Ford has presented at the Goodwood Festival of Speed an electric competition van called Pro Supervan Electric with an engine of no less than 2,000 CV resulting from the combination of four electric motors, one on each wheel, which make it a vehicle with Four-wheel drive. This vehicle is inspired by the new Ford e-Transit Custom, the brand’s first electric commercial vehicle.
Ford announces the 2,000 hp as the result of the punctual action of an overboost system and puts the battery capacity at 50 kWh. Recharging can be done at any outlet or by regenerative charging of the vehicle itself, which can be selected from three levels. The battery is located in a tubular frame typical of a competition vehicle.
The brand has announced that the engineers of Ford Performance and the Austrian company STARD specialized in the construction of electric competition vehicles have used a deformable parallelogram suspension on both axles and have mounted carbon brakes on this vehicle that has five modes driving called road, circuit, drag (designed for acceleration races taking advantage of the fact that it is capable of accelerating up to 100 km/h in less than 2 seconds) Drift and Rally.
Background
This is not the first time that Ford has presented a vehicle of this type, because the American brand already presented the Ford Transit Supervan 1 in 1971, which was developed to promote the Transit van and which had a 5-liter V8 engine with 435 hp. , frame, suspension and ZF gearbox from a Le Mans Ford GT. With the engine at the rear, it was capable of reaching 240 km/h and accelerating from 0 to 100 km/h. in 7 seconds.
In 1984 Ford built the Supervan 2, again inspired by the contemporary Transit, but with a much more aerodynamic body made of fiberglass. The chassis was derived this time from the Ford C100, a resistance prototype, and the engine was the V8 Cosworth that most Formula 1 single-seaters used during the 1970s and the first years of the following decade. This vehicle reached, according to the brand, 300 km/h.
Finally, in 1994 and to launch the fifth generation of the Transit, the Supervan 3 was developed, an evolution of the previous vehicle powered this time by a 730 hp 3.5-litre V8 Cosworth engine from a Benetton-Ford Formula 1 car. which also inherited the gearbox.