The sixth episode of the this third season of “The Grand Tour” was entitled “Chinese Food for Thought” and sent the boys [Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May] on a visit to China during the Year of the Pig in what was, essentially, a Cheap Car Challenge from the good old days of the former “Top Gear” but was not officially referred to as such [for legal reasons].
After Jeremy introduced a Chinese “target” car – the massively overpriced $1.13 million L5 Hongqi [or “Red Flag” in Chinese] – the boys set out to find more reasonably priced, pre-used luxury cars that an ordinary Chinese businessman from the city of Chongqing [where they were filming] could use for much less money.
They settled upon a Mercedes S-class [James] for $11,330, a BMW 750 iL [Jeremy] for $10,815 and a Cadillac STS [Richard] for a mere $3,865. The price differentials wound up being prophetic as James’ Mercedes S-class wound up being the class of the field when Hammond’s Caddy broke midway through the challenge [and was replaced by a diminutive three-wheeler] and Jeremy’s BMW failed on the final test. In between, the trio toured a drive-thru door factory, James’ air conditioner refused to work, they dodged airborne drone flamethrowers, visited the birthplace of Chinese communism along with many empty gas stations and a McDonald’s franchise.
They eventually purchased business suits – James with a stunning green suit -and hired chauffeurs and modified their cars to add a bed [Jeremy], rowing machine [Richard] and sauna [James].
This episode’s Conversation Street was not as entertaining as last week’s featuring Richard’s horse rant and only covered a few mundane topics such as global driving tests, their thoughts on the Hongqi and some other Chinese-made cars and James’ preferred color choice of brown.
Richard test drove the $1.5 million Nissan EP9, an electric supercar – and did not crash it – to a second-fastest track record [behind the McLaren Senna].
Overall, the return of the “Cheap Car Challenge” – even though it was not called that – was a very good thing and despite some of the skits being telegraphed [McDonald’s, communism references, drone flamethrowers and the mods to the cars], ASN feels this episode deserves a high score and we award it a 90 on a scale of 100.