"Oliver" is the name given, by Richard Hammond, to his 1963 Opel Kadett A, a small family coupe built by the German car company Opel. It first featured on Top Gear during the 2007 Botswana Special as Richard's car for the journey.
Top Gear[]
Richard bought the then-44-year-old Kadett in Botswana for £1,200, immediately receiving mockery from his co-hosts for its style and vastly underpowered engine. However, Richard became quite emotionally attached; he found the humble vehicle to have a "happy" quality, giving the vehicle its name and referring to the car as "he" or "him." Jeremy and James found this hilarious and never stopped ridiculing him throughout the episode. Oliver also had a few issues: only the driver front wheel brake was functional, the hood was very difficult to open, and the interior particularly smelled of petrol (likely indicating a very slow leak). On top of this it only had a 40 horsepower engine (when it was new, likely having lost most of that over its 44 year lifespan) and a weak horn that made the car sound like it had a head cold.
Soon after encountering dirt roads Oliver suffered a minor breakdown related to its electrical system, but Richard managed to get it running himself.
Despite all this, however, Richard drove the plucky little Opel all the way across the spine of Africa without any modifications, apart from removing a spare tire, "something else" and painting "all adders are puffs" on the side. When crossing the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans, because of the terrain being easy to get stuck in, the presenters were encouraged to shed every ounce of weight that they could; Richard could not bring himself to remove almost anything. However, the naturally-lightweight Oliver did not get stuck in the salt flat crust even once, unlike the other two cars. The lack of modification also proved to be a boon; the intact doors and windows kept out choking dust and would have protected Richard against any wildlife like scorpions or snakes getting in. The car also coped amazingly well with the terrain, sometimes able to outpace Jeremy's faster but disaster-prone Lancia.
Oliver in the river
The only major problem Oliver encountered was when trying to ford a river in the Okavango Delta. Halfway across, the car stalled and sank partway, becoming stuck, having to be pulled out and requiring working through the night to replace all of its electrics. To Jeremy's shock, Oliver was fixed and completed the trip with no further problems.
Two years after the journey was completed, Richard brought Oliver back to the UK. Since then, it appeared in the £5,000 Lorry Challenge, on Drivetribe's channel, and in the show Richard Hammond's Blast Lab. To this day, Richard still owns Oliver and describes the little old car as one of his "best friends."
Trivia[]
- As of 2023, "he" is now 60 years old, roughly the same age as James.
- During the special Jeremy joked that if the engine had lost 1 horsepower per year since it was built, at the time it would be at -4 horsepower (now -15)