Amazon Prime have revealed The Grand Tour: Sand Job featuring dream team Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May will launch on February 16.
On Thursday, Prime unveiled its first look of the special episode as the cheeky trio travel to the wild and remote country of Mauritania in West Africa, for their biggest challenge yet.
Their challenge is to follow in the footsteps of the world’s most dangerous race, the iconic Paris-Dakar.
But instead of competing in bespoke, hand built Dakar racers, our unfit trio must complete their journey in second hand sports cars, modified by them.
Jeremy opts for a Jaguar F Type V6, Richard too goes British with an Aston Martin Volante V12, whilst James takes a punt on Italy with a Maserati.
Amazon Prime have revealed The Grand Tour: Sand Job featuring dream team Jeremy Clarkson , Richard Hammond and James May will launch on February 16.
Prime Video unveiled its first look at The Grand Tour: Sand Job on Thursday as the cheeky trio get set for their biggest challenge yet
The boys report to the northern part of Mauritania, inside the perilous Foreign Office Red Zone, where they must rendezvous with their cars, which are delivered courtesy of the world’s longest iron ore train, a 1.2 mile monster that travels this country’s only railway line.
From there, Jeremy, James and Richard strike out into the Sahara, heading south for Senegal and the famous finish line on the beach of Dakar.
Along the way they must descend treacherous ravines by cable, James must battle with mysterious sand storms that threaten his car, they must build unusual and ingenious devices to help their cars cope with the car killing roads, and they must extract themselves from a deadly minefield.
Also, given they are in the Sahara in one of the least populated countries in the world, they have to travel with their own fuel bowser, which they must protect at all costs, from being blown up.
Having conquered the Sahara, their problems are far from over. In order to reach Senegal they must make a perilous river crossing, across a river with no bridge.
The final special of The Grand Tour with the trio is set to launch on Prime Video later this year.
It comes after Jeremy finally broke his silence after quitting Prime Video’s The Grand Tour after five series.
The 63-year-old signed a big money deal with the streaming service in 2015 to continue his motoring adventures with former Top Gear co-hosts Richard and James.
But now the trio’s 20-year-long partnership will draw to a close after Jeremy revealed there was nothing else for them to do.
Their challenge is to follow in the footsteps of the world’s most dangerous race, the iconic Paris-Dakar
It comes after Jeremy finally broke his silence after quitting Prime Video’s The Grand Tour after five series
The 63-year-old (centre) signed a big money deal with the streaming service in 2015 to continue his motoring adventures with former Top Gear co-hosts Richard (right) and James (left)
He told The Times: ‘I’ve driven cars higher than anyone else and further north than anyone else. We’ve done everything you can do with a car.
‘When we had meetings about what to do next, people just threw their arms in the air’.
He also branded himself ‘unfit, fat and old’ as another reason that it was time for the ‘immensely physical’ show to end, following the hosts camping on beaches and racing speed boats in pervious series.
He also brushed of any suggestions of a feud with his co-hosts saying: ‘We’ve spent more time in each other’s company than our families’ over the last 25 years,
‘So I don’t think it would have lasted as long as it did if we’d hated each other as much as James likes to think.’
An insider told the Sun last year that the ‘surprising’ decision ‘very much marks the end of an era for the three presenters’, who have worked together since 2003.
They added that although the show is one of the streaming platform’s most watched shows ‘the guys have made no bones about the fact they’re all advancing in years and they have lots of other projects to pursue.’
The source told the publication that the broadcasters ‘felt like the time was right and wanted to go out on a high when the show remained popular’.
Jeremy, Richard and James shot to superstardom after taking over BBC’s Top Gear, turning it from a niche car programme into one of the corporation’s hottest properties and selling spin-offs around the world.
Their time on the show wasn’t without controversy.
Richard was nearly killed when he was involved in a 320mph crash while filming a stunt for the show, with the impact leaving him in a coma for two weeks and ‘Hamster’ himself admitting he fears getting early onset dementia as a result.
The trio also became the focus of a number of racism rows, with the ambassador for Mexico complaining when his people were branded ‘lazy’, ‘feckless’ and ‘flatulent’ on the show, sparking an apology from the BBC.
They were also hounded out of Argentina by an angry mob after a row over a number plate used while filming the series. Officials claimed that H982 FKL on a Porsche – which was registered in May 1991 – was a reference to the 1982 Falklands War.
That same year, Ofcom ruled that there had been a breach of the broadcasting code by including an offensive racial term during the programme’s Burma Special.
They dramatically left the programme in 2015 after Clarkson was sacked by the channel following a bust-up with producers, before returning on The Grand Tour in 2016.
Since then they have hosted 44 episodes of the series, which has taken them around the world on specials to Cambodia and Vietnam, Reunion and Madagascar, Scandinavia, and eastern Europe.
Late last year their former bosses at the BBC announced Top Gear, which turned the trio into superstars, was being axed in the aftermath of a horrific crash involving presenter Andrew Flintoff.
The show’s production has been halted since host Flintoff, 45, was taken to hospital in December 2022 after being badly hurt in an accident at the Top Gear test track at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey.
An insider told the Sun last year that the ‘surprising’ decision ‘very much marks the end of an era for the three presenters’, who have worked together since 2003
Jeremy, Richard and James shot to superstardom after taking over BBC’s Top Gear, turning it from a niche car programme into one of the corporation’s hottest properties and selling spin-offs around the world (pictured)
Following the crash, the BBC announced that it would pause production on the show, co-presented by Take Me Out host Paddy McGuinness and automotive journalist Chris Harris, as it was felt it would be ‘inappropriate’, adding there would be a health and safety review.
McGuinness later thanked fans ‘for the love’ in a ‘goodbye’ message.
And after the BBC’s announcement to ‘rest’ the show for the foreseeable future, Paddy posted a gallery of images on Instagram starting with a picture of the trio in white Top Gear outfits.
He wrote the caption: ‘We were always going to be b*****s but we were your b******s.
‘Thanks for all the love over the years folks, it was very much appreciated.’
