By Alex Hendricksen
It may be difficult to find a more iconic trio than those of The Grand Tour. Over the eight year run of The Grand Tour, the show developed into a style that became beloved by millions. The last several seasons of the show consisted only of trip episodes where the trio purchased cars for specific challenges set by the producers of the show. This exciting and comedic format was pulled from the previous show, Top Gear.
Top Gear was originally an automotive information show that started in 1977. The show got a refreshing reboot in 2002. This reboot included Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and Jason Dawe. The show was doing fine, but Jason Dawe didn’t feel like the right fit for the show. Clarkson eventually convinced Producer Andy Wilman to replace Dawe with James May, and the rest was history.
The unrivaled chemistry was unlike anything ever seen on television before. This plucky little car journalism show was starting to gain worldwide popularity. Its dry British humor was pretty standard for BBC shows at the time. There was also plenty of offensive comedy that people were drawn to. Stereotyping was expected in every episode. All of this mixed in with the hilarious banter the trio provided was a recipe for success.
The trio practically hate each other in the show. They constantly make fun of each other, so much so that they end up breaking down laughing as hard as their audience. Another great aspect of this show is the fact that it feels like it isn’t scripted. Practically all television shows are, but this show in particular is written to just feel like three guys hanging out, making crass jokes, and driving cars we could only dream of.
This all came to a screeching halt on the fourth of March, 2015. After discovering the food was cold and that their filming hours were extended, Clarkson decided to launch an unprovoked attack on one of the producers of the show. This was Clarkson’s third strike on the show, and his contract with the show and the BBC was brought to an end the next day.
Hammond and May decided that they came as a trio, and they all decided to leave the show after 13 years. Around a year and a half later, the trio announced that they would be continuing their motoring journey on Amazon Prime. This exciting news brought many of the Top Gear viewers over to the new show for an exciting desert opening.
The new show was exciting for several reasons. We saw the return of the trio and their antics, as well as more insane cars. The first episode alone had an almost four million dollar opening scene. This insane budget would continue, as the average cost of a single episode was over three million dollars.
After several seasons, the show transitioned from a studio setting to more of the trip episodes. These episodes started on Top Gear, and were just as exciting as it gets. For several seasons, this was the norm. But after a while you had to wonder, where would they go next? As a car show, they’d been to so many roads and places that they’d be bound to run out at some point.
They even went to the water and did a whole episode on boats with the same format. This left them at a crossroads: continue filming episodes and eventually garner less and less attention, or go out with a bang while the show is still very relevant. They decided on the latter, and released their last episode on September 13th, 2024. I won’t spoil too much, but the last episode concluded in one of their favorite locations that they’d been to as a trio.
This final episode left many people wanting more. Their favorite show about cars was over. But, in the end, was it really about the cars? Sure they were exciting, but it was the friendship and comedy of James May, Jeremy Clarkson, and Richard Hammond that really made the show entertaining.
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