Wait, what’s this? How can The Grand Tour be back without Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May? Wasn’t the entire point of it to give those three a new toybox post-Top Gear? Jezza’s vociferous fanbase was a valuable asset for Prime Video too, with the new vehicle fulfilling a dream all streaming platforms are always chasing: the show that will, on its own, make large numbers of new people subscribe.

But although the modern motoring magazine show – high-budget, but with a studied amateurism that makes it accessible as well as aspirational – was pioneered by Clarkson and co with their identities firmly attached, and although several attempts to replicate their bromantic three-way have failed, it is a format that should be able to survive without them. So here is a new Grand Tour, with three new hosts... and it works just fine.

The casting is an easy win, plus a gamble. James Engelsman and Thomas Holland already present a YouTube channel called Throttle House, which has built up 3 million subscribers by doing Top Gear-y, Grand Tour-esque things in a more agile, online way: like Manchester City smoothly snapping up established talent in a big-money transfer, The Grand Tour has bought their chemistry and rebranded it.

The third member of the trio is the surprise hire, since he’s better known for trains than cars, and is famous for being unashamedly nerdy, which could have jarred with The Grand Tour’s normal golf-club garrulousness: Clarkson, Hammond and May might have delighted in the finer details of mechanical engineering, but you couldn’t really say they geeked out over them in the way that Francis Bourgeois – the final member of the new GT trio – does in his trainspotting TikToks.

Bourgeois, however, is a trump card more than a wild card, fitting in perfectly by not so much overcoming his eccentricity as embracing it and making it empowering. In the comeback episode, he even becomes a dominant presence, as Engelsman and Holland often act as two straight men setting him up for a confidently delivered, left-field pay-off. It’s still three white blokes bantering about who’s got the most impressive engine, but within that conservative framework the presence of Bourgeois makes the show’s sense of humour feel new.

All that aside, it’s pretty much business as usual. Once it’s got a baton-passing pilgrimage to Jeremy Clarkson’s farm out of the way, the opening episode quickly tests your loyalty to the petrolhead cause by assuming you agree that electric cars are a scourge, and that the latest internal-combustion supercars coming out of the US should be celebrated as they “fight back” on behalf of toxic fumes and traditional masculinity.

Anyway, go with it and you’re off to California for a speed odyssey that has all the regular Grand Tour hallmarks. Landscapes are shot with spectacular cinematic flair. Stunts are pulled that are fun even if you can’t quite buy them as spontaneous – surely, for example, that’s not genuine surprise on the faces of Engelsman and Holland as, in the middle of a track test where they’re both travelling at well over 100mph and must have had to digest safety protocols running to several pages if it’s really them driving, Bourgeois surges between them in his canary yellow Hennessey Venom F5 Revolution Evo.

Suspend disbelief, and perhaps the odd small worry about the climate apocalypse, and this is Grand Tour having all the old fun, with the larks continuing as the threesome vrooms around the abandoned, below-sea-level resort of Bombay Beach, and then pitches into a world of billionaire luxury, peaking with a visit to a private racetrack ringed by opulent villas whose garages are stuffed with supercars.

The GT has always been about watching blokes doing things you’re not allowed to do, in places you’re not allowed to go, having adventures on your behalf. Enjoying that escape is now easier than ever.

All episodes of The Grand Tour are available to watch on Prime Video from Friday 4 September. You can sign up to Prime Video for a 30-day free trial.

Add The Grand Tour to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more.

Check out more of our to find out what else is on. For more TV recommendations and reviews listen to .