The oval brand is showing the Ford Pro SuperVan at the Goodwood Festival, an electric vehicle with 2,000 hp, a competition chassis and the bodywork of the Transit Connect. It will be piloted by Romain Dumas.
I have always wanted to work in the department of crazy projects of some brand, those that depend on marketing and that give them almost total freedom to develop authentic pranks. And no, it’s not because they probably have a budget item for foreign substances, but because they have to spend it like dwarfs.
An example is the latest monstrosity created by Ford, specifically by the sports and competition division division Ford Performance and the Austrian team Stard, responsible for Ford’s participation in the World Rallycross Championship with electric cars. It’s the Ford Pro SuperVan, a vehicle that, at first glance, looks like little more than a van tuned by the creator of the GMC from MA Barracus in the A-Team but, in reality, it only has the appearance of a van.
Beneath its ideal vehicle look for Amazon delivery people (and the shapes of the new Ford Transit Connect), hides a Tubular competition chassis with a roll cage and racing suspensions similar to those that can be used by any single-seater on circuits. It has the steering wheel on the left, but both the bottom bracket and the dashboard are also taken from the world of competition, as well as its competition bucket with six-point harnesses. The only thing taken from a stock Ford is the central screen, which is the same one used by the Mustang Mach-e.
In the mechanical part we find four electric motors, one associated with each wheel (which is why, as you are thinking, it has all-wheel drive), which together manage to develop 2,000 hp. Yes, 2,000; no zero is left over.
Although, yes, only temporarily and when the e-Boost button is pressed. Thanks to this, at Ford they say that their new ‘van’ goes from 0 to 100 km/h in less than two seconds. And we are not going to doubt it, taking into account that the body is made of fiber and that its weight, although not communicated, must be very light to be an electric vehicle.
As in all electric cars, there is no gearbox, but there is one. huge handbrake lever where the gear should go, a 50 kWh battery and five driving modes. There is one called Carretera that the horny Fords say will only be used exceptionally.
Then there is another called Pista for rolling on a circuit in a balanced way, according to Ford, with competition slicks. The third is the Drift, designed to constantly go sideways. The fourth, known as Rally, is indicated for twisty sections of asphalt or dirt. And the fifth, which they call Drag, is used to achieve maximum acceleration in dragster-type tests.
This SuperVan is not the first SuperVan in history. It’s the fourth. the honor of being the pioneer corresponds to the SuperVan that Ford presented in 1971, and that it featured a mid-mounted engine, borrowed from the Ford GT40 as the one that had won the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
In 1984 they introduced the SuperVan 2, which featured a fiberglass body similar to the Transit Mk2 on a stock van chassis. It had a 590 hp Cosworth V8 engine. Finally, the 1994 SuperVan 3 used the bodywork of the Transit Mk3, and used the same Cosworth engine that Ford had developed at the time for Formula 1, with 650 hp.
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