The Grand Tour is doomed – you can’t replace Jeremy Clarkson ...Middle East

When Jeremy Clarkson stepped away from The Grand Tour last year, it looked like the end of the road. But that has turned out not be the case. Not for Clarkson, who tractors on with his Amazon muckbuster Clarkson’s Farm. And not for The Grand Tour, which, it has been revealed, is to zoom back onto screens with a new trio of presenters. Petrolheads rejoice. 

Or perhaps not. Fans of Clarkson’s distinctive brand of automotive derring-do – where the cars take second billing to the curmudgeonly carry-on – are sure to be deflated upon hearing that the new Grand Tour stars are a duo of YouTubers plus a TikTok “sensation” best known for his wacky clips about trainspotting. 

With barely a grizzled jowl or a beer paunch between them, the new trio is Thomas Holland and James Engelsman – co-hosts of the popular Throttle House YouTube channel, a brand with 3.2m subscribers – plus Francis Bourgeois (2.4m followers on Instagram, 3.3m on TikTok), whose trainspotting-themed videos have featured guests such as Jesse Lingard and Louis Theroux. 

Leaks to the press suggest that Amazon thinks it has struck upon a winning combination of emerging talents who already have a following and, so goes the logic, will also appeal to Grand Tour viewers.

But are they all that famous? A YouTube search for Canadian-born Thomas Holland led to multiple clips of Spider-Man actor Tom Holland lip-synching on an American talk show, for instance – hardly in line with Amazon’s argument, as reported in The Sun, that the new hosts are “younger, cooler and a lot more social media savvy”.

The other point is that “cooler, younger” hosts Grand Tour hosts are the last thing anyone wants. The middle-age, men-pottering-about vibe is part of the charm: people were drawn to The Grand Tour and, before it, the Clarkson era of Top Gear on the BBC, not because they cared particularly about the latest Maserati but because they enjoyed watching Jeremy Clarkson saying unkind things about the latest Maserati. 

Amazon should also reflect on the fact that, in terms of replacing the definitive Top Gear/Grand Tour lineup of Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond, television has already taken this route, and it led to a deeply terrifying place: otherwise known as “Chris Evans’ Top Gear”. Do you remember? You do not – in all likelihood because you have scrubbed from your memory all recollection of Evans making like a gurning chipmunk when he tried to fill in for Clarkson following his suspension from the BBC in 2015. 

It was excruciating – and Evans was already a known quantity rather than a YouTuber trying to parlay 15 seconds of digital fame into a career on a relatively well-established institution such as The Grand Tour. But even after Evans abdicated, the effortlessly charming Matt LeBlanc of Friends mega-fame found it hard to fill the Clarkson/Hammond/May-shaped void. Fair enough, Top Gear recovered some of its momentum during its Paddy McGuinness/ Andrew Flintoff final hurrah – before a serious crash involving Flintoff in 2022 led the BBC to call time on the institution. But even at their best all they were doing was a watery cover version of peak Clarkson. 

Holland and Engelsman’s YouTube channel has tens of millions of viewers, but nobody would mistake it for the second coming of Top Gear. They are off-puttingly slick (often crossing the dotted white line into smug), their humour more Mr Beast than James May’s Captain Slow. In one video, Holland wears a dress which Engelsman attempts to inflate by revving on the exhaust pipe of a Lamborghini. You can imagine how well a stunt like that would go down with Grand Tour viewers. There is also the fact that Holland sounds like a dead ringer for Coldplay’s Chris Martin – emanating the sort of positive, “just back from yoga” vibes that would have Clarkson gagging on a gear stick. 

square THE GRAND TOUR

How even Jeremy Clarkson got bored of cars, thrills and 'banter'

Is there a market for an expensive car-based documentary series? Almost certainly not. If there were, the schedules would be brimming with them. What people want is authentically grumpy middle-aged blokes tackling life one exasperating challenge at a time. That’s why we tuned into Top Gear and The Grand Tour – and why viewers can’t have enough of Clarkson doing battle with Oxfordshire planning regulations on Clarkson’s Farm.

It’s not the cars; it’s the personalities – and for that reason, it’s hard not to conclude that, before it has even left the garage, this all-new Grand Tour is on the road to nowhere.  

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