The Boys are back on Amazon. No, not the dark superhero show (which is great) but Clarkson, Hammond, and May in the Grand Tour Presents…A Massive Hunt. COVID has affected the kickoff of the latest season (4) but they pulled together a special where they traipse around Madagascar looking for £100M of buried pirate treasure. And while we likely knew from the beginning that it was more likely to end in Captain Phillips references than actual treasure, the real stars are the cars.
If you’re thinking that we’ve seen this before, we have. It’s a hardship trek mixed with amazing scenery and impressive feats of success and failure. May was the first to arrive with a standard Caterham. We quickly learn that Wilman is sending them on an off-road challenge, so he fits larger wheels…and that’s about it. If you’re thinking that is a recipe for spectacular failure in the RWD track-car, you might be surprised.
Clarkson arrives in a very British entry, a Continental GT. Big power and AWD is a good start, but he goes all in with big tires, two snorkels, and a bunch of underside protection. The end result is something I would very much like to own!
Finally, Hammond arrives in a Focus RS that ends up with with a full set of tracks by the time it hits the mud of Madagascar. When it works, it’s spectacular. When it doesn’t, well…
Obviously it’s way harder than they expect and they even fail to cover 15 miles in a day. Definitely some serious terrain, and May clearly gets the worst of it with his open cockpit.
Overall, it’s a gag that we’ve seen, but for me at least it still wears well. The more they continued to steal May’s exterior-mounted battery kill switch, the harder I laughed! So go check it out, it’s worth your time.
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