Not unless you were born when Justin Bieber was a teenager’s idea of Michael Jackson and Wi-Fi was a household basic need, you must have known Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May as the three musketeers who made talking about fast cars, loud engines, and turbochargers cool.

Up until 2015, Hammond May, and Clarkson had been the main presenters on BBC's Top Gear. They were part of the rotating hosts of the original show. Also, they handled the job of being permanent hosts for the 2002 rebooted series.

During their time on the show, there was a staggering number of over 350 million global audiences. Also, they were nominated by Guinness World Records as the highest-viewed factual television program.

But our trio of excellent automotive journalists was about to hit rock bottom.

As a result of several unraveled incidents concerning Clarkson, the BBC indicated that they would not be renewing his contract with the show in the spring of 2015. And just like the three musketeers, both Hammond and May followed suit.

How?

Well, the duo refused and affirmed that they wouldn’t return back to Top Gear except Clarkson was in the crew. It seems the trio had grown to understand each other and work together better, that they were not ready to break that bond that had been formed over the years.

Notwithstanding their reactions, the BBC offered to pay them more mouth-watering salaries to continue on for more series. But to add more salt to the injury, their long-standing producer and classmate of Clarkson, Andy Wilman, also chose to leave at the same time.

After the trio left, Clarkson announced on social media that some big stuff was coming up. And after what seemed like a long wait, May, Hammond, and Clarkson finally launched their new show, sponsored by Amazon, The Grand Tour.

Now that we are in line with the Justin Bieber generation, we can get to the good stuff.

For the past two seasons, we have seen James May being, well, slow, Hammond being American and Clarkson being the good-old stubborn ape. But is the drama we see on television the only thing that happens in The Grand Tour?

24 James May Broke His Arm in the Grand Tour Trailer

When the Trailer of the official Grand Tour Show for season one was filmed something giddy happened. James May got a broken arm while filming for the first episode. And of course, Captain Slow got a tiny bit of sympathy from the rest of his gang.

When asked about the incident, the producer of the Grand Tour, Andy Wilman, said: “James is falling to bits anyway”.

In case you missed it, in the Premier of the full trailer, you see both a slung and an unslung May, not knowing what went down behind the scenes.

23 The Story behind the Grand Tour's Name

When you hear the name “Grand Tour” it may seem like a perfect name for the motoring series hosted by Amazon. But for Hammond, May, and Clarkson it was a real struggle at the beginning. The show still didn’t have a name, months after the filming started.

Matter of fact, Jeremy Clarkson made numerous calls to his lawyer trying to see whether the names he was thinking about were not being legally used anywhere. To be precise, he spent 7000GBP in approximately all the morning phone calls he made to his lawyer, who would reply in the afternoon that some chap in France, New Zealand, or Russia had claimed the name.

But finally, the most obvious of them all won the day.

22 The Grand Tour Crew Broke a Range Rover SUV on Rental

Remember season one episode 12 where the trio was reviewing the Bentley Bentayga, Jaguar, and the Range Rover Sport? Well, the whole filming didn’t go as smooth as it was shown.

While offset, Richard Hammond, James May, and Jeremy Clarkson had a big laugh while discussing together in the final desert-like test track they held a race with the three vehicles.

Apparently, a black Range Rover Sport that they had brought on set had received a really hard beating on track, that it literally broke.

In one of their conversations caught on camera, James May and Jeremy Clarkson ask Richard Hammond in an uttermost sarcasm, “is it broken?”

The “it” in this situation, however, was the sweet looking Black Range Rover Sport. The Car was driven past them, by an unknown driver with the SUV making a rather clunky and broken noise.

21 Richard Hammond and his supercar

For the Grand Tour fans, this is not a big behind the scenes reveal because Jeremy Clarkson and James May took it upon themselves to mock Richard Hammond for the rest of season 2 because of this crash.

But for the guys new to Grand Tour, this is exactly what happened.

Richard Hammond managed to crash a Rimac electric supercar in Switzerland, despite the years of experience he has driving supercars. He, however, was fortunate to have escaped death having jumped out of the car before it burst into flames.

But frankly speaking, this is not the first time Richard Hammond has crashed a car while on set. The last time this happened, he went into a coma that almost ended his life and career. Matter of fact, May and Clarkson believe that he can’t drive in a straight line as a result of the crash.

20 Hammond's Rimac

The Rimac crash was both terrifying and amusing for Richard Hammond. For one, James May and Jeremy Clarkson could not get enough of the teasing they were giving him in every other season 2 episode. But then, the Croatian manufacturer, Rimac, was plotting something up its sleeves.

The manufacturers of the Croatian electric supercar Rimac announced an amazing new feature in their product. This happened when they unveiled their fresh release, the Rimac C2, at the Geneva Motor Show.

The “new feature” was a sleek miniature fire extinguisher that was fixed tightly inside the rear-engine bay. It was fixed in place by a leather strap that inscribed “in case of a hill climb, extinguish the fire.”

Matter of fact, the new Rimac supercar is dubbed as “Richard Hammond Proof.”

Apparent enough, Richard Hammond found the gesture amusing. It was for sure a great marketing technique for the company.

19 BBC Had Legal Problems with the Grand Tour Trio

“BBC took its legal hypochondria to a hysterical level.” Those were the words of the Executive producer of The Grand Tour, Andy Wilman, spoken verbatim. He also mentioned, “they had gone hilarious and more hilarious.” Why?

The drama started when they shot the Namibia film. Apparently, the BBC legal team brought a movie they had done in Botswana while the trio and Wilman were in Top Gear. The legal team went through this movie and told them to avoid replaying a particular scene that they had done before.

But what do you know? The Namibia film was still a hit.

18 A Segment Called "Celebrity Brain Crash” Was Canceled from Being Aired

When the trio of Richard Hammond, James May, and Jeremy Clarkson was hosting the Top Gear, they always had a ton of celebrities on air as guests. When they started Grand Tour, they planned to continue most of those nice trends that their fans loved.

They had already agreed at the beginning to have a Celebrity-trivia segment for the show. This segment was supposed to be called Celebrity Brain Crash. It would have involved various celebrities contending against each other. The questions asked would have been automotive related.

But if you were keen enough, you might have noticed that all celebrities who got invited to this segment of the show “died” because of some onsite accident. Here’s why.

At the start of the show, the crew felt it would not be interesting, so instead, they turned the idea into a comedy skit. Well, guess what – that idea was worse.

We're actually glad it's gone.

17 Grand Tour Helped the Hothouse Flowers Band Bloom by Singing Their Intro Song

On the iTunes Chart, the Irish Rock Band Hothouse flowers bloomed hugely because of the intro song they performed for the Grand Tour. At the Premier of the Grand Tour debut on Amazon Prime web streaming service, the global audience was dazzled by the outrageous introductory sequence.

The theme song by The Irish Rock band, Hothouse flowers made the beauty of the opening sequence more radiant. No wonder, the Irish Rockers enjoyed great patronage and enthusiasm by a larger audience on their iTunes store. This rendition made the group become even more cosmopolitan.

16 The Intro featured the Largest Civilian Jet Display Team in the World

It can’t be overemphasized that the introductory sequence of the Grand Tour was one with so much splendor and excitement.

It’s one that will surely leave a mark in the heart of automotive fanatics and fans of the Grand Tour all over the world. One great highlight of this glorious intro was the jet display team that was featured.

A lot of people believed that the colorful team of jets were military inclined. It will only burst your bubble if you know that the awesome jet display team that featured in the intro is the largest civilian jet display team in the world.

15 The Opening Intro to the Series Cost an Incredible Amount

It’s obviously not cheap to produce such a mind-blowing motoring show like the Grand Tour. It’s definitely not the best budget-friendly thing to do when you blow up expensive cars, machinery, or travel to distant countries.

Also, the hosts are paid a big ton of cash too. Amazon spared no expense at all because the show was viewed as one of its flagship shows. To make the show kick off, it took Amazon almost $3.5 Million USD.

It also saw Clarkson, May, and Hammond driving through the desert in California with a blue, red and white Ford Mustangs.

14 Richard Hammond Did Ride a Tank All Through Dubai

When the trio was still presenting on Top Gear, it was seen as a great deal when they got behind the wheel of something other than a typical automobile. When Hammond, May, or Clarkson got behind something they could simply describe as a behemoth, it was more interesting than driving a Bugatti or a Ferrari.

Now take it to Grand Tour, and the same effect was felt in season 2.

Richard Hammond took a laidback spin in a $420,000 USD Ripsaw off-road vehicle in a place it wasn’t meant to go to, in Season 2. It was perfect when it was driven in the deserts of UAE.

Although, when this monstrous looking vehicle was driven through the streets of Dubai, it sure did more than just turn heads.

13 In Season 2, They Stopped Moving Headquarters

If you pay a close attention to the motoring series Grand Tour, you would notice that there was something different from Season One and the Season Two. They always set up a new studio in a different location for each episode in Season 1.

If you remember clearly, the first episode was in the US. Then they changed to different locations like South Africa, England, UAE, Scotland, Finland, and the Netherlands.

However, things changed in Season Two. They decided to keep everything in one place.

Thus, they placed the studio tent in Cotswolds, England. However, this has not stopped the Trio from doing its road testing in different remote locations.

12 They Once Had an American Cast Member

The Grand Tour needed to have some sort of test driver to push the vehicles to the limit on the track. This was because Stig was absent in the Grand Tour, unlike Top Gear. NASCAR driver Mike Skinner was hired for the job in season one. He played the role of an over-exaggerated version of himself.

The character he played hated all imported cars. Also, he wasn’t in tune with any automobile that wasn’t a V8. Also as a non-communist, he deemed anything other than the Detroit steel as a pure communist.

However, he was sent off before season one ended. His absence was not missed, as fans didn’t notice it anyway.

11 Kevin Pietersen Was Still the Fastest in the Face-Off behind The Scenes

The brand new Celebrity Face Off segment was introduced in the season two of Grand Tour. The show featured different famous people contend against each other in a timed race around the track, every week.

It’s obvious that the segment has close similarities to the Top Gear section that made celebrities contest to be the highest on the leaderboard by hitting the fastest time on the track. Behind the scenes of one the shows, Kevin Pietersen, Brian Wilson, and magician Dynamo contested. The Winner came out to be Kevin Pietersen, the cricket player.

And when they battled on set, he still won.

10 Clarkson’s House Was…..

There was a strong bet between Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond in one of the pilot episodes that was shown on the Amazon Prime streaming service. It happened that Jeremy Clarkson believed his McLaren was way faster than Richard Hammond’s Porsche and James May’s Ferrari.

He made it clear that Hammond and May could blow his house up if their cars were faster than his. And yet, it turned out to be sour for Jeremy Clarkson because his McLaren took the last position. So in episode 3, the duo of May, and Hammond blew up his house.

This act was staged, although Jeremy Clarkson was planning on building a new house.

It was a good joke for sure, even though it was staged.

9 Amazon Used Toyota Priuses to Promote Grand Tour

When it came to promoting the Grand Tour, Amazon went all out. They came up with a clever marketing scheme, because Amazon had put a lot of money into the show, and they had to recuperate. Also, there was so much pressure on them.

If Grand Tour was to be the best show of Amazon, they had to do something off the hook.

What did they do?

Amazon made use of 2 “Crashed” Toyota Priuses for advertisement in the motoring series. They placed one in London that seemed like it crashed into a post and the second one was placed in Berlin, looking like it was coming out of the ground. Both of the cars had the logo of Grand tour.

Most passersby got fooled into thinking they were real auto accidents.

8 The Grand Tour Test Track Was Designed To Look Like the Ebola Virus

Do you know that the test rack of the Grand Tour show was made to look like the Ebola virus?

How is that?

Well, it’s obvious; you can’t notice it by just visiting the site of the road test track alone. But if you are able to see the road test track from an aerial view, you will see that the test track looks like what you will see as an Ebola virus under the microscope.

The Grand Tour test track is apparently the most dangerous road circuit in the world – well at least according to Clarkson.

7 There Was a Christmas Special That Wasn’t Meant to Be

No one ever thought there will be a Christmas Special Edition of the Grand Tour in the first season, because there wasn’t meant to be any. Even though it wasn’t planned, the “no Christmas special edition” turned out to be untrue.

The Christmas special edition happened because the trio came up with a great idea that just had to be done on air. What was it?

Well, they thought that it would be a good idea to tag a car name to Christmas gifts. By this, the gifts will look more expensive. Well, the idea might not have sold that much but the show did.

6 All the Hosts Ended Up in the Hospital at Some Point

During the shooting of the season 2 of the Grand Tour, all three presenters were hospitalized. Richard Hammond had a broken Knee, James May had a stomach virus and Jeremy Clarkson had pneumonia.

Jeremy Joked; “Richard can’t see over the steering wheel,” when quizzed about why Hammond has had two bad car crashes.

He also said that the trio was placed in hospital beds within a period of 6 months. In fact, the different ailments of the trio delayed the launch date of the Season two on Amazon Prime, although Amazon was keen to launch on the original date.

5 Audience Are Weeded Out By a Simple Question

Before the motoring series accepts audience members into the show, they pass through a few tests. The interviewers always ask the applicants if they had ever been to any outdoor rock events in the space of one year from that time when contacted via phone.

They use this system to help weed out people that may be a bit boring or a bit old. The interviewers are always looking out to get people with a free spirit, youthfulness, and adventure.

Their production crew is particularly keen on having young people because of the trying nature of the film shooting.