Ford has set a rather unusual Nürburgring record, with its Transit SuperVan 4.2 becoming the fastest van to ever lap the Nordschleife. It’s not road legal, nor can it haul cargo, but it’s now firmly in the history books.
Two decades ago, Sabine Schmitz famously lapped the Green Hell in a Ford Transit in 10:12 for an episode of Top Gear. This week, Ford announced that its purpose-built SuperVan 4.2 obliterated that benchmark by more than three minutes. Behind the wheel was Romain Dumas, the brand’s go-to EV driver and winner of this year’s Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in the F-150 Lightning racer. His lap time: 6:48.42. That puts the electric van between the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X and the outgoing Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series on the Nürburgring leaderboard.
Of course, it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. The SuperVan 4.2, producing 2,000 hp (1,491 kW), ran on slick tyres, while production cars like the Mustang GTD post times on road-legal rubber. That makes it more directly comparable to record-chasing machines like the Volkswagen ID.R, which set the all-time EV record of 6:05 at the Nordschleife, also with Dumas at the wheel.
The outright Nürburgring record still belongs to Porsche’s 919 Hybrid Evo, which stunned with a 5:19 lap back in 2018. Ford’s SuperVan isn’t in that stratosphere, but unlike the Porsche or the Volkswagen, it wears the unmistakable silhouette of a delivery van. And that alone makes this achievement stand out.