The launch is part of BBC Worldwide’s continued commitment to bring its global audiences closer together, and providing exclusive access to the very best British talent and high quality television programming. Originally commissioned by BBC America, this exciting new series follows TV presenter Richard Hammond, co-host of the world’s biggest car show BBC Top Gear and global wildlife series Planet Earth Live, as he travels across the US facing the ultimate challenge of learning how to operate America’s largest and most dangerous vehicles.

With 18 series of the worldwide phenomenon that is BBC Top Gear firmly under his belt, Hammond has experienced more than his fair share of international auto-escapades, whizzed along countless race tracks and driven just about every high-powered and luxurious vehicle ever made. Now, in Crash Course, he experiences the world’s biggest and toughest vehicles that are made not for show, but to get a job done.

Immersed in some of the country’s most extreme environments, Hammond is given only a matter of days to master these monstrous machines, a task that takes years for most people to achieve. Throughout his journey, he works alongside local experts who operate these machines daily, while getting a true taste of American hospitality.

Usually the expert in the driver’s seat, Hammond now finds himself in unusual territory. Not only is he in a foreign land, he is now the student, getting his hands dirty and learning all aspects of the job from the men and women who operate these essential machines. Visiting six locations, with just three days in each, the pressure is on to learn how to handle a variety of complex and dangerous machines.

The series has Hammond at the helm of a myriad of machines including the US Army’s MIA2 Abrams Tank at Fort Bliss, ‘The Compactor’ at the Denver Regional Landfill, the world’s most powerful fire engine, The Striker, at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport and a two ton wrecking ball with the power to tear down a five story building in a matter of seconds in Orlando.

From completing fitness training with a US Army 'Top Tank' crew to shimmying up a tree, despite his fear of heights, while working with the Luoto family for their Oregon logging company - there is no cutting corners on the work sites. Hammond does find time, however, to make some machine-powered high-jinx of mammoth proportions.

Richard Hammond's Crash Course will be broadcast from Friday, 31 August at 22:00 on BBC Knowledge, channel 251 on DStv.