Well they’ve finally got a name! Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May’s new Amazon motoring show will be called The Grand Tour. In a statement, the trio thanked fans for taking the time to send in their suggestions for the name, which they said were much appreciated. “Thing is,” Clarkson said, “we’ll be travelling the world hosting each episode in a different country, from a giant tent. It’s a sort of ‘grand tour’, if you like. So we’ve decided to call it The Grand Tour.”
May said he was underwhelmed by the name. “I wanted to call it ‘Nigel’, or ‘Roger’,” he joked. “We needed a name, and they’re names.”
Hammond was more positive. “I already love camping,” he said. “But this is something else. We are like our pioneering and prospecting forebears, sallying forth into a new frontier of broadcasting, and making our home where…”
Clarkson tweeted just after the announcement:
So, the Grand Tour (GT for short) will come from a tent, which we will put up in a different location every week. Your town?
— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) May 11, 2016
The Grand Tour’s Facebook page features a video showing some of the spoof names that were under consideration, including “Automates”, “A Small Puddle of Excellence” and “The Ace Biscuit”.
It also features the video Clarkson released of the trio brainstorming the spoof names, plus photos of filming in Portugal, Barbados, north Africa and London.
Early reports had suggested the show might be called Gear Knobs, but in April Clarkson claimed the BBC had a legal right to stop the new show using the word “gear” in the title.
The name the trio chose fits with their ambition to do something different to the BBC series, moving further away from the traditional car show format with studio segments and big set-pieces.
The Grand Tour is set to debut this autumn on Amazon’s video service. It is not yet clear whether all the episodes will be released in one go, as Amazon and rival Netflix have done with many of their drama series, or follow a more traditional scheduled pattern, though May has previously said it is likely to be the latter.
11 comments
Would have still went for: “The Slow, The Fat, The Tiny”
I would’ve love to see a show called that! I was thinking of Trinity productions. Clarkson is the father, Hammond the Son and May the Spirit. Doesn’t hurt that Jeremy’s initials are JC, lol.
What , a different country each time in a tent ! That’s been done , it’s called a CIRCUS .
Lol, maybe they should have called it ‘3 Clowns in a tend” xD
*tent
But how did they not run into problems with ‘GT’? The first thing that comes to mind is the game.
Another good reason is that all car lovers knows what GT stands for so it will be easy if you use hashtags like #GT etc to promote it. I like the new name, hope the new show will be good to.
…or the fact that The Grand Tour (TGT) translates nicely to Top Gear Two (TGT).
😉
Damn,I thought that was a really lame name but it makes sencs now 0.0
I still think Carmite was a better GT is ,as May said, underwhelming.
The fact they’ve gone from TG to GT is kind of clever though.