If you expect The Grand Tour: Road Trip The film seems more somber and staid than the trio’s previous work, but think again: if anything, it proves that age has not diminished their ability to cause chaos or embarrass the Foreign Office.
Zimbabwe, the final filming location for the beloved show, is a poor country with a vast mineral wealth whose movement is strictly controlled. However, the availability of raw silver on the Zimbabwean market is huge and extremely cheap, setting the stage for one of the most ridiculous challenges in the new special: casting car ornaments out of raw silver.
Clarkson used the precious material to create an antelope skull. James May used a solid block of the material to make himself a beautiful new steering wheel. Hammond cast a new spoiler for his Ford Capri: but there wasn’t enough material to make it to actual size.
They set out with their sterling silver jewelry baked in the hot Zimbabwean sun. But as they approached the border with neighboring Botswana, they realized that smuggling silver out of Zimbabwe was extremely illegal.
Given that they’re apparently not behind bars (although that may change, as the Zimbabwean ambassador was apparently in attendance at Tuesday night’s screening), they’re apparently not caught because they’ve disguised the metals as car parts. So Top Gear has a top tip for would-be smugglers trying to get the precious minerals out of Zimbabwe: just fashion them into ornate decorations for a selection of shabby cars. Easy enough.
The ease with which they crossed the border recalled a Patagonia special broadcast a decade earlier, when angry Argentine nationalists clashed with a BBC camera crew and ended in a tense finale, with the presenters escaping to nearby Chile with the help of a police escort and even a decoy car.
Fortunately, the final moments of One for the Road are anything but harrowing: in fact, they’re beautiful, moving, and brought tears to the eyes of everyone present at the aforementioned press conference earlier this week. It really is a fitting send-off to three illustrious careers.
The Grand Tour: One for the Road is out tomorrow, Friday, September 12, on Amazon Prime Video.
