Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

To appease the millions of insatiable television viewers, the BBC teamed up with BBC America to create a new show featuring Richard Hammond, one of the legs to the entertaining tripod of Top Gear presenters.

While the show is not necessarily a Top Gear spin-off, Richard Hammond’s Crash Course is still an over-the-top experience that challenges Hammond behind the wheel of giant machinery, documenting his adventures, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.

This is not your average road test, Hammond will operate heavy machines including logging equipment in Oregan, an industrial trash compactor in Florida, cranes and magnets of a Louisiana salvage yard, as well as a M1A2 Abrams main battle tank.

For the tank segment, Hammond and the crew of BBC visited Fort Bliss of El Paso, Texas. The American military is understandably reluctant in allowing civilians to operate equipment, but the soldiers of the U.S. Army artillery and armor brigades base gave him tank driving 101 just the same.

Having undergone intensive training, Hammond was finally ready to operate the Abrams and fire its cannons and 50-caliber machine gun, crushing vehicles including a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle, a 1968 Ford Mustang and a 1979 Porsche 928 *sigh.

Im glad youve got that off your chest Andy

would have thought the shells would have bounced off

You just have to reassure yourself that the car must have been beyond repair. Probably more scary to look at the problems than to swiftly put it out of it's misery.