“I HAVE DONE A THING. Feeling proud and VERY grown up,” former Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond wrote in the caption of a video he’d posted on his Instagram last week. Mid this year, he launched his products, Ratio London Dry Gin and Iron Ridge, at the Salon Privé car show at Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, and now he’s taken them to Pro Wine in Shanghai, China, for a second launch.
Also, fans have been anticipating the relaunch of his co-owned content platform DriveTribe Collective, which will definitely happen on the first of next month (December 1), while the rest, like you, are curious about his current net worth, sources of income, and possibly his personal life. We’re going to discuss that and everything you need to know in this post, so read on.
Currently, Richard Hammond is said to be worth about £37 million (that’s around $45 million). His wealth comes from various sources such as his business ventures, real estate assets and his TV work, plus he’s also an author. His wealth story is quite an interesting one, to be honest, considering the fact that he’s been able to sustain his brand for decades by moving from traditional TV to digital platforms like the DriveTribe Collective. But first, what was life like before his success?
Richard Hammond’s Rise to Fame
Richard Hammond was born on December 19, 1969, in Solihull, Warwickshire, England. He went to Ripon Grammar School as a child and then Harrogate College of Art and Technology following high school. In an episode of Top Gear (2011), he mentioned that his first job was shovelling grit at a water plant.
A few years on, he got his first real media job at BBC Radio York in the 1980s, and the rest followed, including Radio Newcastle, Radio Cumbria, Radio Cleveland, Radio York and Radio Leeds, but he still struggled to make a living. While presenting at Radio Lancashire, he met Zogg Zieglar, a motoring journalist who would later encourage him to try out motoring reviews on TV.
He eventually went into television presenting, first starting with lifestyle shows and motoring programmes on satellite TV, Men & Motors. This helped him develop his on-screen skills, and in 2002, he auditioned for the revamped BBC show, Top Gear.
Top Gear
He got selected to co-host the show with Jeremy Clarkson and Jason Dawe for the first series. James May later joined in the second series. Fans got fond of Hammond and nicknamed him The Hamster, mostly because he had a smaller stature compared to the other presenters. The three of them bonded so much that the show became a success.
Four years later (September 2006), Hammond had a dragster accident while filming a Top Gear segment. It’s said that he was travelling at a high speed of 288 mph (463 km/h) in a Vampire dragster when he crashed, with the car’s front tire failing and flipping onto grass. Hammond lost consciousness but came to on a backboard.
Later that year (December 2006), he made his first appearance on television after the accident on the BBC programme, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and mentioned being in a severe coma for two weeks after the crash and suffering from post-traumatic amnesia and a five-second memory. He later mentioned in 2011 that he could not recall that conversation. That was enough to know how severe the head injury must’ve been.
Brainiac: Science Abuse
Hammond became the show’s first host in 2003. Jon Tickle and Charlotte Hudson joined later on, but after the fourth, Hammond had to leave after signing an exclusive contract with the BBC (Top Gear was so much of a success), leaving Vic Reeves in his stead.
Salary
After Clarkson left the BBC in 2015, the three presenters moved to Amazon Prime to create The Grand Tour in 2016. This was a huge financial plus for Hammond because while he was at the BBC, his annual salary used to be around £500,000, but at Amazon, he started receiving a salary of $7.2 million (approximately $9 million) per year. The show wrapped up in 2024.
He also worked on Total Wipeout from 2009 to 2012, as well as Planet Earth Live in 2012.
Business Ventures and Investments
Since his success, Hammond has gotten involved in many business ventures, but his main focus has always been his classic car restoration business, The Smallest Cog, located in Herefordshire, England. I mean, it shows that he had a passion for this one because he sold eight of his personal classic vehicles to make sure the business would thrive.
You can learn more about this venture on his discovery+ UK docuseries Richard Hammond’s Workshop.
Hammond also got together with Hawkridge Distillers to launch his own gin and whisky brands under the Hammond’s Spirits label, which includes Ratio Gin and Iron Ridge Malt Whisky (as mentioned earlier).
He always makes sure to brand these products on his social media, and his other investments include Chimp Productions and Brand New Productions.
Real Estate and Personal Life
In 2008, Hammond and his wife, Mindy, bought and renovated a £7 million 18th-century Bollitree Castle, in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. It’s a 6-bedroom mock castle with a moat, a swimming pool, and twenty acres of paradise, and was worth £2.5million at the time they bought it.
However, they announced their decision to divorce in January 2025 on his X account, stating that their marriage was ending after 28 years, but they would remain a family with a different structure, and added that they would “always be in each other’s lives and are proud of the family [they] created.”
According to a source from The Sun, Richard had tried to save the marriage, even after he was kicked out of the home to sleep in its converted barn, “but Mindy pushed for a full divorce.”
People have been wondering if Mindy might want to keep the castle to herself, but it hasn’t yet been confirmed who would eventually have it.
Hammond now lives in a rented farmhouse closer to his The Smallest Cog, in Herefordshire, England, and his other properties include a London flat and a villa in Saint-Tropez.
Car Collection and Passion Projects
Hammond had a thing for cars growing up. He even said something about cars being an obsession, “…as a kid growing up in Birmingham.” His grandfather used to work in the car industry too, “so it was always in [his] blood…” He once worked on a chicken farm at 16 just so he could buy his first motorbike. He’d always wanted to make car TV shows, so he went for it, even on those times he was “starving to death”.
He currently owns a large collection of cars (like the Ford Mustang, a Lotus Espirit Sport, a 1931 Lagonda, and more) and motorbikes (like the 1027 Honda Sunbeam and a Kawasaki ZXR), and a £150,000 helicopter that he bought in 2009. His car collection is believed to be worth £2 million, according to VIPFortunes.
Let’s talk. What’s your favourite Hammond moment? Any thoughts about his net worth?
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