Grand Tour’s “Sand Job”- another epic journey in the books for the tired trio
When Jeremy Clarkson spoke to the press about the iconic Grand Tour series coming to an end, with only two more feature-length special episodes being aired, it was understandable that the three were beginning to want to wrap up their televised massive road trips. Clarkson, along with fellow co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May, have been at the forefront of presenting automotive television together since BBC’s Top Gear’s second series in 2003. They became inseparable friends while hosting Top Gear, and when Clarkson was fired from the show in 2015, Hammond and May followed suit to begin their new show, Grand Tour, now partnering with Amazon.
Hammond, May and Clarkson then hosted three series in a similar format to Top Gear’s style, with a live audience and several segments with running gag segments on each episode like “Conversation Street” and “Celebrity Brain Crash,” but they brought that format to a close to continue their own individual projects, as well as doing what the trio found most enjoyable: feature-length road trip episodes where Clarkson, Hammond, and May would purchase used vehicles to embark on adventures in some of the most beautiful places on earth, such as Patagonia, Vietnam, and Burma.
This brings us to their most recent special, “Sand Job,” which throws the trio into the sandy Sahara Desert in the dry country of Mauritania, Africa, where the three must drive their homebrew modified exotic convertibles with taller rally springs to clear jagged rocks and puddles, auxiliary lighting on the vehicles’ hoods and roofs, tents to sleep in and knobby tires to grip deep into the sand. Clarkson’s Jaguar F-Type Convertible, Hammond’s Aston Martin DB9 Volante and May’s Maserati GranCabrio travel along the path of the historic and iconic Paris-Dakar Rally. I felt these were great vehicles to use on the Grand Tour since they are all beginning to reach the age where they begin to have odd quirks and issues outside of normal maintenance. Hammond’s continuous misfortune with the Aston Martin especially makes for great television, with the car’s aging electronics being the main setback to his progress in the trip.
The cars arrive on the back of a train which usually carries passengers and iron ore, and the three get crafty to remove the cars from the train car. Once dismounted, the three begin their drive through the sand dunes, not without issue from Hammond’s Aston Martin having already boiled over in the first 10 minutes of driving. When the three find a detour through a dark tunnel surrounded by a hill too steep for their cars to climb, Clarkson muses that they could go through the potential danger as fast as possible, a nod to “Scandi Flick,” a special where James May did exactly that and couldn’t stop in time before sideswiping a rock wall in a similar tunnel with his Mistubishi Lancer Evo.
When Clarkson floors it through the bat-infested tunnel, he finds that what lies on the other side is a minefield. He doesn’t let the other side know in time though, as Hammond crashes through the gate, nearly blowing his untrustworthy Aston and himself sky-high. Similar antics like this are highly present in this special: crossing rivers on specially crafted rafts, accidentally knocking over a tower of Ferrero Rocher chocolates in the British Embassy, filling each others’ cars with sand and using snowmobiles strapped to the front of the cars to flatten uncomfortable “washboard” roads.
Unfortunately, I think the ending leaves a lot to be desired. I wish all the build-up didn’t hit such a hard low at the end, even if it uses Clarkson’s send-off since starting the Grand Tour.
I think the special may not bring anything new from the trio, but that doesn’t detract from the entertainment the three presenters bring to the table, with their slapstick antics and charming personalities. I can’t blame them for wanting to retire from automotive journalism stardom, however. They have been active members of the automotive journalism community since the 1980s, and they have proven time and time again that the cars may bring their audience to the screen, but their own personalities together on-screen keeps them there. Grand Tour is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video.
