If you were wondering if The Grand Tour would be some grand departure from what Top Gear was, fret not! The show holds to the core of what made Top Gear such a huge success while injecting some fun into the mix. If I were someone at the BBC I would be pissed right now.
Amazon has spared no expense on the boys as can be seen right off the bat. The intro was shot out in the California desert with the group driving through in their American muscle cars flanked by what looks like hundreds of cars, from classics, sports, and custom rigs. It’s a gorgeous extended scene that lets the shots and cars do the talking.
The team drive up to a Burning Man like party where hundreds are waiting to great the boys in ruckus fashion. Once onstage they take the time to give viewers a montage of what we can expect this season before heading into a huge traveling tent that serves as the studio.
And much like Top Gear everything here is laid out in much the same way. The crowd, the seating, and the general tone of the proceedings. As the team in far from home, we get some banter about the language, as well as a lesson in what the parts of a car are really called in English.
From here we are thrown into the shows first car segment that pits a McLaren P1, a Porshe 918 and a Ferrari LaFerrari. The extended tests are all well shot and mapped out. If you are a fan of the filming and editing team from Top Gear, you are going to feel right at home here. I know I’ve said it already, but Amazon didn’t skimp on the budget.
The Grand Tour is a lot of fun and the boys are as charming as ever, but they segment really shows that The Grand Tour is a motoring show at its heart. That’s one thing that made classic Top Gear so great, and the new one, well, not. A motoring show fits a small niche audience, but the presenters and their chemistry are what brings in a bigger audience. You have people that love cars as well as people that love the wild antics.
Everything here is as is was on Top Gear. We have a custom testing track, that while not as memorable as the one on Top Gear, offers up a serious challenge for any car that takes it on. The only thing that is missing is the part of the show that I nearly always skipped: the star in a reasonably priced car.
The boys do seem to introduce a similar segment, but when every celebrity keeps getting killed off (Jeremy Renner falls from a plane, Armie Hammer gets killed by a snake and Carol Vorderman is just dead) it does seem they will be either skipping this bit, or doing something different. Some people may have reservations, but I rarely cared about seeing celebrities drive around.
Lastly, The Grand Tour has their own version of the Stig in, The American (Clarkson jokes about him being an Amazon mandate). This NASCAR driver will be putting their test car through their paces, but his jokes mostly fell flat. I get the whole American in England thing, but I’d much rather him be silent and simply drive.
The Grand Tour is very much like Top Gear was, and that’s not such a bad thing. These guys have been at the top of their game for years and if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Still, sucks to be the BBC right now.
While The Grand Tour doesn’t break any new ground, it’s still the best version of Top Gear currently on the air.
4/5
“Great”
Episode one of The Grand Tour is available now on Amazon Prime with new episodes airing each Friday.
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