Broadcaster and car modifier Jonny Smith has set a new world record using a long-forgotten but pioneering British electric vehicle.
In Smith’s hands the 1970s Enfield 8000 became the world’s quickest street legal electric vehicle last weekend by completing a quarter mile sprint of Santa Pod Raceway in a record-breaking 9.86 seconds at an average speed of 121mph.
To be street legal the Enfield 8000 had to retain its treaded tyres and had to complete a mandatory 26 mile drive on the public highway to prove its roadworthiness before attempting the feat. Despite being road legal and exempt from both vehicle excise duty and the London congestion charge, the Enfield 8000 can out-accelerate supercars like the Lamborghini Aventador, McLaren's 650S, a Porsche 911 Turbo S, Nissan GT-R and even Tesla's highly potent P90D electric car.
Smith rescued the Isle of Wight-built Enfield 8000, boosting its original 8bhp more than a hundred fold by adding 188 lithium-ion battery cells from a Bell Super Cobra attack helicopter into enclosures in the bonnet and boot, which are used to generate 2000 amps and 400 volts to feed a pair of DC 9-inch motors powering the rear wheels. As a result, the 800bhp-plus Enfield 8000 - dubbed the Flux Capacitor after sponsors Adrian Flux – produces 1,200lbft of torque and rockets to 113mph from a standing start in just six seconds and soundly beating the previous quarter-mile record which stood at 10.25 seconds and was held by American John Wayland in his converted Datsun.
Smith proved the doubters wrong with his record-breaking feat, saying: “Despite so many racers telling me that a 68-inch wheelbase car could never safely go as fast as we wanted, the Enfield has proved them wrong. Originally the car was designed to drive up to speeds of 40mph. Now it triples the speed within quarter of a mile without any aerodynamic alterations – which is testament to the original design. The original designer John Ackroyd, who spent a lot of budget on the aerodynamics, went on to work with Richard Noble on Thrust 2. I set out to build a British electric hot rod. I hope I've achieved something leftfield enough to prove that David certainly can beat Goliath.”
Click here to sign up for our monthly newsletter
Popular news stories
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
|
|
||||||
