The special saw hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May travelling to Lillehammer, Norway and creating their own version of the Winter Olympics with cars.

Returning to Norway, Clarkson prepared himself for a 3-lap race on the ice course of Vikingskipet Olympic Arena, between a Jaguar XK and a human skater, whom May introduced as Eskil Ervik.

While Ervik got off to a good start, the XK could not utilize its power as the car had no grip on the ice and thus could only move forward slowly and not corner so well, while the wheels constantly spun upon the surface.

The race ended with a dispute about the result – while May declared he was the winner by being the fastest with a time of 2:03.28, Clarkson claimed otherwise by saying that his run had been more graceful and interesting than his colleague's.

In a re-run of a film shown during Series 5 Episode 8 of the show, Hammond and May travelled to Lillehammer in 2004 to make use of the 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) bobsleigh course.

Their aim was to see if a bobsleigh team aided by Hammond, who would be subject to cornering forces of up to 5G, could beat a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution rally car, which would be driven by Norwegian Henning Solberg with May as co-driver.

For the rally car, it would run on a snowy dirt road that had exactly the same length of the course, not only starting and stopping the same places, but also consisting of slippery surfaces and sharp corners.

After one of the Swifts had to be replaced, Hammond crashed into May's car and was sent to the penalty box ("sin bin"), before being allowed out after May attempted to score more goals, just as the match ended, with his side winning.

For this last challenge, the pair revealed that The Stig had been saved for this task, and successfully performed the jump with the snowmobile, with Clarkson joking about the pain he would be feeling from his landing, as the special came to an end.