The Grand Tour new hosts trailer has landed, giving fans their first proper look at Francis Bourgeois, James Engelsman and Thomas Holland in action ahead of the show’s return to Amazon Prime Video on 4 September.
The trio were unveiled earlier this year following the departures of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. Engelsman and Holland are the creators of YouTube series Throttle House, while Bourgeois made his name online as a trainspotter.
What the Grand Tour new hosts trailer actually shows
The action-packed clip teases what looks like a seriously globe-trotting season. According to Prime Video’s official synopsis, the new team will tackle the question of whether you can sneak undetected across Colorado in a trio of Japanese microcars, as well as asking what the most unbreakable car in history might be.
There is also a sequence in which the hosts attempt to get something onto the head of F1 driver Alex Albon using a Pagani hypercar. The team heads to Malaysia to explore the nation’s car culture, investigates how little you can spend on a sports car before it immediately blows up, and journeys through the desert of Angola in track-cars described as ‘utterly unsuited for the job’. California also features, with the hosts testing muscle cars against a group of fighter jets.
All six episodes will be available from 4 September, so no waiting week to week.
Clarkson, Hammond and May are returning too
Fans of the original line-up will be pleased to hear that Clarkson, Hammond and May are all slated to make an appearance in the new season, alongside Jenson Button.
The hand-off from the old guard to the new hosts had an official moment of its own earlier this year. According to Car and Driver, Clarkson effectively gave his blessing to Engelsman, Holland and Bourgeois back in February, when the official Grand Tour account posted a video of him reading through applications for the new hosts. It was, in its own way, a formal passing of the keys.
Bourgeois, for his part, has clearly been processing the experience ever since filming wrapped. He said of the season: ‘Since completing the filming of the series, I haven’t stopped replaying every moment in my head. It has made me laugh, made my heart race and my stomach turn.’
Francis Bourgeois brings a sizeable online audience
Bourgeois is not coming to the Grand Tour new hosts trailer entirely cold, at least as far as audiences are concerned. Driven reports that he has amassed 3.4 million TikTok followers, a fanbase that Amazon will presumably be hoping translates into Prime Video subscriptions come September.
Engelsman and Holland, meanwhile, have built their following through Throttle House, their YouTube series aimed squarely at car enthusiasts. The combination of a trainspotter-turned-internet-personality and two established motoring YouTube creators is an unusual one for a show that used to run on the combustible chemistry of three veteran broadcasters. Whether the new dynamic will stick is something viewers will be able to judge for themselves when all six episodes drop at once.
When does the new season arrive?
The Grand Tour returns to Prime Video on Friday 4 September, with all six episodes available from that date. Bourgeois, Engelsman and Holland’s debut season will cover Colorado, Malaysia, Angola and California across its run, making it one of the more geographically ambitious outings the show has attempted. Clarkson, Hammond and May’s cameo appearances give the season a thread back to the show’s original era, even as it firmly plants the Grand Tour new hosts at the wheel.
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