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I am a driving god..so failing my test was the WORST day of my life; Top Gear's Richard joins the Mirror

WHEN he was five years old, Richard Hammond worked out how many days there were before he would be old enough to drive.

It was a typically car-mad start to the career of a little boy who went on to find fame as a Top Gear presenter and who, tomorrow, starts a fantastic new motoring column in the Daily Mirror.

On his 17th birthday, his dad gave him lessons and the date of his test arrived in the post.

But on the big day, with a "scary" female examiner in the seat beside him, Richard approached a set of traffic lights on amber and was told to "proceed as normal".

"Unfortunately for me, that meant putting my foot down and screeching through on red," the 34-year-old recalls sheepishly.

Not surprisingly, the man who would one day coin the phrase: "I am a Driving God", failed his driving test.

"It was the worst day of my life," he adds. "I remember standing by the window at home and thinking that my life had just ended."

Eventually Richard overcame his devastation, retook the test, passed and began indulging a passion for cars - especially fast ones - which still burns in his veins.

Growing up in Birmingham and then North Yorkshire with his father, solicitor Alan, mother Eileen, a charity consultant, and younger brothers Andrew and Nicholas, Richard was ferried around at various times in a Ford Escort, an Austin Allegro, a Morris Marina Coupe and a Morris Minor.

The family album is filled with pictures which illustrate his early passion - Richard behind the steering wheel of his father's cars, Richard driving the pedal car his grandfather built him.

If cars are in his blood, he says, it comes from both grandfathers - one worked for British car manufacturer Jensen, the other drove trucks during the Second World War.

He adds: "Rumour has it there was a chauffeur somewhere in the family."

And before accumulating all the in-depth motoring industry expertise he will share with Mirror readers, Richard is not ashamed to admit he made his fair share of mistakes.

His first car was a 1976 red Toyota Corolla Liftback.

"It was one of the first hot-hatches," he says. "It was kind of modelled on the Ford Mustang, only it was rubbish. I painted a rebel flag on the roof and stuck the words 'Jap crap' along the top of the windscreen."

The car was an 18th birthday present, but it didn't last that long. One day Richard crammed 14 of his friends inside it for a laugh and ruined the rear suspension.

He adds: "Then, a few weeks later I piled it into a Volvo. I wept."

Richard, who left Ripon Grammar School in Yorkshire in the middle of his A-levels, admits: "I was a bit of a rebel, I liked fast cars, I chased girls and I smoked. But my parents trusted that I knew what I was doing and that I'd turn out all right in the end."

He went on to study visual arts at Harrogate College of Art and Technology and started working for BBC Radio York as a roving reporter.

"It took me about a week just to put one piece together," he says. "And I only got paid about pounds 10, so I worked part-time in a bookshop and a petrol station and collected chicken eggs on a farm."

In 1989, he was given his first proper shift on the station and was sent off in the radio car to give his first-ever live report. He recalls: "I got as far as saying: 'Hello, here I am live from ...' and a traffic warden came up and said: 'You can't park there.' I had to break off in the middle of my broadcast. It was terrible."

After a couple of years on two wheels, Richard swapped his motorbike for a half-built kit car which he finished off.

The car, a grey Jago Jeep with a Cortina engine was a disaster. "It was rubbish," he says.

Richard, who used to sing in a band, recalls: "I was on my way to a rehearsal in the middle of the winter, driving across the Pennines, and it broke down.

"I got out and looked at the front. It was leaking oil, water and petrol everywhere. I had an abscess in my tooth at the time and as I leant over the engine, the abscess burst!"

A subsequent attempt to "get sensible" entailed buying a dodgy Ford Escort for pounds 200, followed by an Opel, a VW Sirocco and a Cavalier SRi.

"I was always over-reaching myself when I bought cars. They were always better than I could afford so inevitably they were in terrible condition. Big mistake."

But while he worked his way through a series of dubious motors, Richard worked his way up the career ladder. At Radio Lancashire, he met motoring broadcaster Zog Zeigler.

"I was so jealous," he recalls. "I couldn't believe that you could earn a living driving cars and reporting on them. My dream job!"

He moved south to Manchester and took a job in motoring PR to build up his car industry contacts. It finally paid off in 1996 when he landed his own satellite TV show, Men And Motors for Granada. Then two years ago, he auditioned for Top Gear.

"I'd dreamed of working on that since the age of ten," he says.

"I didn't think I'd got it because my agent was convinced they wanted a woman. I am very, very lucky."

Today, Richard's colourful motoring past means he has a down-to-earth understanding of the motoring industry.

"I spent several years in the wilderness with no money, sticking cars together and working on them myself," he says. "I think I've proved that you can have fun with cars without ruining yourself financially."

He will bring the unique, bubbly, outspoken 'Driving God' style which made him a TV star, to his new Daily Mirror column from tomorrow. Richard says: "I will be looking at the real world of cars, cars people can afford...

"But I will also be looking at some of the cars that most of us will never be able to afford, but still like to know about.

"Whether you are fascinated by cars or just use one for the weekly shop, they touch all our lives."

Today he owns five: a 1957 Land Rover, a 1984 Land Rover 110, a 1979 Porsche 928 (which cost him just pounds 3,000) and a 1969 Dodge Charger.

For his wife Amanda, who looks after daughters Isabella, four, and one-year-old Willow at home in Gloucester, there's a 1994 Range Rover "wreck" as a run-about.

"A lot of motoring journalists don't even own cars," he says. "They spend their lives in vehicles on loan from manufacturers.

"But how can you possibly understand concepts such as depreciation and insurance and the realities of being a car owner like that?"

On his own wish list, Richard loves the Mazda RX8, but his dream car would be an Aston Martin DB9 or a new Porsche 911.

It's all a far cry from the days of the seven-year-old who once wrote to the 'Jim'll Fix It' show simply asking to drive a Land Rover.

"He never even responded," says Richard. "The easiest fix it in the world. I still can't understand it."

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