Last Friday brought us the final episode of a car show concept that started over 20 years ago. It’s been a long time coming, with much hemming and hawing in the media over the conclusion of The Grand Tour, or as many considered, it Top Gear 2.0. But now the episode has aired, the contract completed, and elderly hosts are off into the sunset to work on their multitude of other projects. It’s finally time for Top Gear's conclusion, The Grand Tour's “One for the Road.”
(Note: Spoilers abound in this review, so stop reading here if you wish to avoid them. Other TGT episode reviews are found here.)
Though the show’s name and network changed in 2016, our presenters Clarkson, Hammond, and May, their directorial staff, and production team have been with us since old Top Gear was reborn in 2002. May didn’t join the show until season two in 2003, but nobody remembers used car man Jason Dawe. The days when there was a “Cool Wall” and the whiteboard markers never worked well. Some 20 years ago, a new friend of mine (now my oldest friend) messaged me on Yahoo Messenger via my HP Pavilion PC, “Hey, there's this British car show you might like, it's called Top Gear.” It’s been a long journey.
In the final episode of The Grand Tour, our hosts return to Africa as they’ve done several times before, this time to Zimbabwe. There’s a farcical plot throughout the episode that the hosts are going against the director’s wishes (Andy Wilman, actually the exec producer), as they’re “supposed” to be driving EVs around the motorway in England.
Instead they choose to go to Africa secretly with their staff of over 70 people and film their final special using cars they love but have never owned. All three select classic coupes: May picks a Triumph Stag, Hammond selects a first generation Ford Capri GXL, and Clarkson pulls up in a Lancia Montecarlo ( Scorpion in NA market).
The prompt is simple – drive from the beautiful eastern coast of Zimbabwe across the country to the more industrial and desert-adjacent western border with Botswana. The trio are keeping it simple this time, working on their own schedule away from the supposed rigors normally put to them by the zealous Mr. Wilman.
Immediately notable is how the hosts are in a better mood than they have been for the past few specials. It’s obvious there’s a weight lifted off them, and they’re happy to finally bid adieu to this chapter. Wistful comments, memories, and references to Top Gear and Grand Tour episodes start right away, and even the music selection is designed to pluck at the emotional strings and remind the viewer that something important is ending.
Your author will opine here that for this particular challenge I’d avoid any of the presenters’ vehicular selections. Perhaps if I was feeling bold I’d have brought a Citroën SM with adjustable hydropneumatic suspension, or if I wanted to take the easy and luxurious route, a Jaguar XJ-S. There are a number of mechanics to fix any issues, so it doesn’t matter if the car breaks down. It’s particularly believable when Hammond pretends there’s no 11 millimeter socket available for him to use.
From the initial meet and greet with the cars in good spirits, a choreographed drive across Zimbabwe fills the majority of the 2 hour and 10 minute run time. It’s a very long episode, but gets a pass as it’s the end of it all.
Hammond’s Capri breaks down first, then shortly thereafter the Montecarlo chugs to a halt. The problems are nondescript and easily fixed by someone, and the journey continues. The show makes a point that the Triumph Stag – a notably unreliable car with a very bad Triumph engine – never has a single fault the entire episode.
The trio knock off their days early and stop driving in the afternoons throughout the episode, because again there’s no director to keep them on schedule. The expected folly of sports coupes in rural Africa takes place almost immediately when the paved roads end. Hosts make no attempt to tread carefully, they just hit the holes head on or steer toward them.
In the first gag of the show, the director “finds out” where the team are, and sends them a backup New Beetle that they promptly send off a cliff. It’s a ridiculous skit that involves an Australian Shepherd, a rope, and a broom handle. They introduce their own backup car thereafter (a Rover SD1 Vanden Plas) which appears at random times, doesn’t seem to be traveling with them through the episode, and isn't really a backup car.
More wistfulness and driving follows, and at 40 minutes in the trio visit a rural scrapyard for a look at some junked cars. Nothing happens for the next 15 minutes, until Clarkson announces that the paper map he’s relying on causes a wrong turn and the group are heading in the wrong direction. GPS doesn’t exist in 2024, you know.
This gaffe presents the next set piece at an hour and 15 minutes where there’s another map issue and the team are at the wrong end of a huge lake! It’s boat time, as they purchase junky boats to travel 180 miles across the length of a lake. But it’s different to previous boat times, because the boats are purchased and not built.
The episode is staged in 15- to 20-minute blocks, as at an hour and 30 minutes the group are nearing the western side of Zimbabwe and its ruinous coal mining activities. At this point the rough road crosses the tolerance threshold, and the team decide to make their cars into locomotives like they did on Top Gear (S17, E4).
The trains don’t work well until they do, but the whole thing is farcical and sort of boring. It lasts exactly 15 minutes, at which point the train cars are converted back into regular cars and it’s time for the emotional concluding act, which lasts 25 minutes. For the remainder of the show, the trio discuss memories, their car show adventures, and the music turns soppy.
One nice moment after the border is crossed into Botswana is the reuniting of Clarkson and May with their actual Top Gear cars of almost 20 years ago, the Lancia Beta Coupe and Mercedes-Benz 280. The scrapped parts were saved by someone, and the reassembled but forlorn cars sit in a sandy graveyard. Hammond is absent here because he owns Oliver the Kadett, it’s in England in one of his garages.
This part of the show does seem like a genuine surprise to the hosts, and Clarkson and May get a bit emotional seeing their old wrecks. More Top Gear appears in the final scene at the salt pans from the team’s very first African journey, the Botswana Special of 2007. In what was surely an expensive bit of film to purchase, the current trio approach the baobab tree on Kubu Island just like they did in 2007, and more content joins the screen.
Clips of the original Top Gear special are interspersed with the group’s final approach as the three are reflective over their TV presenter careers. The segment is very well produced, and after the team sign off and unplug their microphones viewers get to see the large crew celebrating the conclusion of all their hard work. “I hope that we’ve brought you a little bit of happiness,” May chokes out.
It was nice to see the trio get together one last time, and to experience the visible relief washing over them through the episode’s two-hour span. Hammond mentions he never expected the show, what they do together, to go on for so long. And it seems like at the end of their filming (September 2023), the three were long past ready to hang it up. I found a genuine smile on my face at the closing.
“One for the Road” brought to mind a different wistful moment from back in the Top Gear days, the British roadsters challenge (S15, E6). Hammond is in the rain in a yellow Lotus Elan, and says “The whole experience is tinged at all times with the knowledge that we’re doing something that’s… ended.” Indeed it has.
[Images: Amazon Prime]
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