The Grand Tour

[PonoBill]

Just finished watching Episode 1 of the Grand Tour, If you're an Amazon Prime member (kind of crazy not to be) it's free:http://a.co/5QTPNMS

The first episode is fun. Great opening sequence and the cinematography is superb. It's a bit too much like top Gear, but then what would one expect. They'll travel around a bit more. Amazon is obviously dumping a fair bit of bucks into this. I figured it would just be Clarkson, but he has Captain Slow (James May) and Richard Hammond--who famously got his ass handed to him trying to do the Gorge Paddle Challenge downwind race with minimal training and experience.

I enjoyed the show, but I expect it will get boring quickly unless they freshen up their somewhat tired schtick. In the early days of top Gear I loved the show--they did some outrageous shit. But then they fell into a pattern of sameness. I suspect part of it was budget, and part of it was trying not to kill all three of them.

The three cars tested in this episode are all hybrids--but not a Prius in the lot.

[SaMoSUP]

I watched ep 1 about 75% then got bored with it. It was great watching the McLaren, 918, and Ferrari go at each other. Kinda strange how they put up the non-street legal Ferrari on there. Don't they have a street legal model?

Really liked the electric motor only drag race though. That was really interesting that the 918 smoked the McLaren.

Amazon has some pretty good originals. So far I've binge watched Goliath w/ Billy Bob Thornton and Man in the High Castle. The Grand Tour seemed too hokey.

[PonoBill]

Actually, it was street legal--just not registered. Ferrari has a long history of finagling and being a bit cheap when it comes to ordinary expenses. If they register it, they have to pay VAT, and it becomes a used car. Of course putting a 1.4  million buck car in a huge transport and driving it around Portugal makes for questionable savings. As does the notion that someone might be paying a 1.4 million bucks for a La Ferrari and then find out it's actually secondhand--used and abused by those loons. 

There's also the fact that all 499 La ferraris were spoken for before the debut, and that's all there are, as far as I know. Ferrari had over a thousand requests to buy one (at 1.4 mil) and turned down over 500 people. so there's that. How they got to play with one at all isn't clear.

[Dwight (DW)]

I loved it. I never could get through an episode of Top Gear. I hope Grand Tour remains fun.

[DavidJohn]

10/10.. Excellent.. 

[SaMoSUP]

The Aston Martin Vulcan featured on ep. 2 was great. The show format and hosts remind me of a bunch of Benny Hills hosting on The View with a live audience laugh track. Can't sit through a whole segment of the annoying jabbering. Thank goodness for the fast forward feature.

[Eagle]

Jeremy was a massive star on BBC until he verbally and physically assaulted a producer because there was no hot food on set.  He was fired.  Have watched a number of episodes over the years but since cutting cable many moons ago - do not watch programming on the zombie box.  Best part for me on TG though - were the handling descriptions on the track and the Stig.  LeBlanc will be on for a 2yr contract as host starting 2017.

[PonoBill]

They do the studio bits in front of an audience, but the laughter and clapping is so synchronized that it's got to be prompted and edited. At some point media folks will realize that people have pretty good bullshit detectors now--it's not 1960, or even 1999.

[GOTWAVZ]

Loved Top Gear, it was the only car show I could actually watch with my wife (she really enjoyed it too).  It was with great anticipation that I watched the first episode of Grand Tour with its increased budget.   Im not that impressed.  I miss the Stig....dont like the redneck that replaced him.  Not a big fan of the new track.  Jeremey is too full of himself (shocker), needs to get over his hatred Porsches (getting old),  and I find myself fast forwarding unfortunately now but still enjoy the cars they abuse.  Hopefully they will grow into it and get better.  I did enjoy Richard Hammond flooring his obnoxiously loud Hellcat in the tunnels next to James May in his convertible (whisper quiet) Bentley, something I would do for sure if I had the opportunity.....something about tunnels and a good exhaust whale always gets me weak in the knees:)

[PonoBill]

There's nothing like a tunnel and a high revving V8 or 12. My shortcut to Portland used to be Cornell Road which has a short but delightful one. Part of my morning routine to get a gap in traffic, drop two gears and floor my 360 spider with the top down. Unfortunately, I did it one day with a cop coming the other way. I just pulled off and waited for him. He pulled off behind me, came up the door and said "I had to come after you, there were too many people that saw that for me to ignore it. But I'm not going to give you a ticket. Have a nice day. Beautiful car and I loved the sound". Or words to that effect. It was a zillion years ago.

the only thing I have now that really sounds good in a tunnel is my MV Agusta motorcycle. Music at 13,900 RPM.

[GOTWAVZ]

...I hope this link works...makes me crack up every time...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ukhp9UE9ZM