Continuing their tradition of periodic specials versus regularly scheduled episodes, The Grand Tour released A Scandi Flick last week. Apparently this is the first special in a few years, which is kind of hard to believe. This special has the group traveling across northern Scandinavia in 90s rally cars. Hammond picks the most obvious car: The Subaru Impreza WRX. May picks a Mitsubishi Lancer EVO. Clarkson, being Clarkson, picked an Audi RS4, which in no way is a rally car (it's an executive saloon, as May called it). The other hosts constantly point this out, stating that the RS4 isn't a Quattro. The Audi Quattro Sport was a dominant rally car in the 1980s, and made the Audi brand famous. Interestingly, the challenge called for 4-door cars, and the Quattro Sport was a 2-door car. Also, while the RS4 isn't called Quattro, almost all modern Audi's utilize Quattro all-wheel drive technology. I'm biased, but the RS4 is easily my favorite car of the group. Clarkson calls its naturally aspirated V8 one of the best engines ever made.
In the grand scheme of Grand Tour specials, this one is just OK. I find the landscape interesting, as Scandinavia is not a part of the world I get to see often on TV. Some of the locations were absolutely stunning, like something from a James Bond flick. Reminded me a bit of Siberia, though not nearly as rugged. The talking point of this show will be James' horrific crash in the tunnel. While drag racing in a tunnel, James doesn't get stopped in time, slamming into the wall at the end of the tunnel. It was a bad crash, one that left him sidelined for a couple of days but could've been a lot worse. The rest of the episode was filled with typical Grand Tour shenanigans, though some of them seem a bit scripted.
I did go down a bit of a rabbit hole while researching this blog post in terms of the Audi Quattro Sport and Group B rally racing. I have seen the ridiculous clips of this category of rally racing, the ones where the cars are flying through the air at ridiculous speeds with spectators within a few feet of the car. Visually spectacular, but incredibly dangerous. Being a fan of Audi, I was well aware of the Quattro Sport and its importance to both rally racing and the Audi brand. However, I had no idea Group B was the name of the rally league that made it famous. I had never heard of Group B until I saw it on Gran Turismo 7. To participate in Group B, only 200 production models of the car had to exist, which is how the Quattro Sport was born. Despite being 40 years old, the car today is still visually appealing. Audi made just a touch over 200 cars, sold 164, and sold only 10 in the United States. Motortrend has an interesting article discussing the creation of the Quattro Sport and what made it so unique. "A car that shouldn't exist" they call it, which makes it even that more awesome.
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