Grand Tour: James May Was “Strongly Influenced” By Repaired Mitsubishi Evo During Latest Episode
The Grand Tour: A Scandi Flick was released last week on Prime Video and the main talking point for a lot of viewers was James May’s horrendous crash and everything his Mitsubishi Evo was put through during their trials through Norway.
The Our Man In Italy presenter first crashed the Evo during a challenge where he and his co-stars, Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond had to try and go the fastest through a tunnel which only lit up as they drove through each section. May ended up braking too late and collided with the wall at the end leaving him with a broken rib.
At that point, the car looked completely totalled, however, May was determined to get the car back running straight for the rest of the episode, which he miraculously did.
A bit later on in the episode, viewers saw the trio racing over an iced-over lake. Obviously, something was going to go wrong and it ended up being May with the Evo going through the ice with the car becoming submerged in the freezing water. Clarkson, Hammond, and May then worked quickly building a make-shift winch to save the homologated rally car. Amazingly, they were successful and the car still went to the end of the special.
A member of the behind the scenes team in Norway, Morten Hansen, spoke to Grand Tour Nation to explain the first crash. He said:
“Yes I saw it, it’s a hard crash. The whole car was crooked in the frame. [I] know the boys in Tromsø who jigged it so straight that it could be driven.
“James was strongly influenced by it when I met him”
May was determined to keep the car going to the end and not use the back up Volvo that was waiting in the wings.
With many EVO fans struggling to watch the episode, saying it’s “painful, but worth it” and the car going through so much, many viewers want to know what happened to the EVO after filming. May clearly had a strong liking for the car but it’s hard to say if it could have survived all of that long-term.