Ford’s SuperVan 4.2, a 2,000-horsepower electric van-shaped prototype, has made history at the fabled Nürburgring in Germany. Twenty years after the late Sabine Schmitz’s high-adrenaline lap, the SuperVan became the fastest van and the ninth-fastest vehicle overall on the 20.8-km track.

In 2005, Sabine Schmitz, known as the ‘Queen of the Nürburgring’, set a lap time of 10 minutes and 8 seconds on the Nürburgring Nordschleife (more specifically, the bridge-to-gantry section available to the public).

Not very quick, except for the fact that she set it in a bog-standard Ford Transit 2.0 TDCi. And that she was just 9 seconds slower than Jeremy Clarkson in a Jaguar S-Type diesel.

The right Transit at the right time

Now, 20 years later, Ford has finally found an excuse to send another Ford Transit to the Nürburgring to crack the 10-minute mark. “Taking a Ford Transit to the limit around the Ring has always been the dream for a few of us at Ford Performance, but it wasn’t until now that we had the right Transit, the right driver, and the right conditions to see what might be possible,” says Michael Norton, Motorsport Manager at Ford Performance.

And crack the 10-minute mark, they did. The Ford SuperVan 4.2 (not to be confused with the Farizon SuperVAN) set a laptime of 6:48.393 with Romain Dumas behind the wheel, making it the 9th fastest vehicle ever to lap the Nürburgring Nordschleife. It’s faster than the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X, and even the Ford Mustang GTD.

Of course, the Ford SuperVan can count on two electric motors, delivering a total of 2,000 horsepower, while its body and chassis aren’t identical to those of a regular E-Transit.

Slick tires and enormous wings provide the grip needed to set a sub-7-minute lap of the Nordschleife, a feat that was up until recently reserved for only the fastest of hypercars.

More to come from Ford’s electric motorsport team

This isn’t the SuperVan 4.2’s first feat, by the way. The electric van previously set records at Mount Panorama (also known as Bathurst) and won at the Pikes Peak and the Goodwood Festival of Speed hillclimb events.

And Ford’s not done proving electric performance yet at the Nürburgring: “There is more to come, not least with the F-150 Lightning SuperTruck that was also at the Ring on the same day.”