This 40-Year-Old Eco Car Is Now The World's Fastest Street Legal EV

Forget Ludicrous Teslas: this dinky little Enfield from the 1970s - owned and extensively modified by Fifth Gear's Jonny Smith - is way, way faster
This 40-Year-Old Eco Car Is Now The World's Fastest Street Legal EV

If you follow Fifth Gear presenter and motoring journalist Jonny Smith on Twitter, you’ll know he’s spent the last few years cooking up a stupidly fast electric vehicle, using the unlikely starting point of a 1972 Enfield 8000. The 8000 - a complete sales flop in its day - ekes out a 40 mile range and a maximum speed of 50mph from lead acid batteries, but it’s safe to say Jonny’s is a little quicker than that: at Santa Pod last weekend it ran a 9.86sec quarter-mile at 121mph, giving it the title of the world’s fastest street legal EV.

To achieve such Tesla P90D-slaying times, the car - dubbed ‘Flux Capacitor’ by Jonny - has been extensively modified. Those ancient lead acid batteries have made way for the same sort of lithium ion batteries that power a Bell SuperCobra helicopter’s miniguns, sending 400 volts to a pair of nine-inch direct drive motors from Current Racing. Quite a transformation.

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The question is, can it go any faster? We dropped Jonny a line, and he told us:

“We think there might be a little grunt left in the little ‘70s city car, predominantly because we can refurbish the motors to rev a tad higher (than 6000rpm) and also play with another diff gear. But, as it stands, I am just hugely proud to bring a forgotten piece of British EV history back from the grave. I hope, in this small way, that the term ‘EV muscle’ can now be justified.”

So yes, there could be more to come. But for now, Jonny is proud to point out that the Flux Capacitor can match a Porsche 918 Spyder on the quarter-mile. Now there’s a race we’d like to see…

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Comments

[Flux]

It has me written all over it.
Lol

07/19/2016 - 20:27 |
7 | 0
ThatWeirdGinger

In reply to by [Flux]

Was about to tag you on this post…

07/19/2016 - 21:06 |
1 | 0
Poke

Ludicrous is the new VTEC

07/19/2016 - 20:47 |
1 | 0
LittleFun

Is it faster than the Rimac Concept One, the fastest electric car? I said something wrong did i…

07/19/2016 - 21:28 |
0 | 0
The S2K Guy

SPEEEEEDD ISSS KEEEEEY!!

07/19/2016 - 21:29 |
1 | 0
H5SKB4RU (Returned to CT)

now… can someone tell me where his vital organs are now? that`s quite SHOCKing

07/19/2016 - 22:25 |
1 | 1
Anonymous

Looks like a fiat 126 with an amc pacer roof

07/19/2016 - 22:42 |
3 | 0
PileOfRustCivic

Best in class, best in show.

07/19/2016 - 22:52 |
0 | 0
Jek C. Lulu

if it is an electric car why does it sound

07/20/2016 - 01:15 |
0 | 0
Kilgore Trout

Imagine if he added motors to the front wheels as well for AWD…That’d be bonkers

07/20/2016 - 03:33 |
5 | 0

The batteries wouldn’t be able to power the fronts.

07/20/2016 - 05:06 |
0 | 0
CalmnessAndSandwiches

Question, why do the motors rev only to 6k? Other motors do 18???

07/20/2016 - 05:06 |
1 | 0