The BEST episodes of Scrapheap Challenge
Every episode of Scrapheap Challenge ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Scrapheap Challenge!
Teams compete to construct junk machines, using what they can scavenge from the scrapheap.
#1 - Snowmobiles
Season 9 - Episode 4 - Aired 5/6/2007
Suffolk builders The Cement Mixers, and Dorset cab drivers The Turbo Taxis build and race snowmobiles.
#2 - Muscle Trains
Season 9 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/29/2007
Plymouth's Super Subs vie with Sweet Chariots, a group of rugby players, to construct a train they has powered by the teams muscle.
#3 - Hydrofoil
Season 4 - Episode 11 - Aired 2/13/2002
The ultimate challenge in this series is to build a hydrofoil a boat with wing-like structures underneath its hull to lift the hull out of the water at speed. The team with the fastest single time out of three heats over an eighth of a mile takes the trophy.
#4 - Roman Motor-Chariot
Season 7 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/13/2004
The Challenge This week, a challenge fit for Circus Maximus in ancient Rome: chariot racing … with iron horses! With the whole team standing on a chariot, somehow they'll have to control a runaway engine around a twisting race track. Should they survive round one, they'll race again in a gladiatorial dash to smash and bash their way to victory in the Scrapheap Challenge 2004 series final. The Anoraks The Anoraks shot the Up 'n Atoms down in flames with their Flame Flinger in the second of our semi finals. With their expectant team captain Geoff Turtell waiting for his wife to go into labour, Surrey lads Marc Draper and Lyndon Camidge won't want to hang around. Named after their club, these three can't get enough of off-roading. The lads spend their spare time in Marc's garage, building and restoring Land Rovers and other 4x4 vehicles. Lyndon claims he has broken, crashed and sunk more Land Rovers than he's had hot dinners. Marc likes to think he is the stabilising influence of the team. Lots of experience, slightly batty and a bit posh, these boys are determined to go all the way. Joining The Anoraks is Nick 'Rhino' Boyland who runs Rhino Trikes, one of the UK's foremost kit and trike manufacturers. He has been hammering out trikes for 13 years. Before that, he was a mechanic and car salesman in Germany. He also worked as a civilian contractor in a REME engineers' workshop. He has plenty of skills and experience and he looks a bit like a young Meatloaf. So will his creation go like a bat out of hell? Hairy Hogs In our first semi final, the Hairy Hogs were the victors in the battle of the bikers as they beached The Thirsty Knights with their landing craft. The Hogs are three fun-loving bikers from Belfast. Captain Conn Kelly, Darrell Hanna and Alastair Nethercott combine the talents of an electrician, mechanic and a plumber and are all members of the same Harley Owners Group. Big men, with personalities and hearty laughs to ma
#5 - Demolition
Season 3 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/17/2000
The teams each have to build a machine capable of demolishing a set of industrial outbuildings at an old power station in Norwich. Sadly, no explosives are allowed, but they manage all the same. The Beach Boys, a group of twentysomething surfers, decide on a straightforward, human-powered battering ram, and do something no other team has ever managed — they finish building before time is up. The Chaos Crew keeps the Junkyard Wars tradition alive, with a great, big, nasty-looking machine. They build a big hydraulic claw that can rip down walls.
#6 - Windmill
Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/8/2000
The Techno-Teachers go up against The Manic Mechanics to see who can harness the forces of Mother Nature and build a windmill to power a machine crucial to life as we know it — a coffee grinder! One team constructs a conventional fan-bladed windmill, while their opponents go for a vertical-axis Savonious rotor. Quick on-screen sketches reveal which is best for which wind conditions. But a half-hour before the competition, the weather services release a gale warning, forcing one team to clip the blades off their windmill for fear of having them ripped off. But at competition time, the wind doesn't get over 2 miles per hour.
#7 - Giant Mower
Season 3 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/5/2000
There's an acre of wheat to cut and collect. This semifinal Junkyard challenge sends the competitors down to the farm to see who can build the best mower. One team turns a taxicab into a take-no-prisoners lawnmower, while their opponents turn a pickup truck into a harvester. Amid lots of smoke and chugging, both teams' machines "buy the farm." The winning machine is an impromptu scythe made out of a foot of metal.
#8 - Fireboat
Season 3 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/12/2000
In the championship match, the two surviving teams see who can build a boat that will go across a lake and put out a fire in a burning building. One team builds a Land-Rover-based fireboat with an amazing pump, but their boat is less maneuverable than they'd like. The other team's pump is not as strong, and their boat keeps taking on water.
#9 - Egg Shooter
Season 4 - Episode 1 - Aired 12/5/2001
The new series kicks off with our barmiest challenge yet: to build a machine that will fire an ostrich egg as far as possible and bring it back to earth in one piece. The machines must be mobile so that - if the eggs survive intact - they can be wheeled to the landing spot for another attempt. Each team is given three eggs and the winner is whoever has travelled the furthest after three shots.
#10 - Monster Trucks
Season 4 - Episode 2 - Aired 12/12/2001
The challenge for the second heat is to build a 'monster truck' and drive it around an 'S'-shaped course in a dirt oval. The trucks will have to climb dirt hillocks and crush a line of cars before accelerating home. Each team is allowed three runs: the winner is the one that sets the fastest time.
#11 - Torpedo
Season 4 - Episode 3 - Aired 12/19/2001
This week's challenge is to torpedo the opposition. Each team must build re-usable torpedoes that run just under the surface of the water, like the torpedoes used to attack boats (rather than those used to attack another submarine). The teams then have to try and hit wooden 'battleships' in front of each other's launch platforms, taking it in turn to fire. The platforms are 150 feet apart, and there's a rock in the middle which they have to steer their torpedoes around. They will have to hit each other's battleship three times. In the event of both teams being on target with their first two shots, the third and final shot will be a simultaneous shoot-out.
#12 - Street Cleaner
Season 4 - Episode 4 - Aired 12/26/2001
The teams have to build a four-man machine to clean up litter. Different kinds of rubbish (such as old cans, plastic bottles, newspapers, cardboard, old clothes and bin liners) will be spread over an area 50x50m and the teams will have half an hour to pick up as much as they can. When time is called, the winning team will be the one with the heaviest load of litter.
#13 - White Water Rider
Season 4 - Episode 5 - Aired 1/2/2002
The challenge is to build a powered craft to negotiate a stretch of white-water river. The craft must be powerful enough to get up the rapids but also have enough manoeuvrability to avoid treacherous rocks and to make a U-turn at the top of the course. Whoever sets the fastest single time in the course of three heats is the winner.
#14 - Snowmobile
Season 4 - Episode 6 - Aired 1/9/2002
The challenge is to build a one-man snowmobile. The test course, in the Mammoth Mountains, northern California, is circular with a 300-metre diameter. Each team has 10 minutes; the winner is the team whose snowmobile covers the most ground. In the event of breakdown, they'll be allowed to do repairs and restart twice.
#15 - Mobile Crane
Season 4 - Episode 7 - Aired 1/16/2002
This challenge is to build mobile cranes to lift and carry scrap down a course to a drop-off point. Each piece of scrap is allocated a points value relating to its weight or awkwardness. The team that accumulates the most points over two 15-minute rounds is the winner.
#16 - Hill Climber
Season 4 - Episode 9 - Aired 1/30/2002
The challenge this week is to build a one-man hill climber. The teams will have three attempts to scale a 360ft slope with a 1:2 gradient. The team that makes it to the top the most times wins. If both teams reach the summit only once, car-rallying rules will apply and the first successful attempt - that is, the successful attempt in the earliest of the three rounds - will be the one that counts.
#17 - Tunneller
Season 4 - Episode 10 - Aired 2/6/2002
At vast expense, this week we have constructed our very own Wormwood Scraps Prison. The challenge facing the teams is to build tunnel-boring machines (TBMs) to break out and into the Scrapheap final.There are two walls, the second tougher than the first. The teams have to drill right through both, making holes large enough for every member of the team to fit through. The winner is the first team to make it through both tunnels.
#18 - Siege Engines
Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/13/1998
In the first episode of the first series the two teams must make siege engines.
#19 - Mud Monsters
Season 5 - Episode 1 - Aired 10/23/2002
The first test of the new series was a closely fought three-round contest. The Barleys won the first round convincingly, but the Munch Bunch stormed to a surprising victory in the second. With everything to play for in the final round, the Barleys were lucky to make it to the finish line: a treacherous mud-hole nearly sank them. The Munch Bunch then had not only to complete the section but to improve on the time set by the Barleys. But it was not to be. Their machine became firmly embedded in the same mud-hole that nearly bagged the Barleys, and they were unable to complete the round. The victorious Barleys will be back in a few weeks.
#20 - Hovercraft
Season 5 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/30/2002
This week saw a remarkable comeback by the Martial Mechanics, proving once again that nothing is certain on Scrapheap. The Krazy Karters were quicker over both land and water in the first two rounds although they were certainly helped by the Martial Mechanics' 30-second penalty for crashing. Round three looked like a formality, but then disaster struck the Karters: their craft was caught in a strong crosswind and lost air pressure, making it considerably slower over the rest of the course. Seizing his chance and holding on to both his nerve and his craft, the Mechanics' Jason snatched victory.
#21 - Golfball Gatling Gun
Season 5 - Episode 3 - Aired 11/6/2002
This week sees two new teams battling to become the fastest golf-ball guns on the scrapheap. The day started badly for the Clean Sweeps. They discovered that their ball-feeding mechanism was jamming and were forced into a last-minute rethink. Unfortunately this turned out to be just the first of their problems. Round one was a test of speed and accuracy, and the Sweeps struggled on both fronts: their aim was wayward and motor problems reduced their rate of fire. The Boat Buoys on the other hand looked the genuine article, delivering a string of balls into the moving target and shooting themselves into the lead in the process. Round two was designed to test the machines' sheer power: the object was to smash a wall of bathroom tiles. The Sweeps were forced to abandon their erratic motor for a cordless drill and, although they made an impact, they were no match for the blazing firepower of the Boat Buoys.
#22 - Blind Navigation
Season 5 - Episode 4 - Aired 11/13/2002
Academics get stuck in a maze This week the teams have been asked to map uncharted territory. The Hammerlocks, a team of wrestlers from Coventry, and the Academics Anonymous, a team from Kingston University, have to navigate their way around a 'hostile environment' in a vehicle with the windows blacked out. The Academics seemed to start well but they had a major problem: they couldn't tell when all four wheels of their bus were off the ground or when the bus was level, and this cost them valuable time. They failed to negotiate the first turn in the 'maze', lost their bearings and crashed into the side or the course. Tension was high as the Hammerlocks took their turn in the 'maze'. They also had problems: their navigational devices weren't reliable. However, they were able to crawl their way around the course using a giant mechanical 'feeler' and eventually made it to within a stone's throw of their target - and into the next round!
#23 - Railroad Racers
Season 5 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/20/2002
The Tunnel Ratz steam to victory This week the Tunnel Ratz, a team of London Underground engineers, took on Formula 1 engineers the Pit Stop Crew in a challenge to build a Railroad Racer. The first round required the vehicles to change from road to rail and then race to the station. Round two requires the Rail racers to pull a heavy load up a gradient. Round three was all about speed, it was a straight dash to the chequered flag. The Tunnel Ratz got off to a flying start, whereas the Pit Stop Crew had trouble lining their machine up on the rails. Round one to the Ratz. In round two the teams had to tow a trailer full of railway sleepers. The Pit Stop Crew posted a respectable time despite losing one of their guide wheels, but again the Ratz were quicker. In round three, a straight dash, the Ratz again posted a quick time. It was all or nothing for the Pit Stop Crew, and they were going like a train! Then disaster: their machine derailed half-way down, signalling victory for the Ratz.
#24 - Clockwork Cars
Season 5 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/27/2002
Jailbreakers do not pass go In round one the Young Ones and the Jailbreakers competed to see who could travel the furthest on just one wind-up charge of their clockwork cars. Lightweight Rich of the Young Ones got off to a cracking start. After peddling frantically, he just kept on going � and going. Jailbreakers' driver Andy was left behind, slowly trundling along until he finally ground to a halt just 16 metres from the start. Round two and time for the slalom challenge. The Young Ones went first with captain Tom in the driving seat. Giving his legs a full work-out, he glided through the course, skilfully avoiding all the obstacles. They had a great run, but could they hold on to their lead after the Jailbreakers had added more rubber power to their machine? The Jailbreakers started steadily, also managing to steer clear of the obstacles. Further up the course they picked up speed and flew towards the finish line. But their final charge held them up, costing them valuable time, and they threw the round away to the Young Ones. The final round was a head-to-head race around the track. The Jailbreakers got away well, while the Young Ones were busy losing crucial seconds charging up their flywheel. The pressure was on, but the Jailbreakers' lead was decreasing as the longer running time of the Young Ones' vehicle began to pay off. And when the rubber on the Jailbreakers' machine started tangling, the fate was sealed for the prison posse. The Young Ones took full advantage and steamed into the lead. Proving that age is not an issue when it comes to bodging on the 'heap, the Young Ones go through to the quarterfinals. But the Jailbreakers do not pass go, do not collect the Scrapheap Trophy, and go straight to jail.
#25 - Smooth Riders
Season 5 - Episode 7 - Aired 12/4/2002
Young One swing out of control This week, two returning teams did battle to become the smoothest on the 'heap. The Barley Pickers and the Young Ones were challenged to build a vehicle capable of transporting a brimming vat of liquid over rough terrain. The team that spilled the least would win. In round one the Barleys came out ahead, but only by a drop or two. But the more bumpy terrain of round two was a jolt too far for the Young Ones' machine. The vat kept hitting their supporting frame – major spillage! Round two to the farmers. In round three the teams drove each other's machines and attempted to spill as much as possible. Young One Tom stepped up and tried his level best to swing the Barleys' pendulum, but their suspension system worked a treat and he only managed to spill a few drops. But Barley Picker Robin got really messy. By the end of the course his vat was empty and the Devonshire farmers had booked themselves a place in the semi-finals.