We can reveal that The Grand Tour tent will once again be stationary for Series 3. In a document obtained by The Grand Tour Fans, Amazon has seeked planning permission from the local council to film at The Great Tew Estate for multiple weeks – exactly as they did last year for Series 2.
Amazon Prime Production have plans in place for a ‘mobile film studio’ to be erected near Chipping Norton at the beginning of October, on a site which will be held for up to 12 weeks. If these plans come to fruition – and we expect they will – The Grand Tour team will be filming there approximately 1 day per week, with a maximum of 10 days over an 8 week period. Which would be enough to provide studio segments for up to 10 episodes.
Ten episodes for The Grand Tour Series 3 makes a lot of sense, but there’s also a small matter of the Columbia Special – a yet to be released episode which was filmed earlier this year. If Series 3 were to launch with this episode as a mini-special, that’d bring us up to a total of 11 episodes – exactly the same as what we saw during Series 2.
Last year, The Grand Tour’s plans to film in Oxfordshire were not received well by locals, with the show’s TV company Chump Productions facing calls for the project to be blocked because it would be ‘detrimental’ to the community. A bunch of hysterical locals suggested that traffic created by the 80-strong film crew and 350 guests invited to each day’s filming could prove fatal to walkers, cyclists, and horse-riders who used country lanes in the area. As expected, these fears were largely unfounded – with no human or equine fatalities recorded during the filming period.
The Great Tew estate, owned by Old Etonian Nicholas Johnston, has been dubbed ‘the hippest 4,000 acres outside London’ by Tatler, and is home to celebrity haunt Soho Farmhouse. But locals are revolting against the hordes of wealthy Londoners staying in the hotel’s £350-per-night faux-rustic huts.
Filming for the studio segments of The Grand Tour will take place on the site between October and December 2018, suggesting a possible Series 3 release date of either November 23rd, November 30th or December 7th.
How do you feel about the prospect of The Grand Tour’s tent staying firmly in the United Kingdom for the entirety of Series 3? Let us know in the comments below.