The 10th episode of the third season of “The Grand Tour” was rather blandly entitled “The Youth Vote” but it kicked off with its best segment – a 1980’s supercar showdown between the Ferrari Testarossa and Lamborghini Countach.
James May was the proponent of the Ferrari while Richard Hammond championed the Lamborghini. After some opening banter where James and Richard debased the other’s car and determining that Australian rock star Rod Stewart owned one of each of these cars, they eventually got down to the nuts and bolts of the contest – which car was fastest? This was settled rather definitively in the Countach’s favor as the Lamborghini won both the rolling start drag race as well as having a better time on the test track when TGT driver Abbie Eaton took both of them around the course.
The Countach’s victory was followed by a segment of Conversation Street which included the topics of stackable electric cars, Formula One driver Robert Kubica, Jeremy Clarkson’s preference to have a catch-all flap on the side of seats in cars and an intriguing potential mini-series called “James & Jeremy’s The Speed of Birds”.
The remainder of the episode was devoted to a Hot Hatchback-off pitting Jeremy in a Volkswagen Polo Gti against Richard in a Ford Fiesta ST and James in a Toyota Yaris GRMN [Gazoo Racing Masters of the Nurburgring – that had an “engine breathed upon by Lotus”].
The cars were subject to three main tests – a rallycross test that was determined to be a draw, a drag race won by the Polo and a series of Millennial tests ultimately won by the Yaris after James had the most YouTube views for his unboxing of the Yaris.
As an additional note that may come in handy when viewing the episode – Alexandra “Binky” Felstead is evidently a television personality who is essentially the UK’s version of a Kardashian [and who is apparently vacationing in the Maldives this week].
The episode started out strong with the Ferrari-Lamborghini free-for-all but then gradually petered out with the mundane hot hatchback-a-thon dragging on far too long. ASN awards this episode an 89 out of 100 – primarily for the Ferrari-Lamborghini showdown.