>>715358841They technically tried to do something similar to top gear, but they failed miserably so they switched to the specials.
I think at first it wasn't the same because they wanted to do their own thing in the top gear format, honestly, if grand tour is only relevant nowadays is because they did the specials and didn't copy top gear, and the most memorable top gear episodes are the specials too.
If you search for compilations, like 90% of them are from specials, not regular episodes.