Ford will attend this year’s Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado, USA with a particularly badass take on the e-Transit Custom van, known as the SuperVan 4. Romain Dumas will take it through its courses.
The Race to the Clouds is a 20-kilometer (12.4-mile) long raceway with 156 curves, altitude variations reaching 1.44 km (4,725 feet) and a finish line elevated 4.3 km (around 14,100 feet) above sea level. Ford has been participating in the competition for more than 100 years, with its Model T arriving to the top in 28 minutes 3 seconds back in 1916. The SuperVan 4 is going to improve upon that time by ‘more than a few minutes.’
While technically an e-Transit Custom, the vehicle is really rebuilt from scratch with few OEM parts remaining. It sports an aerodynamically perfected bodywork manufactured from carbon and mounted on a tubular frame, and has a racecar aesthetic in the cabin.
Power comes from a quad-motor electric drivetrain rated at 2,000 horsepower, which receives its electricity from a liquid-cooled 50-kWh traction battery. This is notably lower than the stock 68-kWh battery pack the heavier stock e-Transit Custom comes equipped with. Thanks to the weight loss and the insane amount of power, the van hits 100 km/h (62 mph) in under two seconds. Three modes of regenerative braking are supported along with such drive modes as Drag, Drift, Rally, Road, and Track.
The first public appearance of the SuperVan was at the last year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. Romain Dumas drove it that time around, too. The triple champion of the Le Mans endurance race has also attended the Pikes Peak hill climb for 11 years in a row and has stayed its absolute champion since 2018.