Thomas Holland, James Engelsman and Francis Bourgeois make the New Grand Tour review feel like a reset from the first minute. The first episode sends them to California, where each host gets a supercar and the show leans hard on unfamiliarity instead of old chemistry.
Thomas Holland, James Engelsman and Francis Bourgeois are not being introduced as TV mainstays. Holland and Engelsman come from Throttle House, Bourgeois from TikTok, and Amazon has not tried to recreate a Matt LeBlanc-style personality hire; that choice leaves the series smaller on paper and more exposed on screen.
Diddly Squat Farm handover
Jeremy Clarkson opens the transition at Diddly Squat Farm, then turns to the camera and tells viewers not to be scared of change. That is the cleanest sign that the new era is meant to be read as a handover, not a wipeout, even before the first California race begins.
Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May still define the show’s old identity, though the review points out that viewers watched The Grand Tour and Top Gear largely because of Clarkson’s personality cult. The new trio has to replace that gravitational pull without the same level of built-in fame, which is why the casting feels like a business decision as much as a creative one.
California, Mustang, Corvette and Hennessey
In California, the first episode gives each host a Mustang, a Corvette and a Hennessey, then pushes them into races against one another and a bunch of jet planes. Jenson Button also races on their behalf, which gives the episode a familiar competition spine even while the faces are new.
At an expensive private racetrack, the hosts joke about what it must be like to be billionaires, and Thomas Holland stage-whispers, “I don’t pay my taxes.” That line does more than fill a joke beat: it shows the series reaching for the same self-aware, slightly insolent tone that made the old lineup easy to watch.
Anonymous by design
The new trio comes off as decent but slightly anonymous, and that is the show’s real gamble. A deliberately low-stakes opening can buy time, but it also means the series is asking viewers to invest in rhythm before it has fully earned one.
This version of The Grand Tour does not need a referendum in episode one. It needs a few episodes, maybe a couple of years, to find whether Thomas Holland and James Engelsman, with Francis Bourgeois, can build a working on-screen dynamic that feels like its own thing rather than a substitute for Clarkson, Hammond and May.
