The Scottish Mail on Sunday

Clarkson roars back with £2.5m spectacula­r

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AFTER his dramatic departure from the BBC, Jeremy Clarkson is going to great lengths to ensure his new motoring series is a hit.

Although being broadcast on Amazon Prime, which has just a fraction of the BBC’s audience, The Grand Tour will kick off with the most expensive opening shot ever seen on the small screen – a spectacula­r ‘Mad Max-style’ sequence that cost £2.5million to make.

Filmed in the California­n desert last weekend, it involving 150 cars, a cast of 2,000 ‘petrolhead­s’, acrobats, stiltwalke­rs and even a flypast by six supersonic jets.

‘It was the most amazing opening ever for a TV show,’ a source said last night. ‘Nothing remotely like it has been seen before.’

Clarkson, with his former Top Gear colleagues Richard Hammond and James May, roared across the Lucerne Valley dry lake bed in customised red, white and blue Ford Mustangs. Behind them, £20million worth of cars, including a Bugatti Veyron and a Rolls-Royce, followed in a V formation.

‘It looked like a Mad Max movie,’ said one of the extras, while another likened the atmosphere to a carnival.

The Grand Tour launches on Amazon Prime on November 18, and will mark Clarkson’s comeback after losing his Top Gear job for punching a producer in March last year.

He will become Britain’s highest-paid TV star, thanks to a reported £10million-a-year deal.

 ??  ?? STEPPING UP A GEAR: Clarkson filmed in the desert
STEPPING UP A GEAR: Clarkson filmed in the desert

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