say the world is upside down. Once upon a time the UK and Europe got all of the cool stuff and America got virtually none of it except the odd Corvette maybe. But now things are completely turned around. We don't get anything and America gets all this amazing juicy stuff that we want, these two cars for example, but we don't have. It's a massive injustice. Yeah, it's a heinous state of affairs and I couldn't agree more. But before we get into it, Jethro, quick question about your car. Isn't this supposed to be the more practical five-door version with back seats of the GR Yaris and yet yours doesn't have any back seats? Yeah, I know, but this is the hardcore Maritzo edition and we shouldn't really get into a nitpicking thing because you've come to a test where we're celebrating the cars we can't get in the UK with a car we can get in the UK, painted blue. It's blue, it's also got a different badge. It's the Subaru BRZ, not the GR86 and I've read that this has a slightly more sophisticated suspension so it's a completely different car. Well, I'll take that line because I don't want this to be a head-to-head comparison. It's not about that. This is a campaign. We have one common enemy and that is the injustice faced by English and European people. Very true. What we need to do is build a reasoned, structured argument. That's probably a bit much for us, but what about two reasons per car why we need to get these in the UK, would you reckon? Okay, yeah, I'll go first. All right. This thing is faster than a GR Yaris and cooler than a Honda Civic Type R and now I'm going to prove it. Faster than a Yaris and cooler than a Type R. I might have overdone it straight away, but let's try and make that case. The bad news, bigger car, it's heavier than the Yaris, 200 kilos heavier, has a bit more power, 30 more horsepower, but that's probably not going to completely negate that big chunk of weight. But it has the same rally vibes and to me, the Yaris, which is, I love it, it's a really cool thing, but it almost feels like it needs a bit more weight because it's set up mostly at lower speeds to understeer a bit and then it weirdly starts to oversteer at higher speeds when understeer would be quite nice. A bit more weight, a bit more freedom in the car might just bring out a more fun side. So whether it's faster than the Yaris or not, I think it's pretty close, to be honest. It does feel a little bit more gutsy, but my hope is that it's also just a bit freer dynamically. What about cooler than a Type R? Well, I mean, it's got all that rally homologation coolness, hasn't it? So this lovely little three-cylinder engine and four-wheel drive that I can set to 30-70, which is what I'm on now. With the Civic, you can be playful with the rear of the car, but with this, you then have the mechanical package to ride that out. So rather than the front wheels just pull it straight, if you get it right and you pitch the car and get it set up nice and early, you can then power slide out. So that in its own right makes it cool, I think. And what it really does as well is challenge you. The Civic is just a fantastic car, but I think because it's front-wheel drive, there's that natural limitation that you rub up against, and this has obviously got its own natural limitations, but you can adapt your style more and more in order to get the best out of it and to affect it. And I really love that about four-wheel drive cars, actually. To get the best out of it, whether you're wanting to just slide around or wanting to go quick, you have to be really disciplined and keep yourself in this sweet spot. It gives it longevity. I don't think you'd get bored with it because you're able to affect what it's doing so much with your driving technique, and that's great. We need more cars like this. We need many, many more cars like this. Alright, I think you've maybe convinced me there. Nailed it, mate. Your turn now. Alright, we need the BRZ in the UK because it will make the Subaru brand great again. If ever there was a car to make Subaru great again in the UK, the BRZ is it. It is a little bit cheap, I'll be honest. This interior, the graphics on the screen, the quality of this switchgear, it's not fantastic, but then it is a cheap car. This one costs $31,000 and this is the high-spec version, which is a lot of fun but not a lot of money. And look, it can hold its own on track, it can do big silly skids if that's what you want it to, and then you can drive home in comfort later on. It's astonishingly broad in its capabilities. What I love about this is the fundamentals. They're all spot on. The driving position is good. The seats, they're squidgy, but they hold you in place. The gear shift is really nice and snappy and this engine, well, it's a 2.4 now, a bit more torque. It's a naturally aspirated petrol engine, not the most characteristic one in the world, but it does a job and it just adds to the fact that this is a no-frills fun machine, honestly. Come on, give us what we want, Subaru. The UK needs this sort of stuff. Save us from big, characterless, heavy electric cars. Tell you what, it was relevant 12 years ago when this car and the GT86 was launched and the GR86 and the BRZ, they're still relevant today. Cars that are this fun and this simple and this back to basics, they don't go out of fashion. We will lap it up, Subaru, trust me. The GR86, the UK allocation, two years of cars sold out in what, 90 minutes? It's a surefire bet. Point number three is that the GR Corolla, it's like a GT3 for poor people or anyway, less rich people. It's just such a cool, special thing. It's got all of that rally goodness. That means 1.6 litre, three-cylinder, turbocharged engine, 300 horsepower, that's 185 horsepower per litre, which sounds pretty Porsche to me. Everywhere you look, there are just really special components. We've got cup two tyres, of course, huge brakes. There's a carbon fibre roof for lightness, lower the centre of gravity and to make the car stiffer. This is the Moritzo edition, same power, bit more torque, but who cares? It's got no rear seats and who doesn't love a hot hatch with five doors and nothing in the back? This car, at its core, is just unbelievably focused, unbelievably special and exotic and we should celebrate cars like this because everybody needs a car like this in their life. This is fascinating, but I've got point number four and I think it's going to be a lot more fun than you walking around a car, if I'm honest. Point four, the BRZ can make a drift king out of anyone, even me, with your help. Okay, that does sound fun actually. Right, time for my lesson, what have you got in store? Okay, so this car is a little bit more understeer than a GR86, let me remember which one I'm in, but when you get the tyres nice and hot, it's very easy. We're not just going to try and drift, we're going to go for a transition, so that means we've got a left, a tightening left and then it goes into a right and it sounds scary, but if we can get the tyres hot and I'm going to demo, so I'll get the tyres hot. It's not so much it sounds scary, Geoff, it just sounds difficult. It sounds difficult. If you teach your kids to ride a bike, do you put them on a mountain bike and push them up a hill? We're trying to show that this can make anyone into a drift king. A bit of dirt on the exit for style points. All right, Jimmy, one take. That was quality. Okay, so I'm going to give you the key pointers. Got the tyres hot, we're going to turn in off the power, nice and aggressively, feel the rear move, do not immediately correct, let it go because this thing's got this really benign balance, so you've got time, watch, you can feel it. It's going and then you can just feed on the power. I'm starting to look out the window over there at that lovely train. I thought we'd be the same height. How do you sit this much further away from the wheel than me? We're in for those big balls. Hopefully there's going to be a second gear in this car in a minute. Here we go. Second gear, yeah? Yeah. Turn, lift, power. Okay, we've got the first one. All right, we'll try the second bit, right? Power. That was a good first go. I mean, you haven't seen the corners before. You've got a lot of angle quite early on, but you need so much throttle to maintain it in this car. Yeah. You haven't got a ton of power. Once you've got all that lock on, you've got to be committed, otherwise you're going to get that tank slap, but we don't want to go into the dirt. It's a good start. Power. Oh, it's a bit early. That was right. That was close. Windscreen wipers are on. The wipers are on. No, it's been a quality drift when you get the wipers on. That was a sign of effort. So listen, the transition we nearly had there, but it was just a bit early. There was a little moment. Extend it. Extend that first drift. Right, ready? Yeah, we're a bit later on the old initial. A nice control so far. That's it. That's it. You're getting there. You're nearly a drift king. Nearly, being the operative word. You did. You actually did pretty well. You'd never seen the corners before, and if you'd have done that transition another 27,000, 28,000 times, boom, you could be officially a drift king. Really? Only 27,000? But no, it was all right, and the car's great fun, isn't it? It is. It's super, super fun, but we need to make a big decision here. Which one of these are you going to take home? Pretty tough, actually. On balance, because I'm one of those rally rep geeks, I think I'll take this one. Yeah, that's worked out nicely because I'm going to have the BRZ, and you can always just buy it secondhand off me when I bin it. Also, $20,000 in your pocket as well, so I can do some nice mods, turbochargers, uprate the dampers. Or pay me, and I'll actually teach you how to drive properly. All right, it's a deal. In fact, come on, I want to have a proper go in that. I've been watching you have a good time all day. All right, I'm happy with that. Oh, big question. Do I want this car more than I want a GR Yaris? It's close. I don't think I do. I think I prefer the Yaris, but let's not take anything away. This is still a hell of a car, in fact. Jethro, I think I've made a terrible mistake here, mate. I don't want the BRZ after all. I want them both. I want them both. Well, Jack, we make the rules, so if you want to take that and this, I'm happy about that. The campaign was to get great, affordable driver's cars to the UK. It doesn't have to be just one of them. Let's be greedy. Let's take a boat ride to the UK. The truth is, we need as many affordable, attainable, accessible driver's cars as we can get wherever that is in the world. Come on, Toyota. Come on, Subaru. Don't let the Americans have all the fun. Do the right thing. The UK needs you. Well, the drifting didn't go brilliant. It was supposed to be a lesson and you threw me in at the deep end with some mad five-corner transition that I was just doomed to fail at. Yeah, but, you know, it shows how much faith I have in your intrinsic ability. I didn't repay at all. Anyway, GR Yaris that we've got here looks good. I reckon I'd have one of these over the Corolla. It's tricky. I really enjoyed the Corolla. What I liked about it, strangely, it felt really special. It felt stripped out and like a proper homologation special. This one is actually a homologation special. So I love that about it. But in the UK, smaller, lighter, more compact, I think probably Yaris might get lost in the States. So the Corolla actually suits those bigger roads. So what you're saying is one of the world's biggest and most successful car companies of all time knows what they're doing. They appear to know what they're doing. But I love both of them because they prove you can build a really focused manual gearbox, just a pure driver's car and sell out in five minutes and people pay premiums. There's still a market for these things. People just are ignoring it foolishly. Foolishly. So what we need is more affordable driver's cars. You've heard it from the horse's mouth, but we need to start fiddling around with two, three hundred horsepower. What we need is some proper American muscle. And this next film I call Mental Rental. Probably heard of the phrase, don't be gentle. It's a rental. Well, I may have found the exception to the rule because this is the brand new Mustang Shelby GT 500 H with over 900 horsepower. And I just rented it from a bog standard lot a couple of miles over there. Honestly, they handed me a piece of paper. I signed it and Hertz handed me the keys to this. This is the fourth installation in a partnership between Shelby and Hertz that stretches back to 1966 and the original Renta Racer, the GT 350 H. Hertz rekindled the relationship with bespoke mega horsepower Mustangs in 2006 and 2016. And now in 2023, it's gone all in with this absolute monster, a unique to Hertz tuned version of the already bonkers 750 horsepower Shelby GT 500. Back in 1966, the GT 350 H would cost you seventeen dollars per day to rent, plus 17 cents per mile. This one of 25 GT 500 H is still a snip at just three hundred and ninety nine dollars a plus tax and insurance and 75 cents for every mile over 75 miles covered, assuming you bring it back in one piece. Now, despite our best pleading, Hertz was adamant that this thing couldn't go track or road racing. Our job then was to find out how we could stay within the rules, but still go racing. So the challenge we came up with was this. Could the GT 500 H complete the 26.2 mile course of the New York Marathon quicker than the record male elite time set in 2011 by a guy called Jeffrey Mutai from Kenya in two hours, five minutes and eight seconds? This is over 900 brake horsepower versus one human power. Actually, hang on one more thing. OK, that's much better. Got to keep the energy up. Oh, it's so rank. Let's do this. The New York Marathon is a gargantuan event. The 53,639 finishes in 2019 was the most ever in any marathon. It requires 10,000 volunteers, 1,400 portable toilets and 20 therapy dogs on the start line to make sure the runners feel warm and fuzzy for the first few miles at least. The route takes in the five boroughs of New York, starting on Staten Island before winding its way up through Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, then turning back down the length of Manhattan to the line in Central Park. And that's it. We're off. Don't forget to zero the trip jack. Press and hold this. There we go. Trip zero. Don't forget to take this thing off because it's just itchy and annoying. And I'm feeling confident. I mean, come on, this is 900 horsepower versus 26 tiny, tiny little miles. And I did some maths earlier. If there were no obstacles or laws in America, I could drive this car at its top speed and complete this course in eight and a half minutes. Yeah, feeling pretty good. So this is the Verrazano Bridge, the start of the New York Marathon, one of the most dramatic starts to any race anywhere in the world. The runners are actually above my head on that upper level. It's a pretty nasty start to the race because you've got this big, steep incline for the first half a mile or so, and then they come down the other side of the bridge as we're coming here. Now, we're actually on the lower level because this is where we need to go to turn off for our particular turning, which means we're missing out on those beautiful views. But I couldn't care less because I don't care about views. I care about speed. Quite right, because thanks to the wonders of modern technology, we can overlay Mutai's progress alongside ours on the map and see that car had pulled an early lead over human. In your face, Mutai, but the traffic is starting to snarl up. Come on, we're in a race here. Out the way. Now, in any race, preparation is key, which is why I've only left myself with half a tank of fuel. Nothing to do with the fact that I couldn't be bothered to go to the gas station this morning. All to do with lightweighting the car, maximum efficiency, maximum performance. 91 miles of range left. It'll be fine. It'll be fine. It's not thirsty, this car. I am prone to a little overconfidence, I'll be honest, but we're absolutely smashing this. It's going to be a piece of cake. Yeah, so inevitably, we've hit our first traffic jam already, which isn't great, but a good time to tell you a little bit more about this car. So, it starts life as a Mustang Shelby GT500 with a puny 750 horsepower, and then Shelby gets to work. It chucks out the 2.9-litre supercharger and replaces it with a 3.8-litre Whipple supercharger. Much better, and that uncorks the full 937 brake horsepower and 635 pounds-feet of torque, and there are other modifications as well. Apart from this iconic black and gold livery, you've got a carbon fibre bonnet, you've got a strengthened Tremec seven-speed twin-clutch gearbox, and you've got a louder baller exhaust. In fact, there's a toggle down here. You can go from normal mode to sport to track. Maximum verbal. Right, here come the maps. That's about 20% of the race done, just over five, five and a half miles in 17 minutes. So, five times 17 is definitely less than two hours, five minutes. We are on for a race-winning pace here. Just got to keep it up. My genius route plan was going so well until it wasn't. There may be a slight compromise in the route because, yeah, I can't see the runners running up and down and then doubling back on themselves on a fairly main motorway. Oh, Christ. Luckily, it didn't take too long to get back on track. Clearly, this isn't the perfect car for driving around New York, but then having said that, driving any car around New York isn't very advisable. It's not a very car-friendly city. There's traffic lights at literally every single turn. There's a lot of traffic. It's probably faster to get around on foot, which is actually the whole point of this race. I probably shouldn't have said that. Let's just keep going. Keep ploughing on. That's it. Power. That's what we need. Power, indeed, because we now needed to gain back some lost time after earlier detours, but that was proving difficult because the closer we got to the finish line, the more traffic was seizing up, but that still didn't stop us from getting the most out of our 900 horsepower muster. This is such, such an angry engine. I absolutely love it. I thought trickling it around at these speeds, this car would feel like a caged tiger, and it does, to be honest, but there is high drama to be had at low speeds because it's just so much character and noise and everything going on. This gearbox actually is fantastic, and probably the biggest surprise is with all these manhole covers everywhere and these pothole streets. It's as bad as London, New York. The ride isn't that bad at all. This is a good car. Sure beats a shagged old Citroen C3 in the higher car lottery, doesn't it? We're now going over or under the Queensborough Bridge. We've been through Queens. We've got 18 and a half miles on the clock, although I'm not entirely sure how accurate that is since we had a circa two-mile detour on the interstate and one hour and 42 minutes has elapsed, which means there's barely over 20 minutes until Geoffrey Mutai will finish his race. But fortunately, I had a plan B up my sleeve. The female elite time stands at two hours, 22 minutes and 31 seconds, set in 2003 by Margaret Okayo. Or perhaps a more reasonable challenge would be beating Ashton Kutcher, who ran it in 2022 in a time of three hours, 54 minutes and one second. In other words, there are levels of success in this challenge. Now, you've probably heard the stories that back in the day with the original 1966 rent-a-racer, people would hire their Mustang GT350h, take it home, remove the engine and any other expensive components from the suspension, add them to their own cars and then replace them with stock items from a Mustang, hand it back to Hertz and just hope that they wouldn't notice. I absolutely love it. It's so brazen. And then as recently as 2006, there was a story that someone rented the hot Hertz Mustang of the day and entered it into the Silver State Classic, which is a road race in Nevada. And then Hertz found out about it and they weren't very happy at all. I wonder if they'd notice if we replaced this thing with a four-cylinder EcoBoost. We may as well be driving an EcoBoost Mustang because by this point, both elite runners had breezed past the finish line. Well done to them, both officially faster than a 900 horsepower Mustang. But that left one more contender who I reckon we had the measure of. Game on Ashton, game on. OK, so this is getting marginally more exciting because over there is Central Park and that means that we're getting excruciatingly close to the end of the race and I might be able to go to the toilet. Now we're skirting the eastern perimeter of the park. At some point here, the athletes actually cut in, loop around the bottom of the park and finish inside the park. We obviously can't do that unless we want to get arrested. So we're going to have to stay on the outside, down to the bottom, across the bottom and just a little bit up on the west side. And that is the finish line. That is where the pain ends. And it looks like our mission now is can we do it in under three hours? By this point, we officially had Ashton Kutcher on toast while we were rounding the bottom of Central Park with the finish line inside. He could barely see the trees in the distance. Come on. Oh, we're so nearly there. Point one of a mile, one minute. And the finish line is, if I can get through this green light, here. That is the finish line of the New York Marathon. Well done me. The finishing time is three hours and five minutes. In your face, Ashton Kutcher. We beat you. And that was pretty much end to end a fairly miserable experience with two exceptions. The first is what a lovely way to see the five boroughs of New York or the way that they all change and differ from each other so much. And secondly, the car. To be fair, this monster Mustang worked faultlessly, was good fun for short bursts at least, and was more comfortable than expected in the big city. But next time, I think we'll go elsewhere to really stretch its legs. So if you're coming to America, please don't drive around New York for three hours or you'll be as sad as I am. Right. I'm off for a hot bath and a massage. Good effort. Not really a good effort. You got monstered by the marathon runner. Yeah, marathon runners are quick. They are quick. I've got another excuse as well. You know, when we hit that gridlock traffic at the bottom of Central Park, that was because Donald Trump was leaving Trump Tower and going to his impeachment hearing. So it's not fair. You might say it was rigged. Genius. Did you just come up with that? Yeah, that's why you pay me the really small bucks. Very good. Very good. Unfortunately, this is the last episode in this series of TG2. So I'm going to ask you, Jeffo, highlight and low light. Highlight, undoubtedly, meeting Pastrana, driving the Huckster, such a cool thing to do. Low light, waiting for Neil Carey's drone. That was excruciating, wasn't it? My highlight, definitely cheap in Moab. Low light, sharing a bathroom with you in the Airbnb. I enjoyed it. Yeah, I've spoiled the atmosphere there, haven't I? But no matter, because there's good news, all the films that you've seen, we're going to be running longer versions, director's cuts of them, so you can enjoy them all over again in even more detail. Thanks for watching. Bye.