Top Gear

Tesla Inspiration? The Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust

We’re currently in the off-season of The Grand Tour and it has me feeling all sorts of nostalgic. It seemed just like yesterday when it was the late fall of 2016 and we were getting our first teasers of the upcoming season, and we were all salivating at the prospect of a new show with the boys.

In fact, even watching the current season of Top Gear has me thinking back to the good old days. 22 Series’ of material is an incredible feat, and there is no shortage of memorable moments.

Today, I want to look back at a creation that has been mentioned many times before already. It’s a creation that Elon Musk would be jealous of; everything from the exquisite bodywork to the powerful sounding name just screams quality. This is a creation that out of all the crazy things the boys have done, they can actually be proud of.

[button color=”red” size=”big” alignment=”center” rel=”follow” openin=”newwindow” url=”https://grandtournation.com/3790/clarkson-hammond-and-may-the-best-creations-from-top-gear-and-the-grand-tour-ts0181/”]The Boys’ Greatest Creations[/button]

I am, of course, referring to Geoff, AKA the Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust.

Conceptually, the idea for Geoff is actually not terrible. Having a diesel generator charging the battery is not a bad idea; it’s simply the implementation that leaves us scratching our heads. Aerodynamics was clearly not something that Jeremy, James, and Richard were concerned about (nor was speed, as the Mark 1 showed). The hood reflected an ungodly amount of sunlight to the point where simply driving down the street would be an incredibly dangerous affair. Of course, I wouldn’t have expected any more considering Jeremy took his design inspiration from shelving. In the words of the great Richard Hammond: “I would rather look at one of your dingleberries.”

The “Mark 1” had some serious power issues where every time James used the indicator, there would be an abrupt loss of power (since James opted to use only two batteries in order to “save weight”). In fact, Geoff barely made it through his first road test as he died in the middle of Oxford. Even more concerning was when James took the Mark 1 onto the motorway by accident. I’m surprised the boys made it back in one piece.

The Mark II “fixed” most of the Mark 1’s issues, and we were treated to a brilliant series of safety tests. The sheer genius and ingenuity behind these tests is something to behold:

As if all this wasn’t enough, the boys actually took Geoff to the Autocar offices for a real world road test. Here are some highlights from Autocar’s review:

“…built for considerably less money than GM would spend… on biscuits.”

“We failed to crack 60mph. In the end it reached 50mph in 16.6sec and ran out of juice at 55mph, making it the slowest car we have tested this century.”

“There are so many contributory factors to its technical make-up that it could, in fact, be more accurately described as a freak.”

But enough about Geoff; let’s talk about Richard’s hair, which looked like he had been electrocuted recently!

Tony Hsieh

Cars, the Buffalo Bills, video games, comics, sandwiches, jelly beans, and the shooting star press; these are the things that Tony loves (in addition to his family, of course). When he's not spending his time writing tech reviews for theslanted.com, Tony puts his lifetime love of muscle cars to use on his 2015 Mustang GT. Tony's top three favorite cars are the 1973 Mustang Mach 1, Ferrari 458, and Aston Martin DBS.

Related Articles

Back to top button