Holden lost a lot of cool points when GM wrapped up production of the V8 Commodore in Australia last year after 69 years, but the company has seemingly taken the time it now has not producing V8 muscle cars to work out an unbelievable and actually impossible electric time attack race car with 1,340 horsepower. So that’s something.
The Holden “Time Attack Concept” race car, on paper, is a currently-impossible electric car with a 25 kWh battery pack, four motors driving all four wheels with a megawatt of power and 2,390 lb-ft of torque, linked to four 3-speed gearboxes, with a driverless weight of 900 kg, or about 1,985 pounds.
That’s all, in theory, good for some incredible performance figures, like zero to 62 mph in 1.25 seconds, a top speed of 298 mph, and a battery recharge time of only 90 seconds. Of course, the small pack and the rest of the design are only meant for time-attack racing, so the car only has to be able to accomplish one lap at full speed.
It set a virtual Mount Panorama lap time record of 1:29.30, which beats the current real record time of 2:01.567 in a McLaren 650S GT3 by like, a lot. They even made a virtual video to show what it would be like if they could actually build the thing.
Other things that don’t seem real included in the spec sheet for the racer, as pointed out by InsideEVs, are a phase change cooling system that turns liquid to gas for heat management and four cyclo-gyro fans that can change downforce and provide thrust direction with blades linked to four more motors.
But it isn’t real. It’s just a showcase project, developed entirely digitally to show off some of Holden’s ideas as it slips even further into coalescence with the rest of GM now that it’s lost a lot of its Australian identity. Somebody help Holden make their dreams a reality, the time attack racer is a cry for help.