[wodin]

Amazon has hailed The Grand Tour as its biggest TV success after saying it has broken viewing records - but they won't say how many watched people it.

Amazon Prime says its first episode has become the subscription service's biggest premiere, beating previous number one show on the service, 2015's The Man In The High Castle.

Fans were sent into meltdown on Friday when the show was released.

Ardent car enthusiasts loved it. Viewers loved it. Even naysaying social media fans loved it.

But only one organisation in Britain, it seems, did not fall for the spectacular charms of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May's The Grand Tour – their former employers, the BBC.

The corporation was accused of being po-faced, as it singled out the trio's new, big budget Amazon show for criticism.

Whilst fans were awash with praise for the first show in the £120million 12-part series, the BBC's Arts Editor Will Gompertz called it 'uncomfortably hubristic', before comparing it to a middle-aged sitcom and suggesting a rift between the stars.