All that seems to be old history now that the Lightning GT will enter a “late prototype” stage of development and should be ready for production by spring 2012, according to Ian Sanderson (Chairman of the Lightning Car Company) who was quoted by autocar magazine.
Sanderson says the company is on the long straight to attract the £15.5 million ($25 million) the company needed for the next two stages of development stages. First will be a £3.5 million ($5.66 million) initial phase, when two fully functioning prototypes will be ready to be shown to one of Lightning’s financial backers, Technology Strategy. The second phase will consist of a number of complete cars ready for the road to be built and driven in order to fine-tune the model.
“We want to prove that electric cars can be aspirational products that offer an ownership experience equal to any normal supercar,” said Sanderson.
Lightning’s new CEO Tim Marin has chosen to ditch the original four engined design in favor of a twin-motor arrangement with better weight distribution. The car’s proposed 400 hp should mean it deals with the 0 to 62 mph (0 to 100 km/h) in under 5 seconds.
The problems we foresee are, however, with the expected range which should be around the 100 mile (161 km) mark. Given the fact this is called a GT it should have enough range for a dash to Casino Square in Monaco withought worrying about running out of juice on the way. What we do like, on the other hand, is the quintessentially British styling for the new car.
The company expects to sell around 250 cars per year for a price around the £180,000 mark ($291,000).
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