For those of us who depend on map app Waze to tell us exactly how nightmarish our local traffic is, there’s a new distraction in the car, thanks to the not-Top-Gear-we-swear show The Grand Tour. Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May can now bark Waze directions.
The Grand Tour tweeted out a short clip for the promotional Waze voice, where Clarkson disagrees with May’s description of “a navigation system that argues with itself.” You can enable the trio’s voices in the app’s Settings menu under “Voice language.”
It seems like this is what James was doing when he was awkwardly hanging out in a voiceover-booth the other month.
I tried it out for my local coffee run and found that it’s actually quite charming. As with most promotional voices, they don’t say street names, even for numbered streets. If you’re going somewhere unfamiliar or with a disturbingly labyrinthine street system, Hammond and Friends may not be as much help as one of Waze’s defaults.
They don’t actually do much arguing because you’d probably crash, however, there do seem to be several different lines they may say when you leave off on a trip. Furthermore, it’s an English (US) voice, so if you expect them to use Brit-terms for certain traffic-related items, you’re out of luck.
Worringly, most of the directions I received both to and from the coffee shop were delivered by James May—the cast member who was most likely to get lost and be late on Top Gear. Perhaps Amazon’s legal team forced him to be a less bumbling version of himself for The Grand Tour, just to avoid any conflict with the BBC.
“You have now reached your destination,” Waze-May said. “Although, to be honest, I did most of the work.”
Have you tried it out yet? If so, tell us about any neat Easter eggs you’ve uncovered in Waze’s new promotional yelling.