Grand Tour visits Colorado

The latest episode of Grand Tour - Jaaaaaaaags - was filmed in our backyard. The first chunk is on Highway 141, one of my favorite roads about 15 minutes from the office. It’s where I often take journalists  Then Telluride, where I used to ski. 

I enjoyed it, and not just because I know those roads and it’s absolutely gorgeous to look at - or because my wife was the project manager for rebuilding the Telluride airport a couple of years back. It’s a fun episode, definitely better than anything other car show you’ll see this week. Check it out!

After watching that I want to visit Colorado just to look at the scenery. Old Jags are good looking too!

Man, that was a gorgeous episode, and well done. I thought some of that looked like stuff you'd posted.

The downhill "skiing" was one of the scariest things I've seen in a while.

Pretty sure all three cars had brown interior at the end, at least the driver's seat. 

I saw that first shot and was like....hummm that's familiar.  It's a beautiful place. I loved taking Betty down that very road.  This was taken not too far from where they met up at the start of the shoot.

Yes, great episode.  Renews my desire for an XJR !

The ski run they took the Jags down is called "See Forever", and they showed it in sequence pretty well. Skinny bits, flatter into steeper sections, past the top of a couple of other lifts, etc. It's an absolutely gorgeous view the whole way down, and it's basically a well-groomed blue cruiser. Shows the difference between skiing and, umm, "car skiing". There's no way they drove those cars all the way up, though. That's okay. It is quite plausible that they drove them down and it was sketchy but doable.

The offroad track was at Gateway Canyon Resort, a gorgeous drive from the FM shop down that epic Highway 141. The road  is, umm, not closely patrolled. Unfortunately, the trophy truck driving experience appears to have been shut down since the boys visited early in 2017. The drive from Grand Junction to Telluride on 141 is about 150 miles of relentless scenery and curves and good pavement, and they didn't actually manage to capture the beauty of the Telluride area very well.

Here's the route if anyone wants to duplicate it. It changes character a few times from the red rocks to darker rock to the spiky San Juans.

The Telluride airport was shut down during their filming - you can see the temporary road across the runway and the big lit X at the end of the runway. Turns out Janel's company was doing the paving at that time but she wasn't in charge of that job. The temporary road is there so the tracked vehicles can cross without tearing up the pavement, and the X is to wave off pilots who might try to land. FYI.

We knew they were in the area - Clarkson even tweeted that he had arrived in Grand Junction - and had sources that told us they'd be at Gateway. But we couldn't grab their attention, alas. 

I know you'd mentioned that they weren't stopping by before, but I was still hoping to see a Miata go flying the opposite direction. 

Also, have you guys taken a exocet over to that trophy truck place? And is there video?

A ND V8 Miata may have done a flyby at one point, but knowing who was driving it the flyby was probably done in the most apologetic, inoffensive and introverted way possible.

Nope, we have not taken an Exocet to a baby trophy truck experience track.

cool. Haven't had a chance to see this episode yet. Probably going to be watching it either tonight or sometime tomorrow.

Thanks for the ID on that road, cuz this episode really was looking like a great excuse for a bit of a road trip...

Keith Tanner said:

A ND V8 Miata may have done a flyby at one point, but knowing who was driving it the flyby was probably done in the most apologetic, inoffensive and introverted way possible.

Nope, we have not taken an Exocet to a baby trophy truck experience track.

Man, somebody really needs to make those guys aware of the existence of the FM LS Miata. Richard for sure would go nuts over it and consume a trailer full of tires doing burnouts, James would appreciate the OEM build quality and refinement (and set fastest lap at whatever track they took it to), and Jeremy would be terrified of that much power in such a short wheelbase

When Clarkson sent out his Grand Junction tweet, a gratifyingly large number of people assumed they were coming to see us or suggested they should. 

I watched it last night and the first thing I thought was "holy crap, they're on 141!" About 5 minutes after that I was searching craigslist for an XJR haha!