Agolden Eaglefor motorists

Who’d dream up a car this breathtaking? Answer: a fan with £850,000 to spare

Eagle Spyder GT

Three standout things happened to me this week. The first was my sevenyear-old son declaring his intention to take up the drums. I have since warned the neighbours, who are forwarding me their respective quotes for soundproofing sometime early this week.

The second was finding myself invited to an early supper by a friend at the Royal Automobile Club. What an amazing gaff. It has the most spectacular swimming pool in the whole of London and even has its own barbershop! And it has a seriously extensive wine list – at astonishingly reasonable prices. Would I join? Probably. Would they have me? Probably not.

The third was getting to interview a spy for my radio show. An actual spy still working for MI6. Our subject was a lady spy who called herself Emma – not her real name. She told me how she had been recruited via one of those infamous covert phone calls at her original place of work more than 20 years ago. To this day, none of her friends knows what she really does for a living. She also recounted the unforgettable evening she sat her teenage children down to share with them the knowledge that Mummy was in fact an agent for the Secret Intelligence Service. From that moment on, she was officially the coolest mum on the planet.

Now that was all before Tuesday afternoon. Not the worst way to start the week. And then, I received a covert phone call of my own. ‘Eagle want to know if you’d be interested in driving their new E-Type Spyder GT,’ whispered the hushed tones of a conspiratorial voice down the line. Oh, go on then. If I have to. Now the thing about Eagle is that they only produce something new when a client is brave enough to put their money where their lust is. Let’s call this latest such someone Mr X.

Mr X, having already taken quite a shine to Eagle’s drop-dead gorgeous, roofless Speedster, had a request: ‘I quite fancy one of those,’ he said. ‘But I do want a roof and I do quite like the original E-Type drop-heads.’

‘Not a problem,’ said Eagle. ‘Give us two years and £850k and your wish is our command.’

Two years down the line, here we are and here it is. A creation so beautiful and perfectly proportioned I could look at it for the rest of my life. It is a car of two halves, the futuristic and smoothed-down front half of a Series 1 married to the rear half of an audacious, retro-lightweight E-Type at the back. But that’s only the headlines. There are nips and tucks and subtle flares all over the shop. There are bigger, thicker, gleaming new wire wheels with huge (maybe too huge) spinners at their centres filling the wheel arches. There’s lots of clever shaving and shaping to help save weight – aluminium replacing steel wherever possible (the engine block, radiator and header tank for a start). Everything that can be recessed has been – look at those front indicators and the rear number plate. And then take another look at the modified windscreen repositioned at a far more gentle, aerodynamic and attractive shallow angle.

But back to that outrageous bum, the real showstopper of the entire piece for me, a heavenly mix of muscle and miaow.

And so to driving this eighth wonder of the world. The truth is I wasn’t sure if I actually wanted to. Aurally its performance couldn’t live up to its killer catwalk looks – supermodels do not do scintillating conversation, we know that. Except, ta-da! This silverblue bullet does. All 4.7 litres of it. Those six popping and banging (perfectly balanced and orgasmically responsive) carburettor-fed chambers produce 330hp of gloriously obedient and eminently usable grunt. The gearbox is tight and precise, with the ideal length of throw from first through to sixth. The steering wheel, free from any namby-pamby power-steering, is unnaturally light, obedient and effective.

People who love old Jags usually cannot abide old Ferraris, claiming they handle like a bonerattling heap of overblown, self-regarding junk. And viceversa when it comes to Ferrari fans on Jags, who find them so dull and sedate by comparison they fear falling asleep before they even make it out of the drive. I sit somewhere between the two, which is another reason Eagle should be applauded. You can either rev the

nuts off this superstar and get busy with the clutch or select a longer, chill-out gear and feel the torque ebb and flow as and when you need it, feathering the right foot only. Overall the ride is pure joy, firm but not uncomfortable, a tough trick to pull off, accomplished via the amazing and legendary Swedish Öhlins dampers.

The brakes are the only slight glitch – bigger and therefore heavier than they need to be, their presence down to a special request from the owner (he likes how they look through the wheels – fair enough). Eagle also confessed the exhaust is stainless steel, whereas it could have been titanium if the completion date had been delayed by a month or so. Is this a big deal? It’s a sort of medium deal, as both of the above could save up to another 25kg, bringing the car’s overall weight down ever closer to that magical, sub-1,000kg, which would be an outstanding achievement.

So back to that eye-watering price of £850k for what is currently the only E-Type Spyder GT on the planet. Whether it’s worth that much money I have no idea. Whether Mr X could sell it on and get more than he paid, I couldn’t even begin to guess.

The truth is, I hope he never has to. Eagle are the best at what they do and this year marks their 20th year in business. Well, here’s to the next 20 and the 20 after that. As long as they keep the Mr Xs of this world happy, it is not ours to reason Y.

‘Overall the ride is pure joy, firm but not uncomfortable, a tough trick to pull off ’