James May says Grand Tour trio ‘quietly put show to one side rather than destroy it’

James May, Jeremy Clarkson, and Richard Hammond ended The Grand Tour because they felt they had "exhausted the idea thoroughly" and wanted to stop before they ruined it, May tells Yahoo UK.

The trio, who rose to fame for their work together on Top Gear, marked the end of their time on The Grand Tour with special One For the Road, which premiered on Prime Video in September. While it has been reported that the streamer intends to bring back the show with new hosts, May explains that for him and his co-stars it was the right time to end it "rather than destroy it".

"It's sort of sad, and I know people are sad that it's over, but it couldn't go on forever and we're all getting on a bit," May reflects. "And we exhausted the idea fairly thoroughly, I think, so it's like we quietly put it to one side rather than destroy it."

When asked if it had hit him yet that that part of his life was over, May says: "Yes, it keeps coming back to me in quite small ways. I think in [The Grand Tour finale] I was talking about things like my green bag, which I only used for trips with the other two.

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"And we've been quite spoiled in some ways, other people effectively organised your holidays, we just have to turn up and do the presenting and adventure bit. So now I'm going to have to organise my own holidays and probably only go on two a year, but I did it for a long time, I'm very grateful for it."

May is now working on Quest series James May and the Dull Men, which he feels is the kind of project he's most excited about doing at this point in his career: "Now I can relax and enjoy the privilege of making things like this series, which are quite modest but quite intimate, and they involve doing things I'm doing anyway at home."

Fans of May and The Grand Tour who watch the new series will notice his green bag makes an appearance on the show, though the presenter confirms this is before he had officially 'retired' it.

"I was still using it until about a week ago," he admits. "It's like a record of our whole journey and I will probably mount it in a glass frame or something and put it on the wall. We filmed this a couple of months ago, before I made that massive decision to retire the bag of badges. But I announced it on Twitter and everybody seemed to understand why that had to happen."

James May and The Dull Men is launching on Quest on Tuesday, 5 November at 9pm and will be available to stream on Discovery+.