Richard Hammond recently looked back at the amazing cars he has driven across The Grand Tour specials, with a focus on those he has held onto in a special video by DriveTribe. Along with Jeremy Clarkson and James May, the trio stopped filming for the show a couple of years ago.
The trio drove an incredible number of cars over the years, and of course they did the same on Top Gear for many years as well. The Grand Tour continued with those specials, and Hammond drove various cars such as his Subaru rally car, the Chevrolet SSR, and his 1971 Buick Riviera Boattail.
Not all of the cars featured on the show were retained. The trio did have a fair few sold on to other owners afterwards, and some have ended up in museums or private collections. But it is always great to see the ones that the presenters kept hold of.
In the DriveTribe video, Hammond showed off some of the cars that he kept after the show had aired, and what he planned to do with the cars. All of them are going to be restored to full mechanical working order if they haven’t already been, and some will even get a few modifications.
Richard Hammond Kept Quite a Few Cars From the Grand Tour
The Buick Riviera is a particularly special car for Hammond. This car featured on the Lochdown special, filmed while much of the UK was still shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the Amazon crew was allowed to film in the country, so they headed up to Scotland for what was a “lockdown” special. Clarkson had a Lincoln Continental MK V, and May had a Cadillac Coupe De Ville.
The cars made it to the end of the special, and Hammond kept his after the show had aired. It sat in storage for a while, gathering dust, but he recently got the car running again and is thrilled to still have it in his collection. Perhaps the most special is his 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX STi V-limited edition, better known as Martin from the Skandi Flick special.
It became known as Martin after Clarkson rubbed out the ‘i’ from the Martini wrap that Hammond had given the car. The name stuck, and after buying it off the show, Hammond had it restored with the wrap removed and put back into perfect mechanical condition. It is a fantastic car, and a real classic. However, one member of the collection isn’t as universally popular.
The Eurocrash Car Is the Most Bizarre
Perhaps the most bizarre is the Chevrolet SSR that Hamond drove in the Eurocrash special. This was Chevrolet’s attempt to create a convertible pickup truck, with a massive V8 under the hood, and with styling similar to the hot rods of the 1920s and the 1930s. Hammond kept it just because of how strange a car it was, and the fact that it got through the Eurocrash special with just one minor breakdown towards the end of the show.
The most emotional of the cars from the video was the final one. It was, of course, the Ford Capri GXL used in the final special the trio took part in, One For The Road. All three presenters kept the last car they drove, so May kept his Triumph Stag, and Clarkson kept his Lancia Montecarlo. All of those cars had developed an emotional connection with the presenters, so it made sense that they would keep them in their personal garages.