Slow road to success
A French microcar holds the record for the slowest lap of the Nürburgring Nordschleife after completing a circuit of the famous 20km course in a painstaking 28m 25.8s.
While most car manufacturers battle to be the quickest at the German venue, an honour held by a Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo with a blistering 5m 19.5s, a team from Ligier set out to show how slow its vehicles can go.
Three versions of its JS50, a diesel-powered version and two electrified variants, took to the track last year.
The diesel model has a top speed of 45kph and shattered the previous slowest time of 16m 1s, which was set by a Trabant P50 in 1960.
The standard EV version crawled around in 27m 55.6s, while the higher-specification electric model has a top speed of 75kph and clocked 19m 53.4s.
Ligier notes the microcars, which do not require a licence to be driven in France, sported symbolic numbers for the challenge that “hinted at Ligier’s glorious history in Formula 1”.
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