Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond are set to make a surprise return to our screens next month.
The presenting trio first worked together on the BBC’s motoring show Top Gear from 2002 to 2015, before moving across to Prime Video to host The Grand Tour the following year.
The Amazon Studios show aired with both full-length series and then special episodes until 2024, and is now being rebooted with a new trio of presenters at the helm: YouTubers Thomas Holland and James Engelman, and TikTok train fanatic Francis Bourgeois (real name Luke Magnus Nicolson).
In a new interview, the show’s co-creator revealed that Clarkson, 66, who hosts his own series Clarkson’s Farm on the streaming service, along with Hammond, 56, and May, 63, would be returning to hand the baton over to the new class of The Grand Tour.
Speaking at the Buckingham Literary Festival (via The Irish Sun), executive producer Andy Wilman said: “We’ve got three guys coming soon with a new Grand Tour and we’ve got behind them. We’re really supporting them.”
Revealing that the original trio would also be making an appearance, he explained: “Our guys are in the shows doing cameos, so we’re wishing them well because we do want to pass that baton on.”
Back in February, Amazon announced that The Grand Tour was returning with three younger new hosts.
Engleman and Holland are best known as the hosts of the hugely popular YouTube channel Throttle House, where the duo share car reviews and track tests to more than 3.4 million followers.
Bourgeois, meanwhile, has amassed more than 3.4 million followers on TikTok; while he originally found internet fame posting about trains, he’s also trained as a mechanical engineer and worked at Rolls-Royce.
The show will return for a six-episode series in September, and while Clarkson’s opinion of the new cast is as of yet unknown, Bourgeois, Engleman and Holland seem in keeping with the advice he offered Amazon on finding their replacements back in 2024.
“My advice to Amazon would be – and I’ve given this to them already – for heaven’s sake, do not get well known people who ‘like’ cars… Because that’s not enough. I would get three complete unknowns. Start small, like we did. They’ve got to be absolute petrolheads.”
