Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Grand Tour: Sand Job’ on Prime Video, Where James May, Richard Hammond, and Jeremy Clarkson Drive DIY Rally Cars Through Northwest Africa

The boys are back for The Grand Tour: Sand Job (Prime Video), which follows Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May as they continue in the tradition of Top Gear, albeit with expansive international locations and a bigger focus on the presenters’ familiar brand of bantering and bickering. For this jaunt, which is said to be their second-to-last outing for Grand Tour, the trio travel southwest through the African nation of Mauritania in an homage to the Paris-Dakar Rally, the grueling overland race that for years featured a finish line in Senegal. Cue the crosstalk, car talk, mishaps, mangled vehicles, desert airstrip drag races, and maybe even an explosion.      

THE GRAND TOUR – SAND JOB: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: Vintage footage of Dakar Rally drivers in old Audis and Volkswagens bounding through sand dunes alternates with studio shots, where the presenters introduce three modern interpretations of the rally raid spirit: The Lamborghini Huracǻn Sterrato, the Porsche 911 Dakar, and the Morgan Plus Four CX-T. “It’s got adjustable rally-spec dampers and an external roll cage,” Hammond says of the latter. “Nice.”   

The Gist: Those vehicles represent over six hundred thousand dollars’ worth of bespoke rally power. Or, extremely not cheap. “And that got us thinking,” Clarkson says at the top of The Grand Tour: Sand Job. “Could we build a rally raid car for less? A lot less?” The answer, of course, is yes, and we’re introduced to the Maserati GranCabrio, V-12 Aston Martin DB9, and Jaguar F-Type that May, Hammond, and Clarkson have modified for their trip through the hot, harsh, and largely desert climate of Mauritania. With a text from exec producer Andy Willman, they’re off to the tiny town of Choum, where they wait in 114-degree heat for their vehicles to arrive via flatbed railcar.

After some jokes about May’s excitement over a “full-size train set” and Clarkson operating a forklift loader, we get a look at their cars’ modifications, which include raised suspension systems, expanded air intakes, sturdy rollbars, and hood-mounted light packs. Clarkson’s changed the nameplate of his F-Type to read “Jaaaag,” May added rally-ready power stripes to his Maserati in the colors of the Italian flag, and Hammond’s Aston Martin features a very un-James Bond-like rooftop shelter. The boys will drive a thousand miles across the Sahara, which makes up the bulk of Mauritanianian territory, to eventually arrive in Senegal, where they’ll aim to blast across the beach to Dakar in tribute to rally races of yore. But the DB9 is already overheating, and desert tracks with no asphalt make structural havoc on their vehicles’ seals and shuddering body panels.

The electrical system and onboard diagnostics of his car, which Hammond refers to as its “feeble 2005 brain,” present a continuing problem. And Clarkson and May never really manage to locate an enormous Mauritanian geological feature known colloquially as “The Eye of Africa.” But the road trip continues, and between bits about old dudes sleeping in tents on desert hardpack, their longing for beers in an Islamic country, and a couple setpieces that feel very, very staged – hey, let’s attach two snowmobiles to the front of this Jaguar, so their tracks will grade the road’s washboard surface – Grand Tour gets the Sand Job done.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Clarkson’s Farm applies the presenter’s overbearing personality to the various quirks and quagmires he encounters while managing the land at Diddly Squat Farm in the Cotswolds. (The series returns for a third season this spring.) And whenever James May is left to his own devices in Grand Tour – like perusing ancient texts in the desert town of Chinguetti – he tends to become the curious observer we meet in his Prime Video travelogue series. James May: Our Man in India appeared last year.  

Our Take: By the time they get to Nouakchott, Mauritania’s bustling coastal capital city, Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond are ready to take a break from their own vehicles for an entertaining bout of local carspotting. Over cups of mint tea, they call out the city’s never ending variety of Mercedes-Benz 190 series and aging C-Class sedans, all modified in color and shape and bearing heroic patinas from repeated lifecycles. The Grand Tour trio excels at freewheeling automobile-based discourse like this, combining technical knowledge and random facts with a conversational ease that reflects their longtime partnership. No matter which of their personalities you favor – Clarkson, always trying to take the lead, Hammond offering eager, slightly manic asides, and May cruising on a kind of college professor-meets-George Harrison vibe – Sand Job finds time to showcase it, and while the narration is mostly Clarkson, everyone contributes. This is still a series that celebrates cars and driving. But at this point, after so many years together, it’s as much about the dynamic between the three presenters, whether we’re watching them navigate site-specific setbacks in their chosen vehicles or engage in lively commentary, whether in person or busting each other’s balls over two-way radios.

Sex and Skin: Come off it. Nobody wants to see any of that with these blokes.

Parting Shot: “On that terrible disappointment, it’s time to end.” Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May have traveled desert tracks and forded formidable rivers to find themselves in a race to their final destination. But in typical fashion for this trio, being in sight of the finish line does not necessarily ensure completion.

Sleeper Star: Choose your sense of humor. Clarkson: boorish. Hammond: self-deprecating. And May? As dry as a Sahara breeze. But the real sleeper stars here are the cars. Like any good motoring series, The Grand Tour: Sand Job manages to make real characters out of the vehicles driven by its presenter characters, and in that respect, Hammond’s finicky Aston Martin might be the most memorable.

Most Pilot-y Line: Hammond’s on-the-fly diagnosis of his vehicle’s issues illustrates how Grand Tour is able to blend the technical with the approachable. “What’s made it worse is the desert. It’s full of stones and sand. It’s hot, so it needs cooling, and here is a little radiator at the front, a tiny little cooler. That cools oil for the gearbox, which is right at the back. But one of the stones has gone through the radiator and made a hole. That’s allowed the oil to leak out and spread over the front of the radiator, mingle with the sand, and build, effectively, a brick wall in front of itself.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. While some of it has that staged feeling, The Grand Tour: Sand Job is still an entertaining showcase for the car-based antics and interpersonal dynamic of longtime presenting trio Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May.  

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.