That was when I really thought: "oh look, TopGear S01E01 is back"
This segment was soooooo pointless. "Look, this local has built a replica of a Mercedes, and his wife loves him anyway... now let's go on with..."
I don't mind having some local stories in The Grand Tour, but you have to tell these stories properly, and not just show a car and its owner in the studio.
Send James to this mans home, show the garage in which he built this thing, talk about some difficulties that occured, ask the man, why on earth he did that. Make him tell about the dreams he must have had, when he saw Jochen Mass hammering down the straight at leMans, back in the 80's. Cut in a clip of that original cars moment. Tell the story of the original car. There is always some tense rivalry in racing stories. Now back to the man. Did the man fit an engine? What sort of an engine is it? What does he think about his work, now that he's finished? Does he drive around in it? Does he plan to do another replica of something? What is James' opinion on the car and the passion of this man? Maybe it gave him a flashback into the old times, when racing was man and machine only, without all the electronic nonsense...
They could have made a very interesting film out of this. I always felt that TopGear was absolutely brilliant at telling stories from the past. Remember the Saab story. Or the Maserati Story. Or the Lancia Story Or the Ayrton Senna tribute. This one could have been epic. It was pointless instead.
I remember someone in the old serie who built a car in his kitchen and they had to destroy a wall to put it out. It was pretty cool, more stories like that I agree.