The 24 Hours of Le Mans races is an extremely prestigious endurance motorsport event which attracts the best cars and drivers from around the world. It’s one of the longest-running races too, taking place once a year since 1923 (with a few obvious understandable gaps). But, like most motorsports, it’s financially out of reach for most people. One of the more popular attempts to bring racing to the masses has been the 24 Hours of Lemons races, which have price limits on vehicles to keep the barrier to entry low, and an EV truck recently entered one of these races with some interesting results.
The group behind this vehicle is called Team Arcblast, who retrofitted an old Datsun pickup truck to the extreme to enter this race. The modestly sized electric motor is installed in between the cab and the bed for easy access to the driveshaft, with the engine bay repurposed for all of the cooling and radiators needed for endurance racing like this. They’ve also equipped the truck with plenty of efficiency-increasing spoilers and other aerodynamic parts, and rebuilt the cab with not only the required roll cage and other safety equipment, but a modified driving position with steering and other components from various Miatas.
The most impressive part of this build, however, is the battery. The team invented a method of swapping out batteries quickly to avoid having to fast charge the car in the pit area. The system lets a battery slide in to the middle of the truck above the motor and quickly connect to the electrical system allowing for very quick pit stops and the ability to charge other batteries while the race goes on. All of these modifications together allowed the team to break the EV record for a Lemons race.
For a Lemons race, though, even this truck stretches the original spirit that these races were started, however impressive the build. We published a primer to these types of races a while back which includes much more affordable internal combustion options.
Thanks to [JohnU] for the tip!
That’s no Datsun. That’s an early FSO Polonez Truck variant. What a shame they destroyed such a rare car just for youtube views.
That is definitely a Datsun. FSO Polonez were never sold in the US. And if you think they did this for YouTube views, you should do some research on 24 Hours of Lemons. That’s just what they do.
Disagree.
According to Wikipedia, that’s a 1973-79 Datsun 620.
Still rare nowadays though
Yes! Polonez had much more “square” front and different front design (black plastic grill integrating lights and masking front).
I disagree, it’s an old car still being used and looked after, better than rusting away in a field.
No, from the body line visible on the doors, it’s a Datsun…
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=polonez+truck+fso&iar=images&t=ftsa
There’s a lot of ‘classics’ running in Lemons, and the vast majority of them would have either rusted away or been scrapped ,if they hadn’t been rescued for a new life in racing.
It might stretch the OG spirit of the rules, but it’s very much something that the organizers want participants to try out given that they’re offering a $50k prize to the first EV team to win overall.
Oh, Datsun, how I have missed you…
I don’t usually watch any YouTube cr@p.
Did they say how much this cost to build?
Lemon rules say no more than $500 USD.
Once more this doesn’t pass the smell test.
Nuf said…
LeMons adds penalty laps to over budget cars, based on the admin’s vibes. go over budget but did it in a cool way? less penalty laps than the built miata 4 pits down
That’s how it used to work, but Lemons hasn’t had a real $500 budget cap for a long time.
Lemons has never had a real $500 cap, but especially so for anyone running an EV of their own design.
Forget Elon Musk! I’d prefer these guys put together a pickup truck for me.
Probably cheaper in mass production too!
There’s another team running Lemons in a mostly stock Nissan Leaf. To charge, they have to leave the track, and drive to the nearest charging station. It’s not very competitive, but they’re having fun, which is the important part.