Top Gear drives the Channel Tunnel

We're halfway between Dover and Calais when I learn the French word for horn. On a thin road in a secret tunnel, many metres under the English Channel, I appear to be playing a very slow game of chicken. "Le klaxon!" shouts my co-driver as he palms an imaginary steering wheel. I press the Ampera's quiet beeper, used to alert oblivious pedestrians. "Non! Le grand klaxon!" he says, now furiously kneading the air with his hand. So I give the bigger one a blast. The noise tumbles off towards France, while the oncoming - and somewhat slimmer - car swerves up the curved wall like a Mini in The Italian Job. I do the same, and we squeeze by with just a layer of paint to spare.

Words: Dan Read

Photos: Joe Windsor-Williams