Richard Hammond Says Top Gear Crew Faced Rocks and Shotguns in Alabama
richard hammond says the Top Gear crew wrote slogans on their cars in Alabama and promptly found out the joke had a hard edge. In a recent Drivetribe YouTube video, he recalled a petrol-station stop during the 2007 America Special that turned into a scramble for the vehicles.
Alabama on the road to New Orleans
The 2007 Top Gear America Special sent Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Hammond from Miami to New Orleans in three $1,000 used cars: Clarkson in a 1989 Chevrolet Camaro RS, May in a 1989 Cadillac Brougham and Hammond in a 1991 Dodge Ram D150 pickup truck. Hammond said the crew painted slogans down the sides to provoke a reaction, with his truck carrying “Man Love Rules, OK?”, Clarkson’s car bearing “Country and Western Is Rubbish” and May’s “Hillary for President.”
He said the reaction arrived at a petrol station in Alabama, where a woman asked, “Are y’all trying to see how long you last in a hick town?” That line set the tone for what followed: Hammond said people around the station threw stones and rocks at the crew vehicles and other cars, and pickup trucks arrived with men with beards and shotguns shouting.
Wilman’s order to move
Hammond said Jeremy Clarkson’s Trans Am started and left the forecourt first, then producer Wilman threw himself into the nearest car and yelled, “Drive, drive, drive!” The crew got moving after Hammond jump-started James May’s Cadillac, with Hammond replying “Not now!” when May said he needed the boost. It was less a travel segment than an on-camera evacuation.
The rougher detail in Hammond’s retelling is that the stunt was not just cheeky provocation; it collided with a local response that turned physical fast. The petrol-station stop became one of the most remembered beats from the special because the broadcast version already showed the presenters running and speeding into a safe zone after the filling-station confrontation.
Why the 2007 clip still travels
The new account adds another layer to a sequence that has long lived in Top Gear memory: the cars were cheap, the slogans were loaded, and the Alabama stop became the point where the joke stopped being in their control. For viewers revisiting the special, Hammond’s version makes the scene less like broad television mischief and more like a moment the crew had to manage in real time.
What sticks is how quickly the tone changed once the crew left the road and tried the gag in public. That is the story now: a planned provocation, a local backlash and a getaway that needed a jump start before anyone could leave safely.
