Spoilers for The Grand Tour season 7 episode 1 ahead.
Regardless of whether you’re into cars or not, talking about them on TV is synonymous with three people: Richard Hammond, James May and Jeremy Clarkson.
The trio transitioned to Amazon’s The Grand Tour after parting ways with BBC’s Top Gear, and now the time has come for them to hand the presenting baton over on Prime Video, too.
Frankly, I don’t think The Grand Tour could have picked a better set of replacements, those replacements being James Engelsman, Thomas Holland (both of YouTube channel Throttle House fame) and train TikTok superstar, Francis Bourgeois.
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I’ve been surprised and impressed by how well the trio work together in a TV format, particularly considering they were quickly written off as mere content creators when they were originally announced. But both in the announcement video and ever since, Clarkson has been their biggest champion.
In fact, Clarkson has taken it upon himself to hand The Grand Tour reins over to the new trio in the best way possible — and both on and offscreen, they say that’s been “surreal.”
‘He’d watched our YouTube videos and seen Francis’ TikToks’
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“It’s everything. It’s biggest thing, I think, right?” Holland says about having Clarkson’s seal of approval.
Engelsman adds, “It was weird, though. When we first found out that he knew who we were, it was a bit surreal. He’d like watched some of our YouTube stuff and he’d seen Francis’ TikToks. What did he say to us at dinner?
Bourgeois responds, “He said, ‘I know you think that I’m old, but I actually pay attention.’ He told me ‘You’re the train guy.’ To find out that he that watching was a surreal moment.”
But if you’ve already watched episode 1, you’ll know this wasn’t all. The opening scene shows our new trio pitch up at Clarkson’s Cotswolds pub, The Farmer’s Dog, and enter his onsite butcher and bottle shop, Hops & Chops.
They’ve come to ask Clarkson for The Grand Tour tent, which the star repurposed for the shop after they original trio finished filming. Clarkson tells him that it’s clearly being used, and they if they were to use even a corner, they’d “have less of an audience, and more just customers.”
The three leave citing that they are “homeless,” while Clarkson turns to the camera to tell viewers that he’s been watching what they’ve been up to for the previous year and a half. “You’re going to love this,” he signs off with.
“From there, it was kind of ramped up to him doing what he saw in episode 1,” Holland continues. “Especially when we’d heard that he’d watched one of the other episodes. He loved it.
“We were like, ‘Who paid you?'” Engelsman adds. “He’d been quite happy with it. He tweeted that the new presenters can’t be a celebrity, have to be car enthusiasts, all sort of stuff. We were like, ‘Okay.’.. but we passed his tweet test.”
Can you actually get a bigger or better endorsement than that? I doubt it.
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