After five action-packed seasons, 41 countries, and 187 cars, The Grand Tour is coming to an end, with the final feature-length episode premiering on Prime Video on 13 September.
In the special episode, titled The Grand Tour: One For The Road, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May head to Zimbabwe in three cars they’ve always wanted to own: a Lancia Montecarlo, a Ford Capri 3-litre, and a Triumph Stag. As they embark on a stunning road trip through Zimbabwe, they say an emotional farewell to their lives together on The Grand Tour.
Clarkson, Hammond, and May spoke about their favourite memories from the series, along with how they chose the cars for their final adventure, and why they wanted the last episode to be a “thank you” to the fans.
How did you come up with the location for the final episode?
Jeremy Clarkson: Although we’ve done some very memorable and very enjoyable specials over the years – like the Middle East and Mongolia (The Mongolia Special – Survival of the Fattest, 2019), and a number of others – the three of us have always agreed that Botswana was our favourite special, probably because it was our first, and so there is nostalgia to that.
Richard Hammond: We knew we wanted to end up on Kubu Island. Beyond that, I think we may have benefited a bit from the experience of making shows through lockdown. We had to strip it back a bit, and it made us think, “Okay, the big bangs and stuff are great, but hang on a minute, let's remember what's at the heart of this show.” And so that was to the fore when we came to say goodbye.
How did you choose the cars?
Jeremy Clarkson: The premise of the original Botswana film was: why, when you leave London and move to Surrey, do you always buy yourself a 4x4? You don’t need one. To prove this, we decided to drive three perfectly ordinary cars across Botswana. I've always liked the premise that cars are much tougher than you think they are. They can take so much punishment; people don't believe how much their car can take before it expires.
So, we did a similar thing this time: the three that we took to Zimbabwe were, on the face of it, ridiculous, but as you can see in the film, they survive. The concept was just driving cars we liked.
James May: I said all along we mustn’t play it for gags, we must have things that we’re genuinely curious about and always wanted. That's always risky with things like cars because inevitably, there's a car you really loved as a kid, but when you get it, it’s crap because it’s 40 or 50 years old.
So, it was a bit risky, but we had to be genuinely invested in our choices because we're not actors. We can't pretend to love things. I know Jeremy's story about looking through the dealership window longingly at the Lancia as a young man is true because I used to go past the same place, and I know exactly what he's talking about.
I had a friend whose parents had a Triumph Stag when I was a kid, and I just thought they seemed amazing. The Stag has a reputation as one of the most unreliable cars ever made but weirdly on this, it kept going all the way through.
Did it feel emotional to film the finale?
Richard Hammond: Not just for the three of us but the entire group. We've worked together for decades and we've been through good times and bad. We've seen each other in jungles covered in leeches, exhausted and grumpy in tents and boiling heat, elated in the most beautiful cities in the world. We’re a great big dysfunctional family, so there were a lot of tears.
Jeremy Clarkson: I'm not saying this in a derogatory way by any means, but James has the emotions of a stone. He just doesn't do emotions, so there were no tears from him. Hammond, yes. I was surprisingly unemotional in a weird way because I can see James and Hammond any time I want to, they’re only a phone call away, and I’m sure we will. And I’ve done enough of the travel, I was worn out by it.
Where I would have been emotional was saying goodbye to the crew because most of them started with us. There's a photograph taken on Kubu Island of Russ Edwards and Casper Leaver (Camera Operator) and Andy Wilman (Executive Producer), who were there on the original crew, and they're still with us. You can’t say that about any other show.
What did you want to achieve with the final film?
James May: I remember saying in an early meeting that it was important that we actually genuinely enjoyed our cars and didn't allow it to descend into too much bickering or aggressive pranking of each other. I also didn't want to be too introverted, emotional or navel-gazing; it had to be joyous. We had to come together and acknowledge our shared enthusiasm. It's quite a tricky balance to strike, I think because it's in our nature to be horrible about each other. And there are a few moments like that, like when I say, “I’m deleting their numbers from my phone” as soon as it’s over. That’s us being quite British and undermining our own feelings, which I think is the right thing to do because that’s genuinely us.
Richard Hammond: We wanted to say “thank you” to the audience. This is the biggest thing to happen in my life ever. It changed my life, it affected my daughters’ lives, my whole family, everything. And that's down to the audience.
I think you will see that this is each of us genuinely saying “thank you”, and the way Andy Wilman put that together – he’s the master behind it. Andy Wilman didn't want it to end on exploding things; he wanted it to be sincere. You don't put on a comedy clown suit to say “thank you”, do you?
What have been the highlights from ‘The Grand Tour’ journey?
Jeremy Clarkson: I have always loved driving into an African city. There’s a buzz in African cities that you don’t get anywhere else. Harare — wow, what a singing, melting pot of busyness and joy that was. Kampala’s the same.
I think the most surprising location in all the years was Mongolia (The Mongolia Special – Survival of the Fattest, 2019). That was incredibly beautiful. It’s carpeted – and I mean completely carpeted – by thyme, rosemary and sage. As you drive along, you just get the smell all day, constantly. And then we drove into a pine forest, and I can still remember that. Mongolia was the nicest smelling country I've ever been to, and the terrain is also visually stunning. For six days, we drove in pretty much a dead straight line, and we never saw a cloud in the sky, a farm animal, a person, a telegraph pole or a pylon – there was simply no evidence that man had ever existed.
Richard Hammond: We’ve always loved Africa, waking up in jungles. I remember in Syria in the desert, we were all staying in this massive tent with about 50 of us, and it was boiling, and I was like, “sod this” so James and I grabbed our gear and decided to sleep in the desert instead. Unfortunately, the incredibly strong and mind-numbingly cold wind shot straight into the sleeping bags. It was just the worst night. We were freezing to death.
There were lots of nights like that. Or I remember lying in a tent in Bolivia at about 35 degrees, full of cockroaches that kept me awake all night. And if it wasn’t the cockroaches, it was the drug runners on mopeds going up and down the dirt track passes.
I remember chasing one of Pablo Escobar’s hippos when we were drunk late at night, trying to get a picture on my phone before thinking, “Hippos are quite dangerous; I probably shouldn’t be doing this.” Lots of stupid, wonderful, privileged moments.
James May: I remember in Chile – or maybe Argentina – staying in a shepherd's hut with simple embroidered bedspreads. I shared a room with Hammond, and it was like an adventure from childhood. It was like going to a holiday cottage somewhere, and it was really brilliant. We did some awful camping all over the world, but it was still quite exciting waking up in the desert or in a rainforest. I wouldn’t have done that were it not for the show.
What we've just done, going across Zimbabwe and into Botswana, I don't know if you could even organise that as a holiday. You could probably pay a posh holiday agent to put that together for you, but it would be extremely expensive, so I’ve seen a lot of places that I simply wouldn’t have done if it hadn't been part of my work.
I’ve thought constantly over the years, “How the hell did this happen?” It really is an enormous privilege, or an enormous stroke of luck, however you want to look at it. Being able to do that and making a living out of it whilst being on the telly and going to foreign places, that blew my mind – it still staggers me.
When is the final ‘The Grand Tour’ episode being released in 2024?
The final The Grand Tour episode titled The Grand Tour: One for the Road will be released on Prime Video on 13 September 2024.
Find out everything you need to know about The Grand Tour ahead of the final episode.
