The Grand Tour

Video: Richard Hammond Discusses His Car Plans For 2020

A few weeks ago, before the Coronavirus outbreak, The Grand Tour presenter and DriveTribe co-owner Richard Hammond sat in front of the camera to let us know his plans for 2020. Unfortunately, with the way the world is going, he might not be able to do quite as much as he’d hoped, but thankfully we’re still able to go out and tinker with our projects. As you may have guessed, Hammond’s number 1 priority is either getting his cars to work, or learning how to drive them.

Richard’s car collection consists of a number of classic cars, such as a 1933 Morgan 3-Wheeler and a 1933 Riley Alpine Tourer, with the majority needing some form of maintenance or modification. We’ll begin with his bikes as he does in the video.

The first bike he mentions is gorgeous, but not-yet-finished Honda SS50. The build has spread over 7 years, so he’s keen on finishing it this year. A 1927 BMW motorcycle also appears on his list after changing the throttle from a lever to a twist setup. He doesn’t like it, so he plans on changing that back.

Making our way slowly to four wheels, his 3-wheeler Morgan has some major issues with the engine falling off the flywheel, but he plans on getting this “up and running” soon. Once that’s finished, he needs to learn how to drive is, as the throttle is on the steering wheel along with the advance retard for the ignition and a lever to adjust the fuel to air mixture.

Now onto four wheels, he wants some more experience driving his 1933 Riley Alpine Tourer which has a none-syncro gearbox.

In the long term, he wants to go electric (possibly via the Tesla Model X he’s been spotted driving in), but before that he wants to rebuild his 12-Seater Land Rover Defender that he bought as his first family car. He sold it, but later bought it back and it now deserves some TLC after 250,000 miles. He also has a Jaguar XK150 FHC that he has close to being fully restored, so as soon as that comes out of the shop, he’ll be sending in a Jaguar XK120 OTS that will undergo a full restoration and an increase in power to 300bhp. Because of that, other parts of the drivetrain and chassis will also be modified to cope with such performance.

He then moves onto his Jaguar E-Type, and while this doesn’t need lots of work, he wants to keep it safe from James May, who has taken a shine to it and will do anything to buy it (or steal it). We’ve already talked about this in the past, so make sure you click here to catch up.

The conversation moves onto James May’s cars, and Hammond expresses how he’s not really interested in any of them except for his gorgeous Ferrari 308. Which of James’ cars would you want to take home? Let us know in the comments below…

Alex Harrington

Alex started racing at a young age so certainly knows his way around a car and a track. He can just about put a sentence together too, which helps. He has a great interest in the latest models, but would throw all of his money at a rusty old French classic and a 300ZX. Contact: [email protected]

Related Articles

Back to top button