A fresh trailer for The Grand Tour just dropped, giving us a look at the new trio of hosts in action. Amazon Prime’s adventurous car show is under a lot of cultural pressure because of how iconic its predecessors and previous hosts are. But from where I’m sitting, it looks like Thomas Holland, James Engelsman, and Francis Bourgeois have a better chance of success than others who have attempted to re-create the magic of Y2K-era BBC Top Gear.
First, let’s talk about what’s new. This 75-second clip gives us a taste of the fresh cast dynamic and the show’s aesthetic.
Like the last iteration of The Grand Tour and Top Gear before it, it looks like a combo of high-performance track driving, adventures, and goofy shenanigans. The most critical difference I’m picking up on is that, while the basic premise is the same, the host personalities are distinctly different—not only from each other, but also from the last set of GT/TG hosts. And that right there is what gives me the most hope and confidence in this release of the show.
The Grand Tour | Official Trailer | Prime Video
Holland and Engelsman are established automotive media personalities thanks to their YouTube channel Throttle House. They’ve got car-guy creds, conversational chemistry, and a mass-audience-friendly approach that can bring anybody into cars better than, say, hardcore racers or deep car geeks. Bourgeois is famous in a completely different corner of the internet: trainspotting on TikTok. But he has a uniquely genuine enthusiasm that stands out without being cartoonish or looking like an act.
The other recent Top Gear-type show reboots we’ve seen have mostly been some version of famous funny guys plus one hardcore car guy. And I’m not saying the Top Gear USA (the Tanner Foust one), Top Gear America (the Dax Shepard one), Top Gear circa 2017 (the Matt LeBlanc one), or Top Gear circa 2020 (the Chris Harris one) were bad—they just, I think, tried too hard to recreate exactly what Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May had built.
For those just catching up: Top Gear is many different shows, and a website, and a magazine, among other things. But to most viewers, Top Gear means Clarkson, Hammond, and May going on adventures and razzing each other along the way. Over the course of many years, they cultivated three characters with very entertaining chemistry that cemented them as fan favorites. I would go so far as to say that particular trio is forever enshrined as a core piece of 2000s car culture.
When their run of Top Gear ended, Amazon adopted them, and they did pretty much the same thing on The Grand Tour. Now, Top Gear (sorry, I mean The Grand Tour)’s “holy trinity” is moving on altogether. And while Clarkson has officially given his blessing to the new team, they still need to win over the audience.
Based on all the sizzle reels I’ve seen, and now today’s new trailer, I’m really optimistic about the new crew. Nobody will ever replace Clarkson, Hammond, and May—they came up in an entirely different media environment from today’s. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still have a great, fun car show featuring three people on a grand tour. And from the looks of what we’ve seen so far, I think that’s exactly what we’re getting with the “new knobs” of GT.
Got a story tip? Drop me a line at andrew.collins@thedrive.com
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