For more than two decades, the comedic trio of Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond have entertained the world with their motoring-related antics, but their time together has officially come to an end.
The next special for The Grand Tour TV show, hosted by the trio, will mark the last chapter for the team as each of them moves onto other ventures.
All good things must come to an end
Even those who only have a passing interest in cars will no doubt be aware of Clarkson, May, and Hammond, as the trio have cemented themselves as household names in entertainment media over the last 20+ years.
The presenters rise to fame started in 2002 when Jeremy Clarkson and his long-time friend and producer, Andy Wilman, revived the television show Top Gear for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in the United Kingdom.
The previous show of the same name ran from 1977 until 2001 and was a rather straightforward consumer information programme centered around cars, but all that began to change when the name was brought back for new audiences.
Top Gear’s first season, hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and Jason Dawe, was met with modest success, but Dawe left after the first season, leaving an opening for a new presenter.
It was when James May joined the crew in 2003 that the show started to pick up steam, not just with British audiences, but around the world, as the three hosts struck a chemistry that made for entertaining banter and wild shenanigans.
At its peak, Top Gear was estimated to have more than 350 million fans spread out across more than 200 countries, and the presenting trio played a huge part in its success.
While a strictly car-centred programme would only appear to petrolheads, the antics of Clarkson, May, and Hammond racing supercars, tackling challenges in terrible vehicles of their own design, or travelling to exotic locales around the globe, all while engaging in cheeky dialogues with one another, meant that just about anyone could find some entertainment in it all.
Clarkson’s time with Top Gear came to an end in 2015 following an altercation with a producer, where the BBC decided not to renew his contract.
May and Hammond ended their contracts soon after stating that they would not film without Jeremy, and the three soon found themselves at the helm of a brand-new show funded by Amazon – The Grand Tour.
The Grand Tour used much of the same ideas as Top Gear in as it continued to send the presenters off to perform challenges in home-made cars, or cross a difficult region in cheap transport.
Some of the specials performed by the three presenters include crossing the Sahara desert in cheap supercars, navigating the rivers and roads of Cambodia and Vietnam, traversing Mongolia in a hand-built vehicle, driving to the North Pole, and driving across Botswana, Bolivia, Madagascar, Myanmar, and Uganda in a variety of pre-owned cars that were never designed for off-roading.
This brings us to the present day, where each of the three has confirmed they are calling it quits owing to their age and a desire to move on.
James and Jeremy are now in their 60s, making the physically demanding treks across remote regions that much harder, and the three also feel like they have explored just about everything they can about motoring at this point.
That’s not to say you won’t still see them around, as Jeremy now has a successful show on Amazon called Clarkson’s Farm where he documents the struggles of operating a farm in contemporary Britain.
James May is piloting a TV series called “Our Man in …” where he visits countries like Italy or Japan explore the local culture in great detail, and Hammond has his own workshop dedicated to classic car restoration.
While it is undoutedly sad that the Top Gear lad’s time has truly come to an end, we can all look back and say that audience has been on an incredible journey together with them.
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