Amazon Prime Video has released a trailer for the next instalment of ‘The Grand Tour‘, which sees Clarkson, Hammond and May head to the beautiful country of Scotland.
‘The Grand Tour Presents: Lochdown’ sees the three highly experienced motorists… or three buffoons in cars… depending on your preference, take a series of 70s American cars they saw in TV shows on a road trip around Scotland. This, as you would probably expect, creates chaos in Edinburgh, sees them dealing with the ageing cars, and building a homemade bridge across the Hebridean sea.
The special was filmed over 10 days last year during the pandemic under strict COVID safety protocols. The team apparently had a mobile COVID testing unit that followed the boys on their trip, creating a sort of “rolling COVID bubble” allowing them to film around the country. In an interview with Deadline last year, producer/showrunner Andy Wilman says the trip was something that brought them closer to their ‘Top Gear’ roots, where UK adventures were a mainstay of the show.
“Scotland was tremendous. In adversity – a slight element of backs to the wall – we’ve got a really great film,” commented Wilman. “If you don’t have Madagasgar or the Mekong River… it makes you work harder. We don’t leave as much to chance, you set up more scenes and that is like going back to the old days.”
The original pre-pandemic plan was to take a trip around Russia… That was put off for obvious pandemic reasons! The boys are due to make another two specials under the current Amazon contract, but have also diversified into other individual shows for Amazon. Hammond made ‘The Great Escapists’ with ‘MythBusters’ Tory Belleci, which saw the duo “stranded” together on a desert island. James May made travel show ‘Our Man in Japan‘, and ‘Oh Cook!‘, a cooking programme. Meanwhile, Clarkson decided to take up farming after the man who managed his Oxfordshire estate retired, so he thought he’d have a go himself… You can see how that turned out in ‘Clarkson’s Farm‘. All of these shows can be found on Amazon Prime Video.
‘The Grand Tour Presents: Lochdown‘ premieres Friday, 30th July 2021 on Amazon Prime Video.
