The Grand Tour

The Grand Tour

The Grand Tour is a British motoring television series. It was created by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May, and Andy Wilman, and premiered on 18 November 2016. The programme follows a similar format to that of Top Gear between 2016 and 2019. It includes car reviews, motoring challenges and races, studio segments, and celebrity guests.

About The Grand Tour in brief

Summary The Grand TourThe Grand Tour is a British motoring television series. It was created by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May, and Andy Wilman, and premiered on 18 November 2016. It is made for Amazon exclusively for its online streaming service Amazon Prime Video. The programme follows a similar format to that of Top Gear between 2016 and 2019. It includes car reviews, motoring challenges and races, studio segments, and celebrity guests. In July 2019, it was announced that the show had been renewed for at least two more series. A spin-off, JamesMay: Our Man in Japan, was released in 2020. A video game based on the programme, entitled The Grand Tour Game, was also released 15 January 2019. The show is released to viewers across more than 195 countries and territories, attracting favourable viewing figures since its premiere episode, and receiving positive reviews from critics. The first three series involved these segments being filmed within a travelling tent that was set up in various countries, with audiences acquired from the local population at the site as part of an emphasis that the programme was on a \”grand tour\” around the world. At the conclusion of the third series, the production team switched out of this format, and towards a focus on producing special motoring films for future series, with episodes released at select intervals. For legal reasons it was designed with significant differences to avoid clashing with the BBC’s motoring series. The presenters take a look at various cars and test them out on various aspects such as performance, handling, and quality.

Reviews are conducted in varying locales abroad, or within the United Kingdom, including a specially designed racetrack, parallel to the Top Gear Test Track, called the \”Eboladrome\”. The track is not only used for reviews, but also for conducting timed laps of vehicles that are reviewed, except for ten cars which were timed outside of filming before the launch of the first series. Timed laps are conducted by a professional driver assigned to the programme – while the first. series involved former NASCAR driver Mike Skinner, who was contracted to operate under the name \”The American\” and portray a stereotypical redneck accent and viewpoints alongside scripted character traits. The poor reception to his involvement led to him being replaced by British racing driver Abbie Eaton for the second and third series. In the second series, Hammond’s crash in Switzerland and Clarkson’s pneumonia led to the use of a more fixed location being dropped in favour of a studio being filmed on the outskirts of the Cotswolds. These live-audience segments, much like Top Gear, act as breaks between pre-recorded films, and similar to the format in Top Gear. Throughout all three series, all three presenters often used a discussion period on topics within a segment entitled \”Conversation Street\”, which often involves a running gag of something that often had something that had something to do with the show’s subject matter. This was due to concerns over the legal issues that the BBC could raise if it competed against the celebrity format.