You might be aware that Richard Hammond was making a new workshop for his classic car restoration business. And last week, it finally opened.
In a recent video from DriveTribe, the prolific TV host gives us a tour of the not-quite-finished-but-ready-for-business shop at an opening ceremony. And it is, indeed, an enviable shop.
With space for up to seven vehicles, the shop has facilities for metalwork, prepping, and painting, in order to get classic cars from grimy to glorious. And, although he’s clearly tired after working 21-hour days to get the shop ready to open, Hammond is also clearly very excited.
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At every station, he finds something he’s giddy about. Whether it be a thick steel table for welding that can be its own jig or an advanced paint room with ventilation that exits through the floor in order to affect the paint as little as possible, or simply ducts that are labeled “Gin,” “Tonic,” and “Tea,” he’s clearly very excited, if a little overwhelmed, by it all.
The shop will doubtless be featured on “Richard Hammond’s Workshop” which follows the progress of his restoration business. The business and the TV show, Hammond is eager to point out, are not mutually dependent though.
“[The shop] exists outside of the TV series,” says Hammond. “The TV came after the workshop. The idea was, you know, ‘Lads, let’s do this together,’ and then after some time I said ‘Wait a minute, that might make a nice TV show,’ but that’s it – the TV show follows what we do, so we’ll be doing anyway.”
Indeed, Hammond is heavily invested in the business having been forced to sell some of the classic cars in his collection in order to fund the new workshop.