Don Law XJ220 appears on Top Gear

The feature was about the 200mph Club starring cars from the late eighties and early nineties. Freddie Flintoff chose the Jaguar XJ220 as his boyhood dream car and was the only presenter to attempt the 200mph challenge on an empty airfield runway.

Following an accident involving Paddy McGuinness and a Lamborghini Diablo, Chris Harris is heard saying “as if fate hadn’t been tempted enough. Make no mistake, hitting 200mph in a Jag that is 30 year old would be a big ask. Good luck Andrew”.

The cameras witness the car reach 100mph in what seems an instant, before Freddie misses a gear change. The roar of the V6 is accompanied with Freddie exclaiming “my foot is down, I don’t know how fast I’m going, I’m not even looking”. He reaches the end of the runway with Chris and Paddy revealing that he has reached 195mph. Freddie, climbing out of the car explains to them “that was a warm up”.

In the second attempt, Freddie makes more use of the track using the first corner to gain speed. The camera shows the needle advancing quickly around the speedometer and pans to the car flying down the airfield towards the BRAKE sign at the end.

After filming he revealed he’d always wanted to drive a Jaguar XJ220, ever since they first came out when he was about 12-years-old.

“It was a stand-out moment for me for a few reasons,” he said.

“I might never have scored a double hundred as a batsman, but I got to do 200 miles per hour in a Jaguar XJ220 at Elvington airfield in Yorkshire.”

“I remember when that car came out when I was about 12 and I’d never seen anything that looked like that and cost that much money — now here I was driving it!”