The Grand Tour

The Grand Tour is a British motoring television series, created by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May, and Andy Wilman, for Amazon Prime Video, and premiered on 18 November 2016. The programme was devised in the wake of the departure of Clarkson, Hammond, May, and Wilman from the BBC television series Top Gear with an initial order of 36 episodes that were released over three years.
The show initially followed a format similar to Top Gear, including car reviews and timed laps, motoring challenges and races, studio segments, and celebrity guests, with the team using a studio within a large tent during this time; in its first series, the tent was located at different locations across the globe before taking a fixed site within the Cotswolds. Segments and road trip specials have been filmed in various locations worldwide, including across Europe, Africa, the Americas, and Asia. After 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 individual episodes released at select intervals. The final episode featuring Clarkson, Hammond, and May as presenters was released on 13 September 2024, ending the 22-year-long partnership between the trio.
The Grand Tour has received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for the chemistry of its original presenters and strong production values. It is one of Prime Video's most viewed original series, setting viewership records with several of its episodes. It is also one of its most expensive series by production budget. A video game based on the programme, The Grand Tour Game, was released on 15 January 2019.

Format

Series 1–3 (2016–2019): Studio format

Throughout the first three series of the programme, the format was focused on a similar arrangement to that of Top Gear, involving a mixture of pre-recording television films – a mixture of single or multi-part films – and live-audience studio segments, though for legal reasons it was designed with significant differences to avoid clashing with the BBC's motoring series. Films focused primarily on car review, motoring challenges, and road trip journeys, often in similar mould to those seen in Top Gear, such as a challenge in which the presenters have to purchase a class of a vehicle and see which is the best through a series of tests given through text messages from the show's producer. Alongside these episodes, the programme's format between 2016 and 2019 also included special episodes in similar format to Top Gear specials, focused on the presenters on journeys in a specific type of vehicle or class all over the planet.

Car : 1st-13th	Time	Car : 14th-26th	Time	Car : 27th-39th	Time
McLaren Senna	1:12.9	Nissan GT-R	1:21.2	Honda Civic Type R	1:28.2
NIO EP9	1:15.0	Porsche 911 C2S	1:21.4	Ford Focus RS	1:28.4
Aston Martin Vulcan	1:15.5	Alpina B5	1:21.6	Lexus GS-F	1:29.6
Lamborghini Huracán Performante	1:16.8	MAT Stratos	1:21.6	Ford Mustang GT	1:29.6
Ford GT	1:17.6	BMW M4 GTS	1:22.4	Tesla Model X	1:29.6
McLaren 650S	1:17.9	Porsche 718 Boxster S	1:23.4	Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500	1:31.3
McLaren 720S	1:17.9	Alpine A110	1:23.7	Lamborghini Countach	1:31.8
Mercedes AMG GT R	1:18.7	BMW M5	1:24.2	Ford Fiesta ST200	1:32.8
Audi R8 V10 Plus	1:19.2	BMW M3	1:24.3	Bugatti EB 110 Super Sport	1:32.8
Jaguar XE Project 8	1:19.3	Honda NSX	1:26.0	Fiat Abarth 124 Spider	1:33.7
Aston Martin V8 Vantage	1:20.4	BMW M2	1:26.2	Jaguar XJ220	1:35.1
BMW M5	1:20.4	Delta Futurista	1:26.8	Ferrari Testarossa	1:37.4
Porsche 911 GT3 RS	1:20.4	Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio	1:27.1	Volkswagen Up! GTI	1:39.7

Like Top Gear, car reviews on The Grand Tour functioned in a similar manner in which the presenters, either on their own or with their colleagues, 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 was 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.
Studio segments were primarily filmed within a large studio tent that could house an audience of around 300, with the presenters sat around a trestle table and the audience seated in front of them. Initially, the first 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. However, Hammond's crash in Switzerland and Clarkson's pneumonia prior to the second series, led to the use of a travelling tent being dropped in favour of a more fixed location, resulting in studio segments being filmed on the outskirts of Chipping Norton for the second and third series. These live-audience segments act as breaks between pre-recorded films, much like in Top Gear, and operated on a similar format. Throughout all three series, the presenters often used a discussion period on various topics within a segment entitled "Conversation Street", which had a running gag of opening with an intro of the presenters in silhouette doing something comedic and/or unusual.
Celebrities were not initially part of the programme to begin with, due to concerns over legal issues that the BBC could raise if it competed against the celebrity format used in Top Gear. As such, the programme created a humorous segment for the first series entitled "Celebrity Brain Crash", which involved celebrities being "killed" in an accident while making their way to the presenter's tent - the segment was done for comedic effect, and either involved an actual celebrity who was filmed briefly for the segment before their death is staged outside the tent's location or with a look-alike, or involving someone representing them, despite not being clearly identifiable. This segment was later dropped leading to the decision that celebrities would be a part of the programme for the second series in a new segment entitled "Celebrity Face Off". Much like Top Gear's "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car", the segment involved two celebrities, who shared similar backgrounds or connections to certain elements who competed against each other on a separate race track, to see who was the fastest, alongside conducting interviews with the presenters. The timed laps for this segment not only involved a different track, but also used a Jaguar F-Type R-Dynamic coupe to create the lap time. The use of celebrities was later dropped prior to filming of the third series, to dedicate more time to films.

''The Grand Tour'' race tracks

When the programme was first conceived and created, the production team opted for the creation of a dedicated test track for the purpose of being used for reviews of testing of vehicles by presenters, alongside the establishment of lap times by cars that are reviewed. The track was eventually sited at the former RAF Wroughton airbase, with its layout consisting of two loops - one large and one small - connected by a single stretch of tarmac between them and christened as the "Eboladrome", due to the design of the track resembling the structure of the Ebola virus. The track was designed to "trip cars up" and included sections devised under a humorous arrangement, such as "Isn't Straight", "Your Name Here", "Old Lady's House", "Substation" and "Field of Sheep". The track was dropped from use from the programme after the third series.
For the second series, the production team decided to create a second track for the specific purpose of being used in the newly created celebrity segment "Celebrity Face Off". They eventually decided to situate the new track at Enstone Airfield, close to the fixed studio tent location - a site originally planned for use with Top Gear. The track was mostly designed as an oval, with half of it involving a gravel track. The track was dropped from use after the second series, although was briefly involved in a motoring challenge during the third series.

Series 4–6 (2019–2024): Roadtrip specials

On 13 December, Amazon announced that The Grand Tour had been renewed for a fourth series. With this, Amazon and the production team retired the studio and audience format in favour of films dedicated to road trips and adventure specials. The new format focuses on these individual adventures which see the presenters travelling from one location to another in a selection of vehicles they have chosen for the task, in a similar manner to the feature-length specials of Top Gear, though expanding beyond cars, as did Top Gear on occasion.
The first episode, titled "Seamen", was filmed on the Mekong Delta in Cambodia and Vietnam and released on 13 December 2019. A second episode, titled "A Massive Hunt", was filmed in Réunion and Madagascar. It was originally set to be released on 18 December 2020 but was released a day ahead of schedule on 17 December 2020. A third episode, titled "Lochdown", was filmed in Scotland in October 2020 and was released on 30 July 2021. A fourth episode, titled "Carnage A Trois", was filmed in the United Kingdom in early 2021 and was released on 17 December 2021 as the final episode of the fourth series.
A fifth episode was originally scheduled to be filmed outside of the United Kingdom in mid-2021; however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, travel restrictions meant this could not happen until March 2022, when filming for the fifth episode began in Norway before travelling through Sweden and concluding in Finland. Titled "A Scandi Flick", it was released on 16 September 2022, as the first episode of the fifth series. In June 2022, filming for the sixth episode began in Poland before travelling through Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and concluding in Slovenia. Titled "Eurocrash", it was released on 16 June 2023. In May 2023, filming for a seventh episode began in Mauritania and concluded in Senegal. Titled "Sand Job", it was released on 16 February 2024 as the final episode of the fifth series.
In September 2023, filming for an eighth episode began in Zimbabwe, which concluded in Botswana. Titled "One for the Road", it was released on 13 September 2024 as the only episode of the sixth series. The episode marks the end of Clarkson, Hammond, and May's working collaboration after 22 years.