Jeremy Clarkson’s DriveTribe gets £4.8 million investment from FOX

21st Century Fox has invested nearly £5 million in DriveTribe, the new online motoring platform founded by former Top Gear hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.

DriveTribe was announced in April, and an official statement on the site’s website says it is “set to become the largest digital motoring platform online – a supercharged destination for anything and everything that has wheels”.

Speaking when the platform was announced, Richard Hammond said: “Gamers have got Twitch, travellers have got Tripadvisor and fashion fans have got, oh, something or other too.

“But people who are into cars have got nowhere. There’s no grand-scale online motoring community where people can meet and share video, comments, information and opinion. DriveTribe will change that.”

Jeremy Clarkson added: “I didn’t understand DriveTribe until Richard Hammond said it was like YouPorn, only with cars.”

In August, the first thirteen content curators – known as ‘tribe leaders’ on the service – were unveiled by DriveTribe. These individuals will manage motoring-specific channels including video, articles, social and interactive content.

The new tribe leaders include racing driver Oliver James Webb, motoring journalist Jethro Bovingdon and Finnish blogger Sara Nase.

Fox Networks Group chief executive Peter Rice said: “We saw the DriveTribe platform and we were blown away by its ingenuity.”

DriveTribe is due to launch in November.

The first pictures from Jeremy Clarkson’s The Grand Tour are here

Amazon has unveiled the first images from the studio tent recording for Jeremy Clarkson’s new motoring series, The Grand Tour.

The images show Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May hard at work filming the live studio segments yesterday in Johannesburg, South Africa.

There’s also a glimpse at the filming tent, which appears modest considering the reported £4.5 million-an-episode budget for the new Amazon series.

Amazon has confirmed tent studio recordings will take place in the UK, US and Germany, as the series makes good on its global aspirations.

Last week fans of Clarkson, Hammond and May were invited to enter a competition to attend filming sessions in the UK, which are scheduled to take place in a giant tent later this year ahead of The Grand Tour‘s release on Amazon Prime Video.

The Grand Tour confirms UK studio recordings – and how you can be in the audience

Jeremy Clarkson’s new Amazon motoring show The Grand Tour will record in the UK, and fans are being invited to join them in the studio.

While The Grand Tour has made no secret of its global aspirations, Clarkson, Hammond and May will return to film at least one studio recording with an audience in the UK.

Amazon has also confirmed recordings will take place in the US and Germany, as well as the already-announced filming of studio segments in Johannesburg, South Africa later this month.

Fans of the trio can now enter a competition to attend filming sessions in the UK, which should take place in a giant tent this autumn ahead of The Grand Tour‘s release on Amazon Instant Video.

If you happen to be in Johannesburg on Sunday, July 17 – or have a lot of money and time on your hands for a trip there – booking has already opened to take part in the studio audience segments.

5 reasons Jeremy Clarkson’s The Grand Tour will be better than Top Gear

We’ll say it – Top Gear just isn’t the same without Clarkson, Hammond and May. While the BBC show is definitely improving, and Matt LeBlanc is at least doing a great job of presenting, what we really want to see now is the much-hyped Amazon rival. It’s called The Grand Tour and is scheduled to debut on Amazon Prime’s streaming service this Autumn. Here’s five reasons we think this new show will leave Top Gear in the dust.

1. It’s going bigger from episode one.

The Grand Tour – as suggested by its name – has global aspirations, and it looks like moving tents all over the UK isn’t going to cut it anymore. The first episode will take place in Johannesburg in South Africa – a far cry from Blackpool. Although Chris Evans’ Top Gear did also make it to South Africa in episode two, for The Grand Tour this is the first step in an outrageously expensive worldwide tour.

2. It’s got a bigger budget.

The Grand Tour reportedly has a budget of 4 million per episode, four times larger than the budget of Jeremy Clarkson’s last season at Top Gear. To add a bit more perspective, Game of Thrones has a budget of 5 million per episode – and they have dragons and ice zombies.

3. Its running time will be longer.

One of the most-mentioned benefits of original programming by Netflix and Amazon is that they are not restricted to a certain time slot, so there’s room to go beyond an hour’s airtime. While episodes are still planned to be 60 minutes in length, there’s no reason they can’t be longer if the material is of good enough quality, and that’s exactly what happened when Amazon took over Ripper Street from the BBC.

4. The Grand Tour has Clarkson, Hammond and May and they have MORE creative control.

It’s not only the running-time that will be affected by the move to Amazon, but shows working with streaming services frequently mention the increased creative control allowed to production companies and their stars. The Grand Tour is not limited by channel values, the time slot or the advertisers. (This isn’t to say the BBC’s values aren’t necessary, but rather that they must please a much larger body of people – after all, we all pay the TV license). Amazon makes no such promise, and the show has already confirmed more time will be allocated to Clarkson, Hammond and May actually discussing cars. And on the subject of cars…

5. They’ve got better cars.

The big one. The Grand Tour has already pulled off a coup that Top Gear reportedly tried and failed to achieve – in the first episode, the trio will test the Ferrari LaFerrari, McLaren P1 and Porsche 918 Spyder back-to-back. While the cars have appeared on Top Gear before, the show failed to get Ferrari, McLaren and Porsche to agree to a back-to-back test. We suspect this is the sort of thing that Amazon’s larger budget will play a continuous role in.