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You might think Richard Hammond's jet-car crash at 460km/h last year was the most death-defying and deeply deranged stunt the Top Gear team had ever pulled, but, amazingly, you'd be wrong.
The series that has been described, quite accurately, as the best TV show of all time, has returned to SBS with, quite simply, the best episode ever - The Polar Special, to kick start the new year.
Sparked by a typical bit of Jeremy Clarkson posh postulating, along the lines that arctic exploration can't be that hard, and that surely you could just drive to the North Pole if you really wanted to, the boys set off on a race to the top of the world.
Hammond - who always seems to get the short end of the stick, as well as the short end of short jokes - must go the traditional way, by dog sled, while Clarkson and a highly uninterested and unwilling James May, attempt to do what's never even been attempted before and drive there.
When you consider the temperature regularly drops to the ugly side of minus 30 degrees celsius and that 80 per cent of the world's polar bears occupy the area they're exploring, you can see this is not the usual thing to do in a motor vehicle.
Hammond quickly discovers that sled huskies produce an uncommonly large amount of doggie waste and that being a sledder means catching a lot of said waste between your chattering teeth.
At least, that's what happens when things are going well - that is he's actually standing up behind the sled, rather than falling off it spectacularly. To say the race is harder on Hammond than his car-bound co-hosts is to engage in outrageous understatement.
At one stage Hammond is so emotionally and physically beaten he can't even bring himself to do a piece to camera. He just stares, speechless. Of course, the other two are doing it slightly easier in their very specially prepared Toyota Hilux, but they are also putting their lives closer to the line.
Taking a massive vehicle like that across ice that could break and plunge them into deep-freeze-deathly water at any moment, does put them slightly on edge with each other, as May recalled.
"After a few days we were arguing for hours about the significance of just-in-time manufacturing versus the importance of interchangeability of parts," he said.
"By day four we had been reduced to food fantasises involving sandwich spread and sausages. Don't imagine we were nice and warm in the car. We weren't allowed to have the heating on because it would interfere with our special misery-spec Arctic onboard cameras."
In fact, while Clarkson found the whole thing exciting, May was decidedly less keen.
"I didn't actually want to go at all," he said. "I hate snow, extreme cold and dressing up. I knew it would involve a lot of camping, since there are no hotels around there. I hardly dare remind myself of the camping. The real problem was having to share a tent with Clarkson who was incapable of helping to put the thing up. I'm not a great camper, but Clarkson is a worse one."
In short, it's an outstanding journey, filled not just with the usual humour and boy-banter, but cinematography worthy of Attenborough. The punishment the hosts put themselves through makes for startling TV. And the good news is The Polar Special marks the start of a new series of Top Gear on SBS. Good news for the network, too, as it's the highest rating show in its history.
It also has a global audience of more than 500 million, in 120 countries. Next episode you'll get to see the famous Hammond crash in the first episode of the ninth series. His return to the show from what looked like certain death is emotionally and hilariously handled.
Later this year we'll also get to see the first episodes of the new Australian Top Gear. Our country's car love has seen us become the first place in the world to be licensed to make our own version of this fabulous format. It remains to be seen whether the Aussie version will attempt to match the Brits by trying to drive to the South Pole.
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