The Grand Tour season 3 episode 1 review: Jeremy Clarkson and co. are back at their best

Jeremy Clarkson and co. are back with a bang as the third season of The Grand Tour goes live on Amazon Prime.

The first episode gets off to a flying start, with Clarkson and co-stars Richard Hammond and James May jetting over to Michigan to test three American classics in what is arguably the home of the muscle car.

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With Clarkson behind the wheel of an RTR-tuned Ford Mustang, Hammond in a Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, and May in the hot seat of a Hennessey Exorcist Camaro, the former Top Gear stars stage a drag race on the streets of Detroit and turn an abandoned factory into a makeshift race track.

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The fun continues with Clarkson providing a “crisp and vivid” review of McLaren’s £750,000 Senna hypercar, “conveying the thrill of driving it while pithily explaining its technical merits”, notes The Guardian.

Yet the cars are a “secondary consideration”, says The Independent, which argues that the three presenters and their shenanigans are the biggest draw of The Grand Tour.

“They’ve left the automotive journalism concept behind entirely and floated off into an eternal stag weekend of international travel where there’s always a gleaming motor in the driveway and a barstool waiting at the end of a long evening driving,” the news site says.

As fans will no doubt expect, there are “jokes aplenty about Hammond’s predilection toward wrecking cars and injuring himself”, while May is subjected to “prescribed jabs at his penchant for moving at a more deliberate pace”, reports Screen Rant.

All the same, the trio still manage to convey the extent of the fall of the motoring industry in Detroit, adds the entertainment reviews site.

Meanwhile, The Daily Telegraph concludes that “The Grand Tour really is just another spin around a track we’ve already visited many, many times”.

But for diehard fans, or “Clarkson cultists”, the first episode of season three is proof that the trio have finally perfected their “post-Top Gear incarnation” of the motoring show.

Where to watch The Grand Tour Season 3 online

Viewers who subscribe to Amazon’s £79-per-year Prime service will be able to access all 14 episodes of the third season, as well as every episode from the first and second series.

The next episode of season three goes live on Friday 25 January.