Friday 16th June, Prague/Dunsfold, England: The Praga Bohema has made its dramatic global on-screen debut on Amazon Prime Video’s The Grand Tour with glowing feedback from the famous television personalities Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.
Featured in Season 5 Episode 2, The Grand Tour: Eurocrash, the road-legal Bohema hypercar prototype was driven by James May at an airfield in Slovakia and praised for its “incredible” steering, “enormous” acceleration and agility, and summed-up by Jeremy Clarkson as “one very impressive piece of engineering from the Czechs.”
Filmed on one of the hottest European days on record in the Summer of 2022, the television appearance comes just weeks before the launch of the 89-run, €1.3m production specification Praga Bohema and the start of manufacturing of the first customer cars at the Praga factory in the Czech Republic.
Commenting on the Bohema on The Grand Tour, James May, said, “It has incredible steering. It doesn’t have a wheel, it has a yoke, but even on a fairly tight circuit like this, I never need to move my hands from that quarter-to-three position. It obviously has enormous acceleration, and they haven’t gone for top speed, they’ve gone for low weight and the agility, and it definitely has that. It’s wonderful…it’s just wonderful.”
Meanwhile, fellow presenter Richard Hammond complimented the design and styling of the Bohema development prototype, saying: “It’s a difficult path to tread isn’t it, because it’s got to look childish and silly, which it is, but it looks accomplished and finished.”
Mark Harrison, Praga Automotive’s Sales & Marketing Director said: “I had a call last year asking about the R1 race car – at the time we were keeping the Bohema secret. But when we showed the guys the Bohema pictures, it was a no brainer to try and make it work with the show: where better to wave the Praga flag? There are obviously risks involved in providing a hypercar 12 months ahead of production to such a high-profile global show, but the rewards are certainly worth it: I’ve always wanted James to say “Holy crap!” about a car I am helping to launch! And all the Praga team are big Top Gear and Grand Tour fans, so are really proud to hear Jeremy and Richard praise the car’s engineering and design.”
The episode also paid tribute to Central Europe’s impressive heritage of automotive design and engineering. With 117 years of history, the Praga brand became one of Central Europe’s biggest automotive engineering firms in the first half of the 20th Century and grew to become one of Czechoslovakia’s “big three” brands, producing more cars than Škoda and Tatra combined in the 1920s and ‘30s.
With a product line including karts, trucks, planes, the R1 race car and now the road-legal, Bohema hypercar, Praga remains one of the oldest car brands with an unbroken history in the world.
