Richard Hammond has revealed how he got to know Wheeler Dealers star Mike Brewer with the duo “going back years”.
Richard and Mike have been competitors for much of their career with the two presenting rival shows.
Mr Hammomd was the former co-host of Top Gear and is now involved with The Grand Tour while Mike has worked on Discovery motoring shows.
However, Richard admitted the pair had known each other for years and shared a hilarious story about one of their first trips to Morocco before his Top Gear success.
Speaking to DRIVETRIBE, he said: “You have to understand Mike and I, our careers go way back together.
“Inevitably because there’s only so many people doing our job and you’re going to know them. I remember him right back from when I worked at Renault in the press office.
“So I’d left radio, I wanted to get to know all the editors of the car TV shows as I worked at the press office. So I hosted him at Renault. But I then went back to broadcasting and I was working for Granada Men and Motors.
“I turned up, I think it was Morocco, I think it was a Renault Scenic 4×4 launch and I don’t think I was at Renault by then. I think I’d left and I was there as a journalist.
“We turned up in Marrakech and there was Mike with a full crew, so like five or six people, cases and cases. And there’s me and my mate Stan and Stan’s bag had the camera and the sound kit as well as his socks and pants.
“He was camera, sound and director and I was presenter and writer. And it was like big boy TV and little boy TV.”
Richard discussed his past with Mike after being asked to comment on a stunning claim made by the Wheeler Dealers star.
Mr Brewer suggested he had got Richard the job on Top Gear after securing him a screen test with BBC producers.
Mike even said he had “coached” Richard which helped him secure the iconic gig. But, Richard quickly dismissed the remarks as he called out Mike’s assumptions.
Richard added: “Oh really? That’s quite out there isn’t it? He claims that he was offered the job but had already accepted Wheeler Dealers and that the only reason I’d got it was because he’d done that.
“But Mike claims that, I claim that’s horses***. I don’t think it did.”
