FORD'S ICONIC SUPERVAN RETURNS - EXCEPT IT'S ALL-ELECTRIC AND EVEN MORE AMAZING!
This year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed was amazing, not only for the racing action, but for all the involvement from the world’s finest automakers. In a new race to try and convert the automotive world from gas-guzzlers to the world of electric cars, automakers are showing off their capabilities by creating some of the most weird and wonderful cars, some practical, some silly but most just ridiculously fast. While Ford has plenty to show off within the EV world, their modern recreation of a legendary van from the 70s - The SuperVan - was introduced to the world at Goodwood, and it seems set to be equally as legendary thanks to some absolutely bonkers performance thanks to quad electronic motors.
The OG SuperVan was first seen in 1971 with a mid-mounted V8 donated by a Le Mans-winning Ford GT40 in a Mk1 Transit body. The follow-up Mk2 was similar except the body was changed to a lightweight fibreglass replica surrounding a monocoque and the old-gen V8 was swapped to a more modern Cosworth-tweaked version sourced from the C100 racecar that had a very healthy 434 kW (590 hp) on tap. The Mk3 SuperVan was powered by a screaming 650 PS Cosworth HB engine shared with the Formula 1 cars of the time. For this version, essentially the Mk4, features quad electric motors that combine to deliver approximately 2 000 hp to all four wheels which results in the van being able to do the 0-100 km/h dash in less than two seconds. This means it’s the fastest SuperVan to date.
The Ford Pro Electric SuperVan features drive a few handy drive modes:
· Road – for rare cases of “normal” driving
· Track – for balancing speed and cornering on track with racing slick tyres
· Drag – for maximum acceleration on drag strips while using drag racing radial tyres
· Drift – for spectacular drifting, agility demonstrations and snow driving
· Rally – for optimum performance on tarmac and gravel rally stages with special tyres
A cool feature is the Tyre Cleaning Mode which is great to show off with. The feature is able to fully brake one axle while spinning the other for proper burnouts on the front or rear axles that “help clean and warm the tyres before performance runs”.
Take a look at the YouTube video from the chaps over at Top Gear to get a proper close look at this van that's ridiculous in every way possible, but especially performance. It will also be well worth your while to check out the vid of SuperVan at full tilt up the FoS hill : FIRST LOOK: Return Of The SuperVan! 2,000bhp Electric Transit Is A Supercar Slayer | Top Gear
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