The creator of The Grand Tour has rubbished claims that Jeremy Clarkson is only backing the show’s new hosts because he is paid by Amazon.
Producer Andy Wilman, who first worked with Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May on BBC1’s Top Gear, says the suggestion that Clarkson could be made to say anything he didn’t really think was “risible”.
The criticism was made after Clarkson unveiled the new trio on social media in February Now he, Hammond and May will pass on the baton with a cameo in the first episode of the six-part series when it launches on Amazon’s Prime Video next month.
The new presenters are trainspotter turned petrolhead Francis Bourgeois alongside James Engelsman and Thomas Holland, the creators of YouTube’s Throttle House.
The Grand Tour's new hosting line-up James Engelsman, Thomas Holland and Francis Bourgeois(Image: PRIME VIDEO)
In the opening scenes of the first instalment the trio take a trip to Clarkson’s farm Diddly Squat to ask if they can take back the tent which was formerly used as the show’s studio – and discover it’s a firm no.
Discovering it is being put to good use on the farm, they agree to buy some sausages and prepare to take their leave. But as they depart, Jeremy tells them to have fun and wishes them well. “I mean it,” he adds. “Good luck – and don’t f*** it up.”
Once they’ve gone, he addresses the viewers directly down the camera, telling them “I’ve got to be honest with you. I’ve actually been watching what they’ve been up to for the last year and a half, and they’re very, very good. I think you’re going to love it.”
Wilman said that Amazon had initially come to him to ask if Jeremy – with whom he’s worked for more than 25 years – would endorse the new era of the show. He told the Mirror: “So Jeremy was like ‘let me see the people and then I’ll give you an answer.’ Because if he didn’t like them, he wouldn’t do it.
Andy Wilman says there's no chance that Clarkson would say anything he didn't want to(Image: PA)
“When he did announce them on Instagram, you’d see the comments below and people were going ‘Oh, that’s part of his contract to say good things – that’s his Amazon deal’. I’m like ‘oh f*** off’. The idea that you could get Jeremy to say that he likes somebody in a car show that he’s helped create, that he’s been TOLD to do that is just risible.”
He said Jeremy, James and Richard were fully behind the new hosts and had no regrets about stepping down from the series in 2024. “They wanted to help from the get go.. Jeremy said ‘I really like them. They tick every box’. So they were all on board.”
The Grand Tour’s tent is now being used as a butcher’s, a bar, a shop and an off licence at Diddly Squat, so-called because it was what Clarkson knew about farming when he started out seven years ago.
He told the new trio that he needed the tent so they couldn’t have it, explaining: “It wouldn’t be an audience so much as customers. I want to help but look, it’s been repurposed.”
Clarkson, Hammond and May no longer have any financial stake in The Grand Tour after the production company they had with Wilman was wound up in 2024 as they left, earning them each a payout of around £6million.
