The Grand Tour: One For The Road Preview – The Best Saved For Last

Big spoiler alert: We’re fresh from watching an hour-long preview version of the final episode of The Grand Tour. Many spoilers ahead, so leave immediately if you don’t want to know anything yet. However, we won’t tell you how it ends.

It’s 22 years since Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and, err… Jason Dawe rebooted Top Gear. And 21 since James May would replace Dawe to complete the trio.

Going back to watch those very early Top Gear episodes today is a bit of a strange experience. There’s an element of entertainment, but it’s all very magazine-style, led by three middle-aged men who clearly work well together, but the chemistry doesn’t feel electric.

Watching that, it’s even stranger knowing just what it would become. Watching these three middle-aged men grow into old men, and along the way becoming the most iconic trio in all of motoring, possibly all of television. Watching the plucky British TV motoring show evolve into a global entertainment phenomenon

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Now, 21 years later, the end is here. 22 series of Top Gear, three series of The Grand Tour, 23 specials, one May purple striped shirt, two near-fatal Hammond crashes, utterly countless shouts of ‘POWER’ from Clarkson later, the end is here.

While it almost looked like it would all be over unceremoniously in 2015, the trio are ending it in 2024. Best of all, they’re ending it on their terms.

Yet, in those 22 years, some things just don’t change. It all starts with the usual call from Mr Wilman, directing each of them to turn up at South Mimms Services just north of London in their chosen electric cars. Only they’re in Zimbabwe, and very much not in electric cars.

Unlike every other special before it though, there’s no elaborate premise, there’s no point trying to be made or some grand feat they’re particularly aiming to conquer. They’re in Zimbabwe because they just wanted to be, and the choice of cars is simply stuff they’ve always wanted.

It turns out that means a Lancia Montecarlo for Jeremy, a Ford Capri GXL (not a GT) for Richard, and a Triumph Stag for James. There’s a real last-day-of-school feel of things off the bat. The aim of the trip? Drive from the east side of the country to the west, as simple as that.

From the get-go, this feels like the purest special they’ve done in a long, long time. It’s all the better for it, too. The emphasis of the show is firmly on the trio, the cars and the country merely serve as props for us to experience them being them for one trip. That delightfully never really changes.

It’s not without some scripted dicking around. One particular moment comes when, in his ‘absence’, Wilman sends along the usual backup car in case one of the trio breaks down. In a nod to the original Botswana special, this is a VW New Beetle. It’s immediately faced with a rather spectacular ending, thanks to a comically elaborate setup. We won’t spoil it, but it feels a bit like the show is making fun of itself.

It goes back on one particular tradition though, which really does hit home the sense that this is ending. At one stage, a fuel line on Hammond’s Capri dislodges itself, which, shock-horror, May chooses to help him fix. Clarkson even hangs around for it. A grown man could cry. 

This hour-long preview only offered a highlight of the content that will come in Friday’s full release, which I’m led to believe comfortably tips the two-hour mark. But the purity of this special shines through – this is Clarkson, Hammond and May being just them. It’s shaping up to be the best piece of content they’ve produced in The Grand Tour era in my opinion, and they’ve saved it for last.

It’s a nugget of content that alone reaffirms the fact they’re the best to have ever done it, and the best that ever will do it.

Amazon will try and take the show in a new direction, and there’s no doubt some other motoring-focused TV series will emerge in the future. Those could be very good, but they’ll be eternally compared to the original three. There’s no escaping that, and I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing.

Oh, and the ending. I’m not going to give you the details, because you simply need to experience it for yourself, but make sure there’s a few tissues close by for those tears. I’ll give you a hint, though – look at the country bordering to the west of Zimbabwe.