AAAaaarrrgghhh… That’s what occurred within the first 20 seconds of my passenger journey within the Ford SuperVan 4.2.
My mind was nonetheless parked on the beginning line however my eyeballs had jumped out on stalks because the battery-electric velocity machine launched with the ferocity of one in every of Elon Musk’s Falcon area rockets.
We have been at 240km/h in lower than 5 seconds and that’s not the worst of it.
This factor – it’s the one phrase that works – was nonetheless accelerating with the punch of a Porsche Taycan Turbo S from a standing begin on the nook store.
“Cease. Please cease. Cease now,” I used to be pleading inside my crash helmet.
Then as my pilot stomped on the brakes, there’s a split-second of weightlessness because the SuperVan wiped off velocity, after which we have been crashing over a set of S-bend curves that tossed me round in my full race seat regardless of a six-point security harness.
It was full-on and flat-out craziness in a machine which challenges the legal guidelines of physics. However, wait, there’s extra…
All that is occurring with not one of the conventional soundscape of a contemporary hypercar. There may be not one of the whelp of a V12 Lamborghini, or the syncopated thunder of an Audi R8, or the pop-bang-whistle-growl of a Mercedes-AMG GT.
The SuperVan is tremendous in nearly each approach, but it surely nonetheless wants a warning beeper to inform individuals when it’s about to maneuver.
![A brain-rearranging ride in the electric Ford SuperVan](https://images.carexpert.com.au/crop/800/533/app/uploads/2024/03/ford-supervan-adelaide-motorsport-festival-paul-gover-3.jpeg)
On our flat-out laps on the Adelaide Motorsport Competition, its electrical motors are whining like demented Dysons, and there’s an occasional yelp from a tortured tyre, however in any other case the noise creates no extra drama than sitting on my sofa on a Sunday afternoon.
When it stops, I’m left surprised. It takes minutes, not simply seconds, to course of what has occurred and the way it occurred.
I’ve taken some wild rides prior to now, from rollercoasters to a two-seater Components 1 automobile, however that is one thing else.
Even Liam Lawson, who raced Components 1 final 12 months and is the reserve driver for Purple Bull in season 2024, struggled to place the SuperVan into phrases.
“It accelerates like a Components 1 automobile. And it’s fairly good by the corners,” he informed me.
![A brain-rearranging ride in the electric Ford SuperVan](https://images.carexpert.com.au/crop/800/533/app/uploads/2024/03/ford-supervan-adelaide-motorsport-festival-paul-gover-1.jpeg)
“The sensation of exhilaration is that it’s simply utterly prompt. As quickly as you begin accelerating you’re already braking for the subsequent nook.”
Lawson admitted he took time to regulate, regardless that my laps have been his first flat-out dash in Adelaide.
“You sit so excessive. That’s actually bizarre. It’s a extremely bizarre feeling. It seems like driving a Transit van, however actually, actually quick.”
Think about the way it will need to have felt for Romain Dumas, the French racer who has starred at Le Mans, when he hustled SuperVan to a brand new benchmark lap time at Mount Panorama. He lapped the cumbersome beast round Bathurst in 1 minute 56.7647 seconds and went greater than 300km/h – each up and down the mountain.
For perspective, on the identical weekend the quickest Supercars qualifying lap was set by Broc Feeney in a Chevrolet Camaro at 2 minutes 5.322 seconds.
![A brain-rearranging ride in the electric Ford SuperVan](https://images.carexpert.com.au/crop/800/533/app/uploads/2024/03/ford-supervan-adelaide-motorsport-festival-paul-gover-6.jpeg)
The SuperVan is so stupidly quick as a result of it was developed for one job – to set the quickest time on the Pikes Peak hillclimb within the USA. It reset the mark for its class however missed the outright mark set – sarcastically, additionally by Dumas – within the Volkswagen I.D. R, one other electrical automobile.
SuperVan 4.2 is an extra improvement of Ford’s flag waving program for electrification and the numbers are plain loopy.
It has 4 electrical motors for a mixed 1040kW of energy and 2000Nm of torque. Its claimed 0-100km/h time is lower than two seconds and it’ll solely run flat-out for lower than quarter-hour earlier than it wants an enormous cool-down and recharging.
The bodywork, which has similarities to a Ford Transit however solely after in depth motorsport morphing, makes two tonnes of downforce at 240km/h.
![A brain-rearranging ride in the electric Ford SuperVan](https://images.carexpert.com.au/crop/800/533/app/uploads/2024/02/ford-e-transit-custom-supervan-bathurst-record-4.jpg)
Essentially the most ‘bizarre’ factor about SuperVan is the cabin. It’s straightforward to get in regardless of the serpentine roll-cage, there’s loads of leg and headroom, and the view is nice.
However there aren’t any infotainment display screen and it appears extra like a science experiment than a supply truck.
Checking later, and discovering large electrical cables snaking below the carbon-fibre pores and skin and hand-made motorsport components in each nook and cranny, it’s apparent that the SuperVan is far more ’tremendous’ than ‘van’. I can not even discover sufficient area to hold a DHL field.
Does that matter? After all not.
![A brain-rearranging ride in the electric Ford SuperVan](https://images.carexpert.com.au/crop/800/533/app/uploads/2024/02/ford-e-transit-custom-supervan-bathurst-record-3.jpg)
The SuperVan is all about headlining electrification know-how and entertaining motorsport followers all over the world.
It’s a spaceship, not a van, with the flexibility to bend time and switch journalists into gibbering idiots.
I do know, as a result of I’m nonetheless smiling and it’s been days since I thanked Liam Lawson and went to sit down all the way down to regular the world.
Proper now I’m sitting and smiling. In all probability as a result of I do know I don’t should strap into the SuperVan once more.
MORE: Electrical van shatters Bathurst lap file – right here’s what it beat