Currently reading: Top Gear electric car - Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust
Top Gear's Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust meets Autocar's road test team... and it's messy!

Top Gear has built a home-made electric car, a ‘rival’ to the Chevy Volt, and we’ve tested it.

If you watched this week's Top Gear TV show you'll know all about the Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust, a car built by Messrs Clarkson, May and Hammond. If you missed it, you can watch it on iPlayer.

Anyhow, here's a brief review: the Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust is a road legal car/shed that started life as a TVR Chimaera and underwent quite a few modifications to become a 21st-century range-extender, all built for considerably less money than GM would spend... on biscuits.

In order to get an independent opinion on just how good the Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust is, it was then brought to Autocar to undergo our world-famous road test.

The results on the intrepid trio's efforts and our review - conducted by our own intrepid tester Steve Sutcliffe - were screened on Sunday night.

Now you can read the full six-page verdict in today's Autocar magazine, on sale this and every Wednesday.

To whet your appetite, here are a few tasters:

Performance"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."

Ride and handling"The Eagle i-Thrust rumbles along, its bodywork flapping in the wind as the 2CV tyres try their best – and occasionally fail – to prevent the body panels from rubbing on the floor."

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

Buying and owning"As Daimler-Benz discovered over a century ago, you’ve got to start somewhere before you can progress."

Verdict"It's impossible to regard the i-Thrust as a success."

Read Sutcliffe's blog on the Top Gear test here

Top Gear's own take on its capabilities can be read in Top Gear's Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust official press release

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Peter Cavellini 11 November 2011

Re: Top Gear electric car tested

Fidji wrote:

moe360 wrote:
the R8 is good but on the track it was well slower then the Nissan Skyline GTR l0l and thats even cheaper. Looks like Audi need to get back on the drawing board

I hate to bring this up, but you say on your profile that you dream of owning an R8. Do you prefer the V8 one to the V10? I probably misinterpreted!

Boy! were you bored.

Sarah38 21 January 2010

Re: Top Gear electric car tested

Hi,

You might want to know more about electric cars which is at the heart of the "green economy" concept. . Found an interesting site talking about sustainable mobility that I would like to share and have your point of views: http://www.sustainable.mobility.org

excal 9 December 2009

Re: Top Gear electric car tested

I've never been able to understand how someone can hold the opinion "They shouldn't make shows that I don't like." The folks who were adding "with my money" had a sort-of point, though not really since Top Gear being profitable means that the show funds itself (and in fact actually provides licence-payers with money in the form of lowered fees,) but how self-centered must one be to think that the only programs that should be on television are ones that appeal personally to them?