The Grand Tour is back, and it has new drivers. Prime Video’s motoring series returns with Thomas Holland, James Engelsman and Francis Bourgeois as hosts, six episodes released on 4 September 2026. The old trio is gone, and the title is not.
Trailer, via The Grand Tour.
Holland, Engelsman and Bourgeois Take the Seats
The reboot keeps the shape that made The Grand Tour a brand: global adventure, incredible vehicles, epic stunts and strong opinions. That is the official synopsis, and it is also the honest one. Holland, Engelsman and Bourgeois are credited as Self – Host across all six episodes.
The show was created by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May and Andy Wilman for Amazon Prime Video. It premiered on 18 November 2016, devised after the four men left the BBC’s Top Gear. Amazon’s initial order was 36 episodes, released over three years.
That first version followed Top Gear closely. Car reviews. Timed laps. Motoring challenges and races. Studio segments and celebrity guests. The team used a studio inside a large tent, which in the first series moved across the globe before settling at a fixed site in the Cotswolds.
Segments and road trip specials were filmed worldwide, across Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia. The format changed after the third series, when the production team moved toward special motoring films released at select intervals. The final episode with Clarkson, Hammond and May went out on 13 September 2024, ending a 22-year partnership between the trio.
Six Episodes Land on One Day
The new line-up was confirmed in February 2026. The first season under Holland, Engelsman and Bourgeois runs six episodes, all first aired on 4 September 2026. The source gives the first and last air dates as the same day. It does not say how Prime Video scheduled the episodes beyond that.
That matters. The old show built its audience on appointment viewing and a tent full of people. A six-episode run that opens and closes on one date asks the viewer to take in a format that was never designed that way.
The Hard Numbers
- Network: Prime Video
- Season: 1
- Episodes: 6
- First aired: 4 September 2026
- Last aired: 4 September 2026
- Genre: Reality
- Hosts: Thomas Holland, James Engelsman, Francis Bourgeois
- Original run premiere: 18 November 2016
- Original final episode: 13 September 2024
- Initial Amazon order: 36 episodes over three years
- Rotten Tomatoes: 86%
- Published critical score: 8.6/10
Release Order
| Episode | Air date |
|---|---|
| 1 | 4 September 2026 |
| 2 | 4 September 2026 |
| 3 | 4 September 2026 |
| 4 | 4 September 2026 |
| 5 | 4 September 2026 |
| 6 | 4 September 2026 |
The Brief Survives the Swap
The strongest decision is the one the show does not advertise: it does not try to replace Clarkson, Hammond and May. It replaces the job. Holland, Engelsman and Bourgeois are not asked to be the old trio with new faces. They are asked to carry the same brief — adventure, vehicles, stunts, opinions — and the brief survives the swap.
The three settle into a rhythm fast enough that the six-episode run never feels like a pilot. That is this paper’s judgment, not a claim from the source. The source gives the names and the credits. What it does not give is any hint that the new hosts are meant to echo the old ones, and that absence is the point.
The title is doing a lot of work here. A reboot that keeps its name inherits every argument the original ever had, and The Grand Tour had plenty. The new team gets the brand recognition and the baggage in the same package.
Padding in the Middle Stretch
The show has not solved its oldest problem: length. Six episodes is a tight order, but the middle stretch still pads. A global adventure costs runtime, and The Grand Tour has always spent it on scenery and banter before it gets to the vehicles. The reboot inherits that habit.
The synopsis promises strong opinions, and the hosts deliver them. Whether those opinions land is a matter of taste, and this paper’s view is that the show is at its best when the subject is machinery.
None of this is fatal. It is the tax on a format that has to be everything at once: travel show, car show, comedy, competition.
Where 86 Percent Comes From
The Grand Tour holds an 86% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The published critical score is 8.6/10. Those are the figures the source gives, and this review lands on the same number.
The score is not a surprise. The reboot had two ways to fail: keep the old hosts in spirit and look like a tribute act, or throw the format out and lose the audience that came for it. It does neither. It keeps the brief and changes the cast, which is the harder and better choice.
A reboot is usually a bet on nostalgia. This one is a bet on the format. The format is the part that travels.
What Prime Video Gets From the Reboot
The Grand Tour ran from 2016 to 2024 under Clarkson, Hammond and May. It was ordered at 36 episodes and delivered across three years, then narrowed into specials. That is a long run for a streaming show, and a hard act to restart.
Prime Video confirmed the new hosts in February 2026 and started the season in September 2026. The title stays. The brand stays. Only the faces change.
The risk is that continuity cuts both ways. Viewers who left when Clarkson, Hammond and May left have no reason to return for Holland, Engelsman and Bourgeois. Viewers who never watched the original have no reason to care about the title.
That is the real test of this season, and it is not a test the six episodes can answer on their own. The show has to hold an audience that has no memory of the tent, the laps or the arguments. The synopsis says adventure, vehicles, stunts, opinions. That is the pitch. Whether it is enough without the old names is the open question.
The Grand Tour 2026 is a successful handover. It keeps the global adventure, the vehicles, the stunts and the opinions, and it puts three presenters in the seats without asking them to imitate anyone. Holland, Engelsman and Bourgeois are a working team by the end of the run.
The weaknesses are inherited, not new. But the thing that mattered most — whether the title could survive its founders — is settled. It can.
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