Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May get behind the wheel for a final hoon together in The Grand Tour: One for the Road – streaming on Prime Video from September 13. Being The Grand Tour, their epic journey is thwarted at every turn, says David Michael Brown.
Rev heads of the world unite. And maybe pass each other a tissue. Or at least an oily rag. The Top Gear team are back again for one final challenge before they hang up their car keys and go their separate ways. Driving extremely fast, obviously.
The Grand Tour came into being after Jeremy Clarkson was fired by the BBC for punching a producer during a spat about cold food and, with Richard Hammond and James May in tow, he headed to Prime Video for the new show. Over 45 globe-trotting episodes, the lads have road-tested an impressive line of sleek high-performance automobiles including the Alfa Romeo 4C Spider, an Aston Martin Vantage, the Ferrari Testarossa and a Lamborghini Countach along with less flash but far more environmentally friendly vehicles made from peat, trees and meat! Despite the horsepower and sustainability on display, the show relies just as much on the charisma, wit and deadpan delivery of the hosts.
For their final adventure together and ignoring the possibly better judgement of the show’s longtime executive producer Mr Wilman, Clarkson, Hammond and May ignore his strict instructions, head to Zimbabwe in three cars that they have always wanted to own. A Lancia Montecarlo, a Ford Capri 3-litre Mk 6 GXL, and a Triumph Stag.
With the country’s stunning and occasionally treacherous landscapes backdropping their epic final adventure together, One for the Road acts as not only a hugely entertaining road trip with the irascible threesome as company but a surprisingly emotional farewell to over 20 years of television together. As Hammond notes in the show: “We never thought that what we do together would go on as [long] as it has” while May is flabbergasted at their staying power: “22 years!”
The presenters’ automobile choices perfectly encapsulate their characters. May chooses the car he always wanted as a child, the Triumph Stag. The ever-belligerent Clarkson is defiant that his choice is perfect for their mission after driving a 1981 automatic Lancia Beta Coupé when visiting Botswana with Top Gear. And Hammond, inspired by the classic British cop show The Professionals, does Bodie, Doyle and Cowley proud—screeching into view to a soundtrack of wah-wah guitars and blaring trumpets of Laurie Johnson’s iconic theme in his Ford Capri.
They have their route planned and with Hammond resplendent in a new safari suit, they venture into the stunning countryside of the African country, soundtracked by Joy Division, Simple Minds and Dire Straits. The beautiful scenery is often breathtaking with dizzying aerial shots of the three cars navigating the landscapes. When they reach the banks of the Zambezi River, elephants, hippos and wildebeest greet them.
Being The Grand Tour, however, their epic journey is thwarted at every turn—a lack of tarmac, a low-slung Capri, leaking fuel tanks, the pros and cons of silver-coated steering wheels, crocodile-infested lakes, sinking boats and most damaging of all, Clarkson’s terrible map reading skills. It remains amazing that the three are still alive.
“Yes, all three of us have been in hospital this year for different reasons,” Clarkson, who can also be seen in Clarkson’s Farm on Prime, told TopGearBox.com while promoting the second season of the show. “Hammond obviously, because he can’t drive. Me because I somehow managed to get pneumonia while we were in Majorca where it was 100 degrees and James, well he would not tell us what was wrong with him. We do not know what was wrong with him and he will not say. He said it was food poisoning, but I’ve seen him eat mud and he doesn’t get ill! So, I do not know what was wrong with him, but he was out for a couple of weeks. Hammond was out for six and I was out for five which has slowed us down.”
One for the Road often plays like a Grand Tour greatest hits package. Especially when they adapt their cars to travel on train tracks to cross over to Botswana, avoiding the vast dusty expanses of the desert. It’s here, as they finish at Kubu Island, a stunning locale previously visited as part of Top Gear‘s Botswana Special, that the lads get emotional.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, Clarkson explained, “After 36 years of talking about cars on television, I’m packing it in, because I’m too old and fat to get into the cars that I like and not interested in driving those I don’t.” Something he tearfully acknowledges, as they all do, as their trail comes to an end. In one scene, the three men are tinkering with a broken-down car, something they are forced to do frequently during the show, when Hammond jokes, “We don’t all have to go to the same old folks’ home do we, I mean it’s not obligatory after this?” Clarkson, ever the funnyman, nods to May, and adds with a smirk, “He said he’s deleting our numbers as soon as we finish!”
Despite the playful banter and petulant one-upmanship, there is obviously a lot of love between the old friends so whoever is handed the keys to the next season of The Grand Tour, it will be bittersweet for Clarkson, Hammond and May. “We’re stepping away as the hosts,” Hammond told the Metro in London, “but Prime will be continuing it.” A prospect he is thrilled about. Especially the “amazing” prospect of “sit[ting] on my own chair and watch[ing] somebody else do it” he smiled. “I can’t wait,” he enthused. Neither can we.
