Gigahorse

**The Gigahorse** is a custom vehicle driven by Immortan Joe.

## Technical spec

     The vehicle is built from scratch with a powerful and sophisticated drivetrain and highly modified body. The car is built on a custom chassis, with a body made of two 1959 Cadillac Coupe de Villes sitting on top of each other. Original design called for a turret installed on top of a single Coupe de Ville but, as the production designer Collin Gibson explained: *“In a world where nobody had one of anything, it seemed a fait accompli that he would have a pair of 1959 coupe DeVilles,”* and so the design was changed.

The bottom shell is widened and equipped with a custom windshield. The upper Cadillac is stock width but has been fabricated to function as a turret with harpoon guns mounted in the back. The front end is standard 1959 Cadillac equipped with a custom heavy duty plow. The Gigahorse is approximately 4 meters high without the flags. It also appears to have bulletproof glass.

The Gigahorse is powered by two Chevrolet 502Cid (502Hp) Big Block V8 crate motors with fabricated manifolds and functioning 8/71 superchargers. Both engines are connected through a custom gearbox. Anthony Natoli of Natoli Engineering designed the straight cut gear system joining the two engines. The gearbox adapter was then modeled by the movie's art director Jacinta Leong in AutoCAD, all the components were waterjet cut, assembled and originally connected to a Turbo 400 automatic transmission which was later replaced with Allison automatic truck transmission. The custom gearbox system had to be re-shimmed after each day of filming by film's main mechanic - Mark McKinley. The engine setup is fully functional generating approximately 1200 horse power. The vehicle also has a non functioning (dummy) set of turbochargers feeding into superchargers. Originally the two engines were supposed to be dummy motors made of fiberglass with a single real engine hidden inside, but the production designer - Colin Gibson provided additional budget which allowed to equip the Gigahorse with an actual working engine setup.

The vehicle is equipped with tractor tyres, the rear ones being 70" in diameter. The differential and reducer systems were taken from a pair of Terex four-wheel drive front-end loaders. The massive hubs gave a 16:1 drive ratio for a 95km/h top speed.

## Appearance on screen

The Gigahorse is first seen shortly after Immortan Joe notices the War Rig went off road with his precious cargo. It is brought on the ground via human-powered elevator platform and ready to pursue Furiosa. The vehicle is driven by Immortan himself, on board is his son - Rictus, his Prime Imperator, a History Woman - Miss Giddy and several other high ranking officers.

### Final chase

*\*SPOILERS\**

The vehicle, however is not seen directly engaged in road battle until the final scenes of the movie where it plays part in Immortan Joe's demise. Furiosa, approaching the canyon on her way back to The Citadel, tries to ram The Gigahorse off the road; however, Joe engages the superchargers of The Gigahorse and gets ahead of her. He then brakes hard which further damages the already fatigued engines on the War Rig. Furiosa decides to get on the back of The Gigahorse and throws an explosive javelin into the back door of the vehicle, but it does no damage. Rictus emerges from the back of the vehicle right after and jumps onto the War Rig to snatch Cheedo, who is begging to be taken on board of The Gigahorse. Cheedo then helps Furiosa, who is hanging from the side of the vehicle, to get on board unnoticed. She grabs a harpoon chained to one of the harpoon guns in the back and tries to attack Immortan Joe through the open back door, but she has to face the Prime Imperator first. After defeating him with help of Nux, Furiosa is seen hanging from the side of The Gigahorse with a harpoon in her hand as she tries to make her way towards the driver's door of the vehicle.

Immortan Joe notices her, rolls down the window and tries to shoot her, but Toast grabs his arm. He punches her in the face, but Furiosa knocks the gun out of his hand and plunges the harpoon through Immortan Joe's mask and into his jaw. "Remember me" she says and drops the chain onto the back wheels of The Gigahorse, which spools the chain and swiftly rips Immortan Joe's face off along with the mask.

The Gigahorse is then driven by Toast through the passage and by Max into The Citadel with Immortan Joe's body wrapped in cloth and put on the steaming hot engine of the vehicle. It is then let on a platform into The Citadel driven by one of the Vuvalini.

## Trivia

* Early concept art reveals The Gigahorse with standard tank-like turret, which was later replaced by another Cadillac body.
* Joining two engines together with custom gearbox was quite an engineering feat, and was proven to have issues with cooling.
* A total of five Cadillacs were shipped from the US and used for building the Gigahorse and its duplicate.
* The Gigahorse's size proved to be problematic in transport. Shocks had to be lowered and wheels replaced each time the vehicle was transported.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.ew.com/article/2015/04/09/mad-max-fury-road-preview
2. ↑ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-12/every-killer-car-in-mad-max-fury-road-explained
3. ↑ http://autoweek.com/article/car-news/jacinta-leong-building-beastly-machines-mad-max-fury-road
4. ↑ http://www.streetmachine.com.au/news/1504/street-machine-may-2015/

## Gallery

Gigahorse thiết kế ban đầuthiết kế chỉnh sửa cuối.Hình dạng gốc của Cadillac 1959Trên phim trườngHộp sốGigahorse in transportBản vẽ khung xeTrưng bày trong lễ công chiếu