Nissan ZEOD RC Laps the Top Gear Track - Faster than a Ferrari FXX

Although you can’t really say the Nissan ZEOD RC is a true three-wheeler, you have to admit it looks like one. However, the Japanese automaker took the shabby tricycle-with-a-cab idea and turned it into a record breaking prototype.

The problem with the Reliant Robin was that its center of gravity was wrongly managed, having the engine at the front, where there’s only one wheel in the middle. Take a look at the Morgan Three-Wheeler for the best example of G spot managing - engine is still up front, actually hanging out of the body, yet it still turns like a dream. That’s because the engine is flanked by two wheels and when the car dives into a corner, the engine’s inertia is countered by the outside wheel.

A three-wheeler like no other

The guys over at Nismo said a high-tech prototype looking like the wooden Morgan won’t cut it so they kept the classic trike combination but played with dynamics quite a lot. Two narrow wheels at the front spaced by the world’s shortest track, two fat tires at the back, light pointy nose and a powerplant right behind the cockpit.

And boy what an engine - a 1.5-liter three-cylinder turbocharged gasoline unit making 400 hp (298 kW) and 380 Nm of torque (280 lb-ft) that weighs only 40 kilos (88.2 lb). But that’s not all, as the unit is backed up by two 110 kW (147 hp) asynchronous electric motors. This enables the racecar to work in hybrid or even pure EV mode.

Although the ZEOD RC failed to finish this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race as a “garage 56” car, the prototype was the first to lap the Circuit de la Sarthe using only electric power. It even reached 300 km/h (186 mph) without the gasoline engine kicking in to help.

Now, Nissan brought the wing-shaped car at Top Gear’s test track to show them “three-wheelers” are not that bad. How did it perform? We’ll only say that it outscored the record set by Michael Schumacher in the Ferrari FXX (1.10.7) by about 5 seconds.