What Antoinette has to do with Top Gear
12/30/2014
In 1902, Léon Levavasseur patented a future-oriented engine designed to power boats (and later airplanes). The V8 engine was exceptionally light and featured innovative details such as direct injection in its further development. And it was called Antoinette, which also gave its name to the company of the same name that manufactured the unit.
One of the most frequently built V8 engines of the early days, however, came from the Swiss Marc Birkigt, who built almost 50,000 of them under the Hispano-Suiza brand for use in aircraft.
The V8 engine then became really famous thanks to Henry Ford, who managed to produce a V8 engine from a single piece at low cost, and the "Flathead V8" is still used today as a popular drive unit for hot rods.
And what does this have to do with Top Gear? Well, for their "Christmas Special", broadcast over the festive period, the three ruffians Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May referred to some V8 anniversary and therefore chose V8 vehicles for a drive through Patagonia. However, the Christmas special became known beyond the scene mainly due to unrest in Argentina, which was attributed to the license plate mounted by Clarkson with "FKL" (like Falkland Islands and a reference to the war of the same name).
Whatever the case, the three set off on their journey in completely different vehicles. Jeremy drove a Porsche 928 GT, Richard a Ford Mustang Mach 1 that had probably seen better days, and James entrusted himself to a Lotus Esprit V8 Turbo, a rather unexpected choice.
In fact, the journey of over 2000 km apparently led through scree and over the worst mule tracks, which the unsuitable Lotus Esprit mastered surprisingly well. In any case, it seemed to withstand the rigors much better than the competition from America and Germany. But what do we know, it's a TV production after all and the Top Gear makers are certainly not interested in finding the truth.
In any case, fans certainly felt sorry for the cars and, from our point of view, the TG specials were more entertaining, varied and surprising. And how on earth could Richard Hammond have managed to repair a broken track rod on his Mustang in the middle of the rubble?
