Q&A with the ‘Grand Tour’ car guys ahead of Season 2
“Grand Tour” hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are busy men. Between dashing from one continent to the next, filming one “what could possibly go wrong” moment after another while preparing for the launch of the second season of their Amazon car show, the three agreed to answer questions about their love of all things automotive.
What was the first motorized vehicle you owned, and the first vehicle you really loved?
Clarkson: A Ford Cortina 1600e. I paid 800 pounds for it. That was the first vehicle I loved. I have absolutely no idea what became of it. I should imagine that it has now been turned into a kettle.
May: A Vauxhall Cavalier Mark 1. My dad gave it to me, and it was a bit sort of “stoved in.” I sold it at the end of my student days because I was too broke to fill it up with fuel. When you’re 17 and you’re given a car the whole world is in front of you. It’s difficult to love something more than that.
Hammond: The first vehicle I ever owned was a Honda MTX50. I paid 200 pounds for it [when] I was 16 years old. It represented motorized freedom. It meant for the first time I could walk out of the house, spinning the keys around my finger, and take off. Very slowly, very noisily, and in a cloud of blue smoke.
What is your favorite vehicle of all time, and why?
Clarkson: That would be the Lexus LFA, because even though it has a fuel tank the size of a Zippo lighter and no cup holder and costs three times more than it should, it had a V10 engine that howled like a wild animal. The noise is why I want that car in my life all the time.
May: I think it’s the Honda C50 Step 3 motorcycle, just because it’s so laden with historical and sociological significance. I have three, actually. I was riding one yesterday.
Hammond: I love motorcycles generally, probably as much as if not more than cars personally, so it could be a motorcycle. But I love [Pagani] Zondas. I loved driving the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento. I love Land Rovers for their humble willingness to work.
Is there a vehicle you sold that you very much wish you’d kept?
Clarkson: Yes. I sold a BMW 300 CSO for 3,000 pounds and now they’re worth about 150,000 pounds. I sold it because I was completely broke. The ATM machines wouldn’t give me any money, and I wanted a drink.
May: The honest answer is no. They were great while I owned them but, you know, I released them. Like wounded birds you helped heal.
Hammond: I once gave away a Subaru Brat in a moment of rash generosity and I’ve regretted it ever since. I once sold a Ferrari 550. It would have been worth about four times what I sold it for by now.
If you had not taken up your current profession, what other job might you have done?
Clarkson: I’d have been a burglar. A really clever burglar. Broken into people’s houses and stolen their jewelry. I still might, actually, in my retirement.
May: I like to think I might have been something like a surgeon but ... I was a lazy sod and didn’t work hard enough at school. I think I would have ended up doing something quite sort of hands-on technical like being a machinist or something a bit crafty.
Hammond: I gave great consideration, and you’ll laugh, to being an architect. I got into university to study architecture, but I was so heavily in debt for cars and motorcycles already bought that I couldn’t stand seven years’ further education. Imagine that — I’d have a proper grown-up job, I’d be a respected member of society with responsibilities, dignity and meaning. As opposed to being me.
“The Grand Tour’s” second season, for which the three hosts drive across four continents and destroy precious vehicles in Croatia, Mozambique, Dubai, Switzerland, Spain and the Colorado Rockies, streams on Amazon Prime starting Dec. 8.
