For many people, seven is a lucky number – unfortunately, for “The Grand Tour”, it means a downturn from last week’s wonderful sixth episode of their second season.
The main segment kicked off with Richard Hammond road-testing the Lamborghini Huracan Performante [priced at a mere $288,000] and after easily beating James May slowly driving a Ferrari 458, the only memorable portion of the segment was Hammond’s humorous reference to both Star Wars and his former BBC employers with his quote “on another show in a galaxy far, far away” to indicate that he had tested the Performante’s more mundane predecessor, the Huracan.
Conversation Street had four main topics – the proliferation of supercars, a Ford Performance hand brake, the Bentley Bentayga’s addition of accoutrements for the shooting enthusiast containing Rose Lemonade and Elderberry Juice and probably the most entertaining/intriguing of the group – a mention of the Navy pilots who got in trouble for drawing a phallic symbol in the air via their contrails of their jets which were named F18 Growlers [a “growler” being UK slang for an unattractive pubic area of a woman].
The next segment was a fueling-themed segment where it is postulated time spent fueling takes 36 day, on average, out of a person’s life and out Hammond and May unveil three different methods to refuel a car in transit. The first two methods fail due to explosions [and cause the death of a Chinese acrobat] before the third attempt succeeds with a mobile platform refueling station.
Celebrity Face-Off pits British heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua against American wrestler Bill Goldberg with Joshua winning the driving portion of the segment.
Jeremy Clarkson winds up the episode with a historical recounting of a 1982 rally car championship battle between the four wheel drive Audi Quattro and the two-wheel drive Lancia 037 in which Lancia skirted rules to spring the upset over the Audi for the constructor’s championship before falling off the face of the Earth as a rally participant and automotive manufacturer.
Overall, the episode definitely took a dive with the more specific subject matter of supercars and rally racing with the refueling segment approach being only half-hearted as a counter-balance, so ASN awards this episode with a meager 82 [as a recognition for Clarkson’s segment].