Richard Hammond

In 2008, Richard was joined by fellow Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson and James May to switch on the Blackpool Illuminations.

In August 2008, Richard paid £2m for a reportedly 18th Century haunted castle in Herefordshire, set in 20 acres with stables and out-buildings.

In 2008, Richard received £750,000 for his work on advertisements for supermarket chain, Morrisons.

Richard's Opel Kadett, 'Oliver' from the Top Gear African special was shipped back to the UK, and specially restored before being returned to him.

Richard Hammond and family recently moved from their rented farm house in Gloucestershire to a rented house in Buckinghamshire which is closer to London. Unfortunately, Richard felt that they didn't fit in there so moved his family back to Gloucestershire after just 3 days. This little experience has cost him a small fortune and has had to sell one of his prize collection of cars to pay for it. He said it was just like a very expensive holiday.

Richard is a huge fan of the Porsche 911 but during very bad floods in July 2007 he actually had to abandon his car, he had been stuck in traffic for 13 hours, and run home so he could see his daughter on her birthday.

Shortly after Richard's crash the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, who airlifted him from the accident scene, started a charity appeal to help with the day to day costs of running the helicopter. Due to the generous donations from the public they were actually able to buy a second helicopter.

Richard Hammond's favourite food is Cottage Pie. When he was in the hospital recovering from his injuries he was very excited to see it was on the menu.

In a Brylcreem poll in December 2007, Richard was voted Best Hair on TV.

At the 10th Annual GQ Men of the Year Awards, Richard was awarded TV Personality of the Year for 2007.

In a January 2007 survey of 10,000 women to find the World's Sexiest Man, Richard was ranked no. 32.

Richard has added a 390 Mustang Fastback in blue to his car collection!

Creating his own sports car limo and drove pop singer Jamelia to the Brit Awards in 2007

In March 2007, the BBC was forced to apologise to brain injury sufferers after Jeremy Clarkson referred to crash victim Richard as "a mental" when he returned to the show after his horrific crash. Fellow presenter on Top Gear, James May, also offered Richard a tissue in case he "dribbled". Brain injury charity Headway was inundated with complaints from viewers.

The January 2007 edition of the Top Gear magazine published the first lot of photos of Richard's crash.

After he regained consciousness following his crash, one of the things he was worried about was Jeremy Clarkson and James May taking the mick for him having a lot of flowers round his bedside

It was stated on the Top Gear website that no series would be complete without trying to kill Richard Hammond. It was removed from the site after Richard Hammond crashed.

He has never been a professional driver.

Richard was injured whilst driving a jet-powered dragster for Top Gear. He crashed at 288mph sustaining a "significant brain injury". An injury from which he has now made a complete recovery.

He is on the programme Petrolheads of which he is a team captain.

During the Top Gear Winter Olympics special, Jeremy Clarkson kept calling him Phillip Schofield (the This Morning host) due to his exploits in Daytime TV

In 2005 he presented Crufts

Jeremy claims he looks like Puss in Boots.

He loves both Braniac and Top Gear, but if he had to stick with one, it would be Top Gear.

Loves his job and all the treats that come with it!

On one of the newest episodes of Top Gear, Richard Hammond re-invoked his old radio-skills on the BBC site alongside James May and Jeremy Clarkson.

Twice during season 7 of Top Gear he lived up to his nickname by eating cardboard like a Hamster

He has a degree in Photography and television production

From 1987 to 1989 he attended Harrogate College of Art and Technology

On Top Gear he was in a car that was struck by lightning artificially.

His first job on Radio Cumbria was reading out sheep for sale.

He has two brothers, Andrew and Nicholas.

He presented The Gunpowder Plot: Exploding the Legend, where he rebuilt the House of Lords and blew it up as Guy Fawkes would have, had he succeeded.

He can play the double bass.

Richard Hammond became interested in prehistoric animals while studying for his graphics degree.

Co-inventor of the game Fantasy Car Garage with Top Gear co-host James May.

He eventually landed his dream job as a TV presenter on a motoring show but, alas, the show was on cable TV where the cameramen regularly outnumbered the viewers. Top Gear thought it daft to waste all that genuine petrolhead enthusiasm, so they gave him a job on proper telly.

He drives a Morgan +8 Roadster which is his dream car.

After he got into a fight with co-host Jeremy Clarkson about a car that was going to go on the 'Cool Wall', he ate the cardboard picture of the car and cemented his nickname of Hamster.

On Top Gear he was hypnotized causing him to forget how to drive a car.

He used to sing and play bass in a band when he was younger.

He has three horses, four dogs, two cats, a rabbit and handful of chickens and sheep.

He presented the British Parking Awards on 10 March 2006 at the Dorchester in London, presenting awards in a variety of categories including 'Parking team of the year' and 'Best new car park.'

A running joke with co-host Jeremy Clarkson is the fact that he uses teeth whitener. This is something that he denies.

Is often called meterosexual by Top Gear co-hosts Jeremy Clarkson and James May. He always denies this fact.

In 2005 was voted number one in a Heat magazine poll of the top "weird celebrity crushes."

His nickname is Hamster.

He is 5' 7" (1.70 m).

He is the author of the book What Not to Drive.

He writes a weekly motoring column for The Daily Mirror which is a newspaper in the UK.

One of his other passions is remote-controlled cars.

One of his cars is a 1984 Land Rover Defender which he has "heavily customised." It includes ig chrome wheels with massive off road tires, lots of shiny chrome, spotlights, blue lights underneath and a DVD player.

He now has his own chat show at 5 o clock called "Richard Hammond's 5 O'Clock Show" on ITV1 in the UK

His favourite cakes are cherry bakewells.

He owns 4 cars including a "vintage" porsche 911 (with left hand drive for some reason), two Land Rovers and a Suzuki GSXR1000.