Five Things: utterly mad vans
Monday, 27 April 2020
To kick the week off with five interesting car-related things this week, we are heading to vans.
Vans are boring, right? Well, not all of them are, so this week we take a look at five utterly demented vans. And, yes, while we are aware of the totally mad F1-powered Renault Espace F1, it doesn't count, because it's not really a van…
Ford Supervan
The GT40's 298kW V8 meant that the Supervan had a top speed of a frankly terrifying 240kmh and was barely distinguishable from a standard Transit - it has a few stripes and stickers, and some wheelarch flares, but these weren't actually much wider than the accessory flares for the standard LWB Transit.
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Okay, so the wider track of the GT40 meant the wheels did stick out a bit further and the van would flex drastically under heavy acceleration, but other than that…
Ford Supervan 2
In 1984 Ford cranked the Supervan concept up a couple of notches by using the chassis of a C100 Group C car wearing a fibreglass replica of a Mark 2 Transit body.
Things also got a bit more visibly belligerent too, with a massive front airdam and large side inlets.
It was powered by the C100's 3.3-litre Cosworth DFL (the Group C variant of the legendary DFV V8) and had a top speed of 280kmh.
This Supervan only lasted a year before Ford replaced the Mark 2 Transit with the Mark 3, so the Supervan 2 was retired, although it would later be converted into the Supervan 3.
Ford Supervan 3
Things got even more serious with Supervan 3 in 1994, with Ford jamming a seven-eighths scale fibreglass Mark 3 Transit body and a Cosworth HB Formula 1 engine onto Supervan 2's C100 chassis.
This version of Supervan 3 circulated until 2001 before it was retired after its final appearance in a Royal Mail red to celebrate Ford's new contract to supply their vans.
It was, however, revived in 2004 and fitted with a Ford-Cosworth Pro Sports 3000 V6 engine to make it 'more accessible to drive for more people'. In other words, the F1 V8-powered version was simply too mad.
In fact, former BTCC driver Anthony Reid once called Supervan 3 'by far the craziest vehicle' he had ever driven.
Ford Transit XJ220 test mule
Originally owned by the Benneton F1 team as an ordinary delivery van, it eventually made its way to Tom Walkinshaw Racing when that company was responsible for developing the Jaguar XJ220.
The XJ220's 3.5-litre twin-turbo V6 was ready for testing, but the chassis wasn't, so TWR stripped out the old delivery van and mounted the 405kW engine in the Transit. As you do.
After the XJ220 went into production the test mule was left languishing until it was spotted by Jaguar racing car specialist Don Law. TWR sold him the van on the condition it would be cut up and disposed of, so Law could use the engine. He didn't and uses it as a workshop van to this day.
Hyundai iMax N Drift Bus
It started as a joke, but things got serious real fast when Hyundai Australia asked its fans which vehicle they thought should get the N treatment next - the Tucson won, but the iMax passenger van came in second, so…
An all-Australian effort, the iMax N Drift Bus drops the standard diesel engine for a 3.5-litre 300kW twin-turbo petrol V6 hooked up to an eight-speed transmission driving the rear wheels.
A bi-modal exhaust, electronic-controlled dampers and a limited slip differential were all added, but the thing that tells you that Hyundai Australia were serious about this the most is the fact that it has a perfect 50-50 weight distribution… when fully loaded with eight passengers. Nice.