Top Gear - The Great Adventures - Botswana

The starting point is a little village on the border between Zimbabwe and Botswana. James was the first to arrive, in his 1985 Mercedes 230E. Next up was Jeremy with a 1981 Lancia Beta Coupe. Finally, Richard turned up in an Opel Kadet made in 1963, which he immediately bonded with and named Oliver.

To reach their destination on the Namibian border, the boys had to negotiate the vast openness and primordial sludge of the Makgadikgadi salt pans, the choking dust of the Kalahari Desert, not to mention the treacherous rivers and hungry wildlife of the Okavango Delta. Along the way, they encountered more or less every dangerous animal known to man, including hippos, elephants and the apparently testicle-crazed honey badger - as well as petrol shortages, flying vice-presidents and the Stig's African cousin.

Incredibly, the cars survived everything Africa could throw at them - including being dismantled, crashed, drowned and shot. Of course the presenters were well motivated to keep their cars moving: anyone who broke down irreparably would be forced to complete the journey in the spare car - an irritatingly unstoppable Volkswagen Beetle.