Another day, another reminder that our future is straight out of a sci-fi movie. This Volkswagen race car looks beamed in from a not-so-distant future where the rich zoom from place to place in electric supercars with glowing company logos while the rest of us choke on the air quality left by the gas guzzlers of generations past.
Happy Monday, right?
This VW race car is a lot cooler than that future will probably be, since it’ll run the famous 12.4-mile Pikes Peak International Hill Climb this summer. VW calls this the “I.D. R Pikes Peak,” which definitely reads as “idear” the first time, but is named after VW’s I.D. electric line. It’s an all-electric prototype, hence why it looks more like a car you’d see racing Le Mans than one you’d see on the street.
It’s also great-looking car, when you’re able to successfully filter out the part of the brain that’s warning you about the Tron-like sci-fi future we’re all in for.
The name and looks are pretty much all we know about the car for now, other than it’ll be four-wheel drive and that it’s the first official VW entry into Pikes Peak since the company raced a 652-horsepower Golf in 1987. VW didn’t say anything about power or technical specs, and none on the entry list, but the company did say the I.D. R is going for an electric record set by Rhys Millen in 2016. Millen ran the course in just over 8 minutes and 57 seconds that year in a car with seven electric motors and about 1,595 HP, according to Motor Trend, meaning this scary VW machine will probably have equally scary HP numbers.
The hillclimb is in June, so we’ll know more about this race car soon. Until then, maybe it’s better to stay away from the sci-fi movies. They’re hitting a little too close to home anymore.
DISCUSSION
If there was ever a track built to show why electric is better than ICE, Pike’s Peak is the one.
Short. Massive horsepower sucking elevation. Fairly open set of rules.