
Back in the day, the Ford Pinto was most famous for the occasional gas tank explosion when involved in a rear-end collision. When you design a car with that kind of
feature engineering flaw and then combine it with doors that jam shut in the same type of crash, people are going to talk. Nowadays, there's a Pinto in Alaska with fire-orange paint developing a reputation for a exploding off the drag strip starting line that's got people talking. This pony lacks a gas tank so you know all that smoke must be coming from the tires, though the lack of a screaming V8 might try to fool your senses. The car is owned by the president of the Alaskan chapter of the
Electric Vehicle Association,
Mike Willmon, and can tear up a quarter mile of tarmac in as little as 12.576 seconds and tops out at 127 mph. Yeah, we've seen faster cars too, but we're talking Pinto here! You can get lots of details on the rig at its EV Album page then sit back and watch the electric streak dubbed "Crazy Horse" take on a few "gassers" after the jump.
[Source: Anchorage Daily News / YouTube]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Scott K. 10:52AM (8/18/2008)
Impressive, but I think this falls in the category: Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
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DJL 11:48AM (8/18/2008)
They'll need to triple the size of the battery pack to keep the cabin warm in Alaska.
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antarctic74 1:57PM (8/18/2008)
Great conversion, nice shots!
I just wish the people who made the video had dropped the music. It's an EV!!! I don't want to hear a soundtrack. I want to hear the wheels squealing and I want to hear the electric hum under the bonnet if anything. I want to hear the absence of an engine.
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MIke 3:29AM (8/24/2008)
Standby, we captured several runs on video of each other (Hank and I switching off racing and filming). I got a couple runs of Hank running solo. Good colse ups and sounds of only tires spinning :-)
Mike
Mike 5:03AM (8/24/2008)
I got some u-toob video posted from our runs (amongst the FAST cars) at the track 17Aug08:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mutCzLHwXEc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGcyGL_BEQI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzejR7J2IaE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8C3eEOhdZM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oXJWkpbIDI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXgi4D-yF3g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqQAfGEzNUU
I’m the even numbered runs, Hank is the odd numbered runs.
Don’t go by the number on the window, we kept forgetting to change our number between races. They kept announcing Hank as me and vice versa ;-)
Mike
p.s. vote for us on Dragtimes each day until we make to the top :-)
http://www.dragtimes.com/Ford-Pinto-Timeslip-15453.html
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