Concorde, NC—On Wednesday, Ford Performance held an official launch event for the 2024 season. The new GT3 version of the Mustang makes its competition debut at next weekend's Rolex 24 at Daytona, marking the start of a new approach to racing for the Blue Oval, one that involves selling customer race cars as a business line, not just a factory team. While we were there, we also rode in a new electric racing truck demonstrator, but the main reason I got on the short flight down to Charlotte was to check out one of the most delightfully weird race cars of the past few years, the Ford Transit Supervan 4.2.
It's the latest in a line of wild demonstrator vehicles based on the venerable Transit van, Ford's commercial workhorse in Europe and, increasingly, the US. Ford started making an electric version of the Transit a couple of years ago, and when we drove that electric van, I might have driven a couple of the engineers and PR people to tears by repeatedly asking them, "So, are you going to make a Supervan version of this, too?"
The first Supervan dates back to 1970 (or maybe 1971), when someone had the bright idea to stick a Transit body shell on a Ford GT40 race car chassis as a way to promote the new van. The 1980s and 1990s saw two new Supervans, this time using Formula 1 engines. Now that EVs are the new hotness, the appeal of an electric Supervan probably seemed obvious.
Ford worked with an Austrian motorsports company, STARD, to develop Supervan 4, which made its debut at the 2022 Goodwood Festival of Speed. Last year, a heavily revised version, now called Supervan 4.2, was built for the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, one of the more challenging races still held today and an event where EVs excel—unlike internal combustion engines, electric motors and batteries don't lose any power as they climb into thin air above 14,000 feet (4,270 m).
Like the previous Supervans, this did not start with a production vehicle that got souped up; it's a custom spaceframe with composite body panels that just happens to look mostly Transit-shaped, albeit with some wild aerodynamic appendages to keep all four wheels pressed to the ground. It does have some cargo capacity behind the two-seat cockpit, though, and a tow hook at the back. Strapped into the passenger seat, I couldn't help noticing an infotainment screen from a Mustang Mach-E.