'The Grand Tour' stars hoping to return to international adventures in 2022 (exclusive)
The Grand Tour stars Richard Hammond and James May are hoping to return to international adventures for the Amazon series in 2022.
May, Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson have been restricted to domestic adventures for the last two years with covid-friendly UK specials replacing the show’s usual globe-trotting madness.
The trio are currently peering across the channel in new French-themed special, Carnage a Trois, and earlier this year explored Scotland for Lochdown.
But May and Hammond hinted that viewers of the traditionally high mileage series can expect more exotic climes in months to come.
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Talking to Yahoo before new travel restrictions were recently imposed, May said: “We’re working on two for next year and we haven’t exactly worked out where to go but we’ve got quite a lot of ideas left over from just before Covid struck.
“They were all put in abeyance and we’re now working on them and deciding which ones to do – we’ve got a fair bit of life left in us yet, I think.”
Hammond added: “Hopefully it looks like me might be able to dig our passports out of the desk drawers again and we’ll be back out on the road eventually to go a bit further afield soon.
“That said, these two shows we’ve made in the Covid era will inform what we do going forward because we’ve really enjoyed drilling down to the story and thinking about the story more, as well as the adventure.
“Hopefully that will colour what we do going forward, which will be great.”
Hammond, Clarkson and May were thrilled to get filming at all this year after lockdown and domestic travel restrictions.
The trio braved the Scottish countryside and the Hebridean islands in a fleet of classic American cars for Lochdown, and are reunited for a tribute-of-sorts to the eccentricities of French vehicles for their newest episode.
The three share their love, fascination and appreciative humour of France’s car culture by racing, smashing and crashing their way through some of the best and most bizarre transport ever invented.
May said: “The idea might have been around for a long time, it’s the sort of b******s we get talking about when we are on our own.
“We don’t often talk about cars, we talk about other things, but when we do talk about cars it would be this sort of thing.
“We thought, well French cars are interesting and we’ve never really addressed that, and then we were off. I’m glad we did it, if you had to choose a country to talk about cars, you probably would choose France, they have been the most interesting.
“They’re not the most glamorous cars like the Italians and the Germans, but they are the most interesting – you’ve got to give it to France.”
From three seater sports cars to the iconic French workhorse of the 2CV and some even weirder creations uncovered in their exploration of cross channel car craziness, the presenters had an absolute blast getting up to their usual hijinks.
Mostly, the just enjoyed bouncing off each other again.
May said they all enjoyed working together on their beloved subject, and hoped fans enjoyed it too.
May said: “It was a bit like the old days, like making a car show ten years ago when we were a little but more measured and magazine-like about it, and less of a sitcom about it.
“There are two aspects to it – the absence from each other for a bit meant that we topped up on vitriol for each other, and because we had to strip back the big landscape of our regular tours, it possibly made us focus a bit more on the subject we’re known for, which is cars."
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