Richard Hammond

The Accident That Stopped the Clock

Richard Hammond arrived at the Top Gear casting in 2002 with a rundown Porsche 911 and the conviction that his career on BBC local radio was over. He wasn't looking for worldwide fame. He just wanted to stop reading news about M6 traffic jams and talk about horsepower.

And it worked better than expected.

The trio he formed with Jeremy Clarkson and James May changed British entertainment television. Hammond played the enthusiast, the guy who was always willing to climb into the most dangerous car while his co-hosts mocked his height. But his role as the eternal teenager hid a gift for communication that connected with millions of viewers outside the United Kingdom.

In September 2006, the presenter nearly lost his life at Elvington airfield. He was driving a dragster at 463 kilometers per hour when a front tire blew. He spent two weeks in a coma and suffered brain damage that affected his short-term memory for a long time.

But he returned to the screen just a few months later. The public welcomed him like a national hero. The show's ratings soared because the format was no longer just about cars, but about the survival of three mismatched friends.

The Independence of the 160 Million

In 2015, the public broadcaster decided not to renew Clarkson's contract after a physical altercation with a producer. Hammond and May chose to leave with him out of pure professional loyalty. The three of them founded the production company W. Chump & Sons to develop their new project with Amazon Prime Video.

The premiere of The Grand Tour in 2016 represented a $​160 million investment by the platform. It was a risky move. The format was nearly identical to the previous one, but with a budget that allowed filming in every corner of the planet with movie cameras.

Because Hammond always understood that the car was just an excuse for the journey. During the shoots in Mozambique or Colombia, the presenter kept his image as an amateur mechanic and a clumsy adventurer. So his public image stayed intact despite the change of network and the multimillion-dollar budgets.

The Herefordshire Workshop

Hammond decided to diversify his interests beyond the big-budget cameras. In 2021 he opened The Smallest Cog, a restoration workshop for classic vehicles in Herefordshire. This business venture became the centerpiece of his documentary series Richard Hammond’s Workshop.

It wasn't all perks at the beginning.

To fund the business, he had to auction off part of his personal collection of cars and motorcycles. He sold a Porsche 911 GT3 RS and a 2 Sunbeam Model 1927. The workshop employs local artisans and focuses on keeping alive manual manufacturing processes that are disappearing from modern industry.

In 2024, the crew of The Grand Tour filmed its final special in Zimbabwe, closing a 22-year run of television collaboration among the three presenters. The company Chump Holdings Ltd reported net assets of more than £20 million in its last fiscal year on record.