The mission:
Let's face it: everyone steals from every one else at one point or another. It's shady, but then haven't friends and loved ones done the same to us at at least some point in our lives and careers?
Take the man Carroll Shelby; he never really "stole" from anyone, per se; it's just that he was the bad-ass, American racer who got fucked-over by GM, and so he decided to become part of the Ford family instead. On a more personal scale, even our lovers and friends who have been involved with the auto industry have blind-sided us to a degree; why shouldn't General Motors do the same thing in the 1980s with the Buick Grand National, then again in the '90s with the Saturn EV1?! It makes dollars and it makes sense, which in turn makes more dollars.
So what to do now in a world where Tesla is becoming the EV market's standard, and public charging stations are nearly everywhere? That solution is a simple one: take a pre-existing flagship and retrofit it. Bruce McLaren sure did build a bad car in the '60s with the M8; with the "Tesla touch" being added to that very platform, that mother fucker sure would be a thing of fear at LeMans or "the Ring!"
In that "bad boy" spirit of car-building, this proposal introduces a new flagship vehicle to the Tesla lineup; that vehicle is the proposed Tesla "GT-85."
Specs and performance:
0-60: 3.5 seconds (est.)
Top speed: 285 mph (est.)
1/4 mile: 11.3 @ 135 mph (est.)
Platform: McLaren M8 kit car
Drivetrain: Tesla Model S P85 DC-linear with an onboard lithium battery
Range: 235-300 miles at full charge
Estimated price: $150,000 (est.)
Projected availability: Between 2015-16
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