“The Grand Tour” was expected to provoke controversy, and the sixth episode of Amazon Prime’s flagship motoring show has delivered with a gag from co-host Richard Hammond suggesting that “eating ice-cream is gay.”

Hammond’s comment came as Jeremy Clarkson, addressing a live audience, pointed out that you “couldn’t enjoy a chocolate Magnum ice cream” in a Volvo with white seats.

“It’s alright, I don’t eat ice cream,” Hammond said. “It’s something to do with being straight,” he added, to applause and cheers from the audience.

Probed by Clarkson — “You’re saying all children are homosexual?” — Hammond went on to maintain that “Ice cream is a bit… you know. There’s nothing wrong with it, but a grown man eating an ice cream — it’s that way, rather than that way.”

U.K. newspapers The Independent and The Guardian, which called “The Grand Tour” a “zombified corpse” of “Top Gear,” have...