{"id":5065,"date":"2013-08-09T10:39:07","date_gmt":"2013-08-09T10:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/?p=5065"},"modified":"2013-08-09T10:39:07","modified_gmt":"2013-08-09T10:39:07","slug":"top-gear-hovervan-heads-for-beaulieu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/archives\/5065","title":{"rendered":"Top Gear Hovervan Heads For Beaulieu"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Top

See? It floats. Jeremy, Richard and James with the mk2 Hovervan on the River Avon<\/p><\/div>\n

You can always rely on the Top Gear team to come up with crazy-but-just-doable ideas that will make entertaining television, even if they do annoy the half of the population that doesn’t like Top Gear.<\/p>\n

On that basis, the mk2 Hovervan is a cracking idea. The mk1 model was less good (it sank), so the mk2 Hovervan was fitted with\u00a0bigger engines, larger skirts and additional floatation devices.<\/p>\n

These modifications enabled it to “skip gracefully across the surface of the River Avon causing barely a ripple”.<\/p>\n

Allegedly.<\/p>\n

Based on a highly modified Ford Transit, the Hovervan has also been described as “noisy – and dangerous – and thirsty – and disruptive – and destructive – and uncontrollable – and expensive”.<\/p>\n

You can now make up your own mind about the Hovervan, because it has joined the ranks of wacky and crazy Top Gear vehicles in Beaulieu’s World of Top Gear<\/a>. Other Top Gear triumphs at Beaulieu include the Hindustan Ambassadar taxi, which was recently crowned by Jeremy and the lads as the world’s best taxi.<\/p>\n

\"The

The Hovervan in action on the River Avon. Fancy a closer look? The Hovervan is now on display at the Beaulieu World of Top Gear, along with other classic Top Gear ‘designs’.<\/p><\/div>\n

Away from Top Gear, Beualieu is also home to the Bond in Motion exhibition and of course the National Motor Museum. For a petrolhead — or anyone with a passing interest in how cars and popular culture have developed hand-in-hand over the last century — it’s a great day out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Top Gear Hovervan (mk2, the first one sank) is now on display at the Beaulieu World of Top Gear. See it for yourself – but in the meantime, here are some pictures of the Hovervan in action on the River Avon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[1757,1755,1756],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5065"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5065"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5073,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5065\/revisions\/5073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}