Irish fans of former Top Gear trio, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May have received good news after it was confirmed that their mega-budget new show, The Grand Tour, will be available to stream in Ireland next month.
The show launches this Friday on Amazon Prime but initially will only be available in a handful of countries including the United States, Germany and the UK.
However Amazon has now confirmed that it will use the new motoring show to expand it's video service next month by making it available in two hundred countries worldwide including Ireland. Any lingering doubts were cleared up by this tweet from Clarkson:
So. People of Ireland, Canada, Australia and pretty well everywhere else. You WILL be able to watch the Grand Tour. Amazon has gone global.
— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) November 16, 2016
The international rollout will bring The Grand Tour to almost as many countries as currently watches Top Gear, though for an annual subscription fee.
After a series of controversies, Clarkson was sacked by the BBC for assaulting the show's Irish producer Oisín Tymon while on location in March 2015, with co-hosts May and Hammond and show boss Andy Wilman deciding to leave the BBC series shortly after.
Their new globe-trotting show reportedly has a budget that would make Top Gear weep, with suggestions that it's costing anything up to an eye-watering €185m over its entire run - or over €5m per episode.
According to reports a "spectacular" opening sequence in episode one featuring 6,000 extras in the Californian desert, cost almost €3m alone to stage. With that amount of money being spent, it's little wonder that Amazon is now desperate to recoup some of it's investment.
The announcement of the expanded service was made via a YouTube video featuring all three presenters yesterday, in their usual inimitable style.
So what can viewers expect? The Grand Tour takes place in a giant travelling tent with Amazon committing to 12 episodes a year with the three presenters for three years.
In August, the show's producer Andy Wilman premiered footage at the Edinburgh International Television Festival which featured May driving with a broken arm; Clarkson driving in a flak jacket and goggles as May shoots at him and Hammond waking up in a car that has been airlifted.
Clarkson said the first episode, which includes the holy trinity of hybrid hypercars - the McLaren P1, the Porsche 918 Spyder and the Ferrari LaFerrari - is likely to be popular at the very least.
"I think programme one will be all right. I'd be extremely surprised if that was poorly reviewed", he said.
Describing their Amazon deal as "the best route" for the weekly show, Hammond said Top Gear fans who subscribe to the streaming service will find no change in the presenters' chemistry.
