If we're being honest, Amazon could have picked absolutely anybody to host the new season of The Grand Tour on Prime Video. From a random but established presenter who is trying something off-brand to a complete unknown fresh from a internship — you name it, they could have had the job.
But for two of our three new faces, their casting in the new series feels incredibly predetermined. James Engelsman and Thomas Holland, the creators of the popular car YouTube channel Throttle House, have been dubbed by fans as the "spiritual successor to Top Gear" for years.
Obviously Top Gear and The Grand Tour aren't mutually exclusive, but thanks to Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, the latter was born from the former. If you scroll back through two years' worth of Throttle House content, you'll even find that Hammond had a starring cameo.
Amazingly, Holland and Engelsman's first meeting for The Grand Tour job came just days after the above video was released — though the pair insists that one has nothing to do with the other.
'We thought we were walking into a wall of knives'
"That first initial meeting was literally right after that," Engelsman tells me about the Hammond YouTube cameo. "We just about had an idea [of the job] at that point. We had no idea what it was, really, or any detail consciousness. [The cameo] was completely separate. That was fun coming out."
Even so, it set a chain of events in motion that fate itself couldn't have timed better. And who doesn't love seeing Hammond involved in an informally formatted car show? It's almost like he knows what he's doing.
But now that YouTube clips have effectively soft-launched the pair's TV presenting partnership with train TikTok creator Francis Bourgeois, how do they feel about the fan reaction so far?
"We try not to read every single comment.... while reading every single comment," Holland jokes. "The sense of it is good. Obviously, when the show comes out, that is when it matters.
Engelsman adds, "We really thought we were walking into a wall of knives up until the moment the show comes out, but people have been a lot better than I thought, honestly. The call is good. They're a good bunch.
"At its core, it's people who just enjoy cars, and I think that more people than we expected are ready to simply enjoy more car content," Holland agrees.
Luckily for them, all six episodes of The Grand Tour are ready to drop on Prime Video on September 4, so the wait is almost over.
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