Jeremy Clarkson risked a row with a German politician on the new episode of The Grand Tour as he revealed the motoring show was almost banned from Stuttgart. Clarkson took a swipe at green party member Andreas Kasdorf as he claimed the show nearly got the boot from the bicycle-friendly city.
Clarkson opened the show in German as he launched the latest episode of The Grand Tour from Stuttgart with his co-hosts Richard Hammond and James May. He went on to reveal they nearly had a huge change of plan because of a disagreement with pro-bicycle politician Kasdorf. The host joked that he would not identify the man who tried to have the crew banned from filming in the city, and then flashed up a large picture of his face.
Clarkson said: “This week comes from Germany. Specifically we are in the city of Stuttgart, except we nearly weren’t because one of your local green politicians tried to ban us from coming here. “Now I don’t want to embarrass the man on television so I’ve hidden his identity. I certainly don’t want to tell you his name, which is … Andreas Kasdorf.”
“He says we would be unwelcome here because this is a very bicycle-friendly place. It’s isn’t it’s the home of Mercedes and Porsche! And Germany is the cradle of the automobile. The car was actually invented here. It’s the last place you can drive a car as fast as it can go on a motorway.”
He went on to poke fun at the green party for putting out an alert because of the smog in the city telling drivers to avoid using their cars that day. The host the pointed out the clear skies over the studio and compared the city to the highly-smoggy Beijing – which prompted laughs from the audience. The opener paved the way for an action-packed show which was set back in Britain and the gang went ‘full lad’ by blowing up an armoured car with a rocket launcher.
During the new episode of the Amazon Prime programme, Richard Hammond was seen grinning ear-to-ear as he cruised around in a special armoured car. But, when he pulled over to admire the view (and the Mad Max-esque vehicle), it suddenly bursts in to flames – thanks to Clarkson and May.