July 18, 2011 9.03 am This story is over 167 months old

Lincoln Top Gear air date revealed [U1]

Geared up: Popular TV show Top Gear visited Lincoln earlier this year, and now the episode has a broadcast date set for the end of the month.

— Update: The Lincoln Top Gear Air date has been changed to July 31, 8pm, BBC2.

The date for the Top Gear episode featuring Lincoln has been revealed on TV listing websites.

The BBC motoring show, now in its 17th series, will broadcast the Lincoln episode on Sunday, July 24, at 8pm on BBC 2.

Co-hosts Jeremy Clarkson and James May visited the city on May 12 while testing two electric cars — the Nissan Leaf and Peugeot iOn.

Unfortunately, both cars ran out of electricity and the pair had to search the city for somewhere to charge the cars, settling in the end at the university.

According to the Radio Times, the pair were testing the electric cars trying to get across the county to the seaside.

As well as the electric car challenge, the show will also see Clarkson test out an F1-style Lotus, while third co-host Richard Hammond meets a rally team of ex-military amputees.

The stunt in Lincoln not only pulled in crowds, but also conspiracy theories. In previous series, Top Gear had pushed a Tesla electric car into a garage when it supposedly ran out of juice.

This ‘push’ was later found to be fake, and the car actually had enough “fuel” to run further. All Cars Electric believe that the same could have happened in Lincoln.

Nissan also feel that the city breakdown was intentional. Spokesperson for Nissan Great Britain, Tom Barnard said:

“Pictures rarely tell the whole story, as is the case here.

“Top Gear has confirmed to us that the crew intentionally drained the battery to inject suspense into the mission of finding a public charge spot.

“Lincoln is an area renowned for not having any public charging infrastructure. Top Gear does not intend to use the scenes of the car out of charge as an illustration that the claimed range is false.”

Despite the breakdown, the Top Gear crew complimented the city. In an interview with BBC Lincolnshire, James May said:

“To be brutally honest our visit to Lincoln is a matter of circumstance because the cars ran out of electricity and there was nothing we could really do about that.

“But we are actually rather glad it happened because we have found out all sorts of interesting things about medieval history, the cathedral, the plan of Lincoln, the tower.”