Yahoo Autos 'The Grand Tour' Finale Brings a Raucous Show, and Era, to an End
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It's the final road trip for the trio of Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond, and it's airing this Friday on Amazon Prime.
Over more than two decades, the trio drove all over the world, inviting us along on their adventures.
This last one sees them returning to Africa for a final drive back to where things began.
On November 4, 2007, millions of people across the U.K. switched on their tellies and changed the channel to BBC2. It was a Sunday and, perhaps sleepy after a traditional roast dinner, people took the time for some light entertainment. Top Gear, five years into its rebooted incarnation, was rapidly becoming one of the most-watched shows on the BBC. Viewers eagerly tuned in, ready to watch hosts Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond dole out jokes, car-based challenges, and road tests of exotics. What they got instead was magic.
It was Top Gear: Botswana, the first of the feature-length specials that saw the trio engage in automotive adventures all over the globe. This Friday, those adventures come full circle, as Clarkson, May, and Hammond return to Kubu Island in Botswana's Makadikadi Salt Flats in the last of the final episode of Amazon's The Grand Tour. It is an ending more than two decades in the making, and as we bid farewell to the boys, it's sure to be one of the most poignantly emotional grand finales... in the world.
It's impossible to overstate how radically Top Gear changed the way people see cars. The previous iteration of the show, filmed from 1977 until 2001, focused on more traditional reviews and consumer advice (though a denim-clad young Jeremy Clarkson often turned up with a quip or two). When the BBC canceled the original Top Gear, producer Andy Wilman and Clarkson pitched a new format. This new form would have more stunts, humor, and celebrity guests.
Ambassadors of Car Culture
But what really set Top Gear apart was the chemistry of the hosts. Hammond came aboard for that first season, but the TG tripod didn't get its third leg until James May joined in the first episode of Season Two.
In Clarkson, we had our avuncular oaf, always handy with an outrageous comparison: "More comfortable than what? Being stabbed?" In Hammond we had our bright-eyed enthusiast, often at odds with Clarkson's loudly voiced opinions. And in May we had the classic British bachelor, the occasionally fussy foil to the other two's buffoonery. Jezza, Hamster, Captain Slow.
As ambassadors of car culture to the world, the three provided an invaluable service. Yes, there was stunning cinematography of exotic and fast machinery, but there was also plenty of love for machinery of all kind. The series of cheap-car challenges was some of the funniest television you could watch, with the trio bickering, pulling pranks on each other, and inevitably getting stranded.
"How Hard Can It Be?"
Everyone who watched has a favorite moment. The time they launched a Reliant Robin into space (nearly). Racing driver Stig's various cousins. Filling vintage British cars with water and driving around in wetsuits to test for panel gaps. Updates on the Dacia Sandero. The impending doom foreshadowed by the phrase, "How hard can it be?"
As unlikely as it seems, a motoring show on the BBC grew to be quoted around the world, and is still posted on the internet in the form of memes. There was room under the Top Gear tent for the gearhead who memorized spec sheets and the casual fan who just wanted to see a Bugatti Veyron drag-racing a fighter plane. The appeal spread far beyond the shores of the U.K., and May, Hammond, and Clarkson became like favorite uncles. When they moved to Amazon to continue the hijinks as The Grand Tour, their audience came with them.
Top Gear went to the Middle East, India, Patagonia, and that most exotic of locales, America (Clarkson bought a Camaro). The Grand Tour explored Madagascar in sports cars, had to build their own car to escape the deserts of Mongolia, and when stuck at home during the pandemic toured Scotland in 1970s American land yachts. It was all enormous fun.
But Jeremy Clarkson is now 64 years old, and he has another smash hit on his hands with Clarkson's Farm. Both May and Hammond also have other projects: travelogues and historical programs and restoration shows. With individual work pulling them in opposite directions and the tremendous amount of time it takes to film the travel specials, it's finally time to end.
One for the Road
The Grand Tour: One for the Road airs on Amazon's Prime Video streaming service starting this Friday. It sees Clarkson, Hammond, and May driving, respectively, a Lancia Beta Montecarlo, a Ford Capri, and a Triumph Stag across Zimbabwe. At the timing of the first Botswana special, the BBC was not permitted to film in Zimbabwe, so this really is tying up loose ends. After driving across the country, the three will cross the border and end their trip back at Kubu where it all first began.
It's a bittersweet moment for fans and film crew, some of whom have been along for the ride from the beginning. As for Clarkson, Hammond, and May themselves, there are jokes about deleting numbers from cellphones, but the three genuinely are friends. We just won't get to see them express this friendship anymore by, say, wiring James's truck's horn to the brake pedal. Clarkson!
The BBC's Top Gear remains on long-term hiatus after a stunt badly injured host Freddy Flintoff in 2022, but The Grand Tour will continue with new hosts. Whatever comes after will have to be different, just as the automotive landscape is also changing.
So, one last ride for glory across beautiful scenery in the wild places of the world, in 50-year-old cars that weren't even particularly reliable when new. One more time to watch Clarkson and Hammond get on May's nerves. One final hangout with three friends who clearly knew they were very lucky to be creating something wonderful, and lasting.
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