Specialist watch coverage identifies Richard Hammond’s fire-damaged Rolex as a Sea-Dweller, not a Submariner. Time+Tide’s headline calls it a Submariner, but its article body—and a separate Hodinkee account—call it a Sea-Dweller. The exact reference number is not established by the sources reviewed.
What happened to Richard Hammond’s Rolex?
In June 2017, Hammond was filming The Grand Tour in Switzerland and driving a Rimac Concept One during a hill-climb run. The car left the course, rolled down a hill and caught fire after he got out, according to The Guardian’s report published on 11 June 2017. The report said he fractured his knee.
Watch-publication accounts say Hammond’s Rolex was damaged in the crash, recovered and later returned to him. Time+Tide reports that the watch was presented on The Grand Tour in an acrylic display case. It gives the case inscription as: “Made in Switzerland — Carefully perfected on 10th June 2017 by the British”. That wording is reported by Time+Tide as text on the case.
Was it a Submariner or a Sea-Dweller?
The model name is inconsistent in coverage. Time+Tide’s headline uses “Submariner,” while its article body identifies the watch as a Sea-Dweller. Hodinkee also identifies it as a Sea-Dweller. The available specialist accounts therefore support Sea-Dweller as the better-supported identification, while the headline discrepancy should not be mistaken for a confirmed Submariner identification.
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- Pre-Loved Condition: Excellent; Light scratching and tarnishing throughout hardware
- 40mm
- Made in Switzerland
- Flip-lock clasp
- Signature upon delivery required
Neither account establishes the watch’s exact reference number. Without that, it would be speculative to assign a specific Sea-Dweller variant or its specifications to Hammond’s damaged watch.
What is confirmed about the crash?
The Guardian’s contemporaneous reporting says Hammond escaped the car before it caught fire and suffered a knee fracture. It quoted The Grand Tour producer Andy Wilman saying, “If Richard had been a few seconds slower getting out, he would have been incinerated.” That is Wilman’s description of the danger, not a technical finding. The Guardian also reproduced Jeremy Clarkson’s tweet: “It was the biggest crash I’ve ever seen and the most frightening but incredibly, and thankfully, Richard seems to be mostly OK.”
Details about the watch catching on something, Hammond undoing its clasp and its recovery come from specialist-publication accounts; they are not independently established here through a first-person account or episode transcript. Rimac’s account of Hammond and Mate Rimac discussing the accident is available in the Rimac Newsroom.
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The sources identify the model family as a Rolex Sea-Dweller but do not establish a reference number or document the watch through Rolex records. They also do not establish that Hammond’s crash-damaged example is for sale. A listing for a Sea-Dweller would be a model-level match, not proof that it is the same reference or the recovered watch.
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