The Grand Tour
Cast & Key People
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Our Review
The show the BBC lost and Amazon won. The Grand Tour began in 2016 as Clarkson, Hammond and May doing what they do with a bigger budget and fewer lawyers: absurd places, absurd cars, insults about height and driving, and once in a while genuinely moving television when the scenery gets big enough. The tent and studio audience of season 1 gave way to the road trip specials people actually remember: Namibia, the Arctic, Cambodia, the Sahel.
The original run ended in September 2024 with One for the Road, a farewell that felt like three friends agreeing it was time.
Then came the gamble. In 2026 Amazon rebooted the whole thing with three presenters from the internet: Thomas Holland and James Engelsman of Throttle House, the sharpest car channel on YouTube, and Francis Bourgeois, the trainspotter whose joy is impossible to resist. The old trio hands over the tent in the opening episode, with Clarkson’s blessing and a warning not to mess it up, and the new season runs six episodes across California, Malaysia, Italy, Belgium and Angola.
Our take: the Clarkson, Hammond and May seasons remain some of the best motoring television ever made, and nothing here touches the best of them. The 2026 relaunch is good, sometimes very good, with real car knowledge and genuine warmth between the new trio, though it plays safer and the presenting is still settling. Watch the originals first, then come see what the next generation does with the keys.
