This isn’t your father’s Ford Transit but it just might be a sign of what the future holds.
Imagine a van that’s faster on a racetrack than most of the world’s best sports cars or even IndyCars. Ford is proving it’s possible, thanks to electrification.
In its latest racing smackdown Ford has taken a one-off, specially built Ford Transit EV van to the famed Nürburgring in Germany where it hit an astonishing top speed of about 162 miles per hour. According to Ford’s speedometer, the top speed was 262 kilometers per hour. You can see it hit that speed in the video at the top of this post.
But this Transit isn’t anything like the EV workhorses you can actually buy. The Transit SuperVan 4.2 has a whopping 2,000 horsepower.
The bespoke one-off van made it around the track in a crazy-fast 6-minutes, 48-seconds, or 6:48.393, to be precise.
To put that into perspective, that’s faster than sports cars like the Corvette ZR1X, Porsche 911 GT3 RS or even Ford’s own Mustang GTD.
Ford CEO Jim Farley is a big racing fan and Ford’s SuperVan history goes all the way back to 1971.
Video History Piece: Ford’s SuperVan From 1971 To Today
The SuperVan 4.2 is just one example of how Ford is taking performance to new levels with EV powertrains. Ford has also built a Mustang Mach-E tri-motor NASCAR prototype.
So why do an electric super van?
Ford says its electric vehicle demonstrator program has become an integral part of its broader racing portfolio, which in turn motivates its engineers, designers and aerodynamicists to dream big.
There’s no word from Ford on whether any of the styling or engineering from the SuperVan 4.2 will make it into the next-generation Transit EV, but we can always hope.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story listed an incorrect top speed.
