The 12th episode or 11th week – depending on how you wish to look at it – of “The Grand Tour” has been released. Titled “[censored] to [censored]”, the boys find themselves in Loch Ness in Scotland once again – only this time they are finally fessing up that there is a monster in the lake [except Jeremy, who continues to deny the existence of Nessie, who he calls a log].
In addition to the debate on Nessie, the show opens up with a discussion of the Scottish road system before moving on to a profile of the $88,000 Lexus GS-F by Jeremy, who proclaims that the car is environmentally unfriendly and this is depicted by any number of small animals exploding along the way as the car is being driven down roads. The American is then brought out for a test drive – resulting in the mandatory 10-point deduction for the show.
Conversation Street topics this week include a general dislike for Mercedes’ idea of renting out your personal vehicle [a la Airbnb] and the impending extinctions of a pair of horrid cars – the Citroen Saxo VLS and the Vauxhall Calibra 60.
Sandwiched in between the main feature is a short public service announcement-style film starring a Porsche which attempts to explain the launch control feature on cars and the many improper ways there are to abuse such a feature and the celebrity killed this week is Tim Burton, who is in a submersible in Loch Ness and is presumably eaten by Nessie.
The main feature of the week is a Luxury SUV-Off between the $266,000 Bentley Bentayga [driven by James, who also claims that it is not an SUV], the $64,000 Jaguar F-Pace [driven by Richard] and the $100,000 Range Rover Autobiography [driven by Jeremy]. The trio take an Austrian/German road trip that begins in the town of Wank and travels through the towns of Kissing and Petting and F–king before finally ending in Wedding.
Along the way there is a drag race against a BMW X5 M-Version [won by the Bentley and lost by Jaguar], an Autobahn maximum speed test [won by Jaguar and lost by Bentley] and finally, a Nurburgring Rally on a course in an abandoned mine pit [won by Jaguar, lost by Range Rover] – leading to the conclusion that the Jaguar F-Pace is likely the best of these three luxury SUV’s.
Once again, the episode was marred by the appearance of the caricatured “The American” test driver, resulting in an automatic 10-point deduction, which is too bad since Nico Rosberg in that role would have avoided that. In addition to the 10-point deduction, the show only had a few minor quibbles but nothing that would result in a massive loss of points, so ASN awards this episode with a score of 85 out of 100 – again, not too bad but could have been much better with Rosberg instead of the American.
