Ford’s sports cars may have seen much better days, but the same can’t be said for its vans.
The all-electric Ford Performance SuperVan 4.2 just became the fastest closed-wheel vehicle to lap Mount Panorama in Australia. What’s more, this is the second speed record the van has set in the last few months.
The new record was set at last weekend’s 2024 Thrifty Bathurst 500. During the race, driver Romain Dumas managed to pilot the SuperVan 4.2 around the 3.85-mile circuit in just 1:56.32 minutes, reaching speeds of more than 186 mph on the Mountain and Conrad straights. The van’s time beats the previous mark of 1:56:61, which was set just one week ago by an unrestricted Mercedes-AMG GT3 race car during the Bathurst 12 Hours, according to The Drive. The time also makes the van the quickest electric and commercial vehicle to circle the track.
The SuperVan 4.2 is more of an extra tall race car than a van despite its name. The only thing the EV has in common with a minivan is its side profile. Everything else, from its lightweight body to its modified chassis, was designed to maximize performance. There is also the powertrain which consists of three electric motors that pump out a combined 1,400 hp and get their juice from a liquid-cooled 50-kWh battery pack.
There are currently no plans to put the SuperVan into production, but you can expect elements of its design, along with some of the knowledge gained during its development, to filter out into the brand’s upcoming EVs. The CEO of Ford Australia, Andrew Birkic, said as much while talking about the vehicle following the race.
“Lessons learned from SuperVan’s running in Australia will have a direct flow into Ford’s next generation of electric road cars,” the executive said. ”That means future products that customers drive on our roads will have a little spirit of Mount Panorama carried within them.”
Setting speed records is becoming something of a habit for the current SuperVan. The EV also set the Open Class competition lap record at the Pike’s Peak Hill Climb in November of last year. That time, the van, which was again driven by Dumas, circled the 12.5-mile course in 8:47:68 minutes, obliterating the previous record by more than a half minute.
