The young Richard wanted to emulate his nature-spotting namesake, but somehow ended up shooting cars into a quarry and proclaiming he is a “driving god”.

“When I was a kid I always wanted to make nature documentaries – that’s what I really wanted to do. How I ended up doing this, I just don’t know.”

Richard stands…in the background

Not that he minds fronting the nation’s biggest motoring programme, and one of the Beeb’s most popular entertainment shows.

“If I wasn’t working on Top Gear I’d be in radio or some other telly show – probably trying to get on Top Gear.”

So now he is on Top Gear, how does he sum up the petrol-powered show?

“Put it this way: I stand in the background while two fat middle-aged men shout a lot and argue about speed. And wear bad shirts and jeans.”

And so we get to fashion…quite possibly Top Gear’s LEAST favourite thing…

Despite all three presenters winning Heat magazine’s Weird Crush of the Week, co-host Jeremy Clarkson has his own theories on Hammond’s supernaturally white teeth.

When we quizzed him, he told us: “I haven’t, but I probably would. I’m just not that bothered really.”

Watch Richard Hammond - along with Jeremy Clarkson and James May - cross London's Tower Bridge...in a tank:

Hair today, gone tomorrow…

And he’s also not that bothered about his ever-changing hairstyle either, as the pint-sized presenter explained.

“We don’t spend a lot of time grooming – as you can imagine. It’s not something of which we have a particular opinion.

“I think all three of us subscribe to the same view in that, we don’t have a hairstyle, so much as just having ‘some hair’.”

But while he may not ‘have’ a hairstyle, Hammond certainly ‘has’ an amazing car collection, which includes…