Top Gear Festival - Durban

This year UK Bungee was once again asked to take part in Top Gear’s Live Festival, this time at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, South Africa.

It all began back in 2011 when we were approached by Top Gear to attempt an unfathomable live car bungee stunt.  After carrying out a number of calculations, risk assessments and starting the process of designing a bespoke cage for the car, we decided that we could go ahead with the project.  The project was further complicated by the fact that Top Gear’s Live Festival required the equipment to be broken down and transported to other locations.  With these factors in mind the bespoke cage platform was delivered and we began testing the stunt at a site in Uxbridge. 

With a number of successful test stunts carried out, UK Bungee headed over to Johannesburg and on to Moscow where the stunt was performed to live crowds of up to 8,000 people during the live choreographed show.  After the huge success of the car bungee stunt, the equipment was dismantled and brought back to the UK where it was stored until UK Bungee were once again contacted by Top Gear.  This time the stunt was to be performed in front of an 18,000 live audience at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, South Africa. 

With the date set, UK Bungee began to build a bungee cord strong enough to take the weight of a car and a live presenter, as well as analysing the site information to form the risk assessments.  With the bungee cord built and risk assessments complete, two of our Directors were flown over to South Africa along with the bungee cord, where the equipment used for the previous shows were waiting for them.   Taking place over 4 shows, each day the car bungee stunt, complete with the live presenter inside the car, formed the show’s finale and was met with huge applause from the live crowd. 

UK Bungee Club was extremely pleased to once again work with such a dynamic and entertaining show as the Top Gear Festival.  The live element of the show places extra pressure on our crew when performing the stunt, however the atmosphere provides an immediate reaction which cannot always be enjoyed by UK Bungee’s stunts, and therefore UK Bungee Club are looking forward to working with Top Gear Festival again in the future.