The Grand Tour Scotland Lochdown special: When will it be released and what did Clarkson, Hammond and May get up to in the Outer Hebrides?

The Grand Tour will keep on rolling in 2021 despite lockdowns, travel restrictions and numerous spinoff shows for Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.

In late summer 2020, the Grand Tour team managed to find a window to shoot a new special in Scotland as the presenting trio and crew formed bubbles and hit the road.

After recent globetrotting Specials across wild roads in Madagascar and a dangerous boat journey in Cambodia and Vietnam, fans will be excited to see a throwback to the team’s early days with a British road trip - The Grand Tour presents Lochdown.

Here is everything we know so far about the Scottish special…

When is The Grand Tour Scotland special 'Lochdown' released?

The Grand Tour presents Lochdown is released on Amazon Prime Video on Friday, July 30th.

All previous Grand Tour episodes and specials are available to stream now on Prime Video.

What cars are they driving in The Grand Tour Scotland special?

Fan footage of Clarkson, Hammond and May shooting the series revealed the trio are driving three American vehicles across Scotland.

James May is in a red Cadillac, Richard Hammond is behind the wheel of a green Buick and Jeremy Clarkson is driving a blue Lincoln.

Other cars spotted during filming include 70s Dodge Challenger, a Ford Mustang and a Chevrolet Nova.

Where did The Grand Tour film in Scotland?

The trio travelled right across Scotland, filming in locations including the Outer Hebrides, which proved less remote than they'd expected. 

“Well, we knew we couldn't go abroad,” said Clarkson. “And so we simply looked and went ‘Right, well the Outer Hebrides then’.

“Of course, what was hilarious was we got there to find the producer of League of Their Own, we bumped into Joanna Lumley, Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse.

“Every single television programme we could think of that would ordinarily be elsewhere in the world was in the Outer Hebrides with us.”

Locations we know the trio visited include Edinburgh, Glentruim, Perthshire and the island North Uist.

It sounds like it could one of the show’s most picturesque road trips ever.

How did they film the Scotland Grand Tour special under Covid-19 regulations?

Speaking exclusively to BT.com in 2020, executive producer Andy Wilman said: “Scotland was a real success and I’m saying that with wood touched. It was a different type of thing. Smaller, more charming, more knockabout, but we were really proud of it.

“We could keep doing that [type of special] until we can get the passports out again, I think.

“We’re still programmed to work, we’ve got to put a shift it. But we have to be realistic. We can’t go away until we can look down the road and know where the world is going to be. And we’re a way off that.”

Talking about the filming process for the Scotland special, James May told us: “I wouldn’t say it was necessarily nice, but it was nice to get back to doing what we do. And it was nice to see the crew again.

“I had seen Clarkson and Hammond for some very distant meetings, from the opposite sides of the garden, but I hadn’t seen the crew for a long while. Many, many months. The best part of a year in fact.

“Doing it in a bubble, we turned out to be quite good at it. We did it in area of Scotland with not many people anyway. We didn’t interact with the locals really. There were complicated systems set up for cleaning everything and it’s a bit tiresome going through lots of procedures and being tested every day, but it didn’t get in the way of filming to honest.

“We filmed in the normal way we always do. It’s the peripheral stuff that’s a bit tiring. We couldn’t go to the pub, but there was no pub anyway.”

What happened to the Grand Tour Russia special?

There are still plans for Clarkson, Hammond and May to film a Grand Tour special in Russia, but until coronavirus travel restrictions are relaxed and it is safe to travel, there is no way the episode can start shooting.

Wilman told us in 2020: “Right now we should be preparing the Russia film we were supposed to shoot last February. We’re not going to get to doing that for a while because nothing is certain enough.

“These films take months to plan and by planning I mean spending money. And if you spend money and things get shoved back you don’t get the money back. And we can’t blow money on things that will just go to waste. We have to wait until we can plan with confidence.”

James May said: "The Russia plan is simply postponed until we don’t know when, but we haven’t cancelled it. We’re just having to put it in the cupboard at the moment but we will get it out one day and finish it off.”

The presenter add: “I think once the Russian trip was put on hold we realised [coronavirus] was a bigger problem than we thought. But it doesn’t stop you making great television. The process of being forced to rethink things is in some ways really healthy, because otherwise you would get complacent or set in your ways.

“It’s making us use our imagination. It’s obviously not good news for the world because we’ve got a pandemic, but for The Grand Tour it’s definitely not going to stop us. If anything it might even improve us – imagine that!”

Is The Grand Tour ending?

It doesn't look like there are any plans for Clarkson, Hammond and May to slow down. There won't be any more full series in the Grand Tour tent, but the team are planning lots more specials and have already filmed another in the UK in 2021, which is expected to be released before the end of the year.

Watch every episode of The Grand Tour and Grand Tour specials on Amazon Prime Video.