Video: All Electric 1981 Camaro Runs 11’s at Drag Strip


I’ve been faithfully following the saga of Ron Adamwicz’s 100% electric 1981 Chevy Camaro, which aims to take the world by (quiet) storm. Even with just one motor going, Ron managed to take the Camaro to an 11.25 @ 107 mph!

I first profiled Ron’s electric Camaro, the Team Hayin Warp Factor II EV Camaro, right before his first run down the drag strip. Since then, he’s been to three different drag strips, working out the kinks and problems that come with any drag car, never mind an all-electric Camaro. This past weekend Ron, the President of the East Coast Electric Drag Racing Association, made his best run to-date at Palm Beach International Raceway, taking down the quarter-mile in 11.25 seconds, reaching a top speed of 107 mph. He did this using just one of the two 11″ Warp motors (one of them kept disengaging, so obviously there are still some of kinks to work out.)

Ron has his eyes set on being the fastest street-boded electric dragster in the world, and he is well on his way to fulfilling that goal with this low-11’s run. For comparison’s sake, a 2011, 430 horsepower Camaro can run the quarter mile in close to 13 seconds. A 550 horsepower 2011 Shelby GT500 Mustang runs the quarter-mile in the mid-to-low 12-seconds range. The million-dollar Bugatti Veyron takes about 10.5 seconds. The current world-record holding electric dragster, the Black Current, which went the same distance in a scant 9.5 seconds (and of which there is now video), so Ron still has some work ahead of him.

But turning an old American muscle car into an electric dragster? Sorry Beetle fans, but that is way, way cooler, and hopefully will serve as a bridge to bring more gearheads on board with the electric car crowd. At the very least, it will be a lighting rod for controversy, and dare I say, intelligent debate? What you can’t debate is that Ron has built an impressive drag machine and earned respectable numbers on one of his first tries out. He’s serious, and so is his electric Camaro.

I’ll always love the loud raucous sounds of a big-displacement, fuel guzzling V8 race engine, but there’s something unsettling-yet-awesome about this fast-and-quiet Camaro blizting down the 1,320. With a little more tweaking, single digits aren’t all that far away. EV drag racing is really starting to heat up, and there’s plenty of competitors with projects in the works. This is the next level of hot rodding, and it’s only going to get better from here.

About the author

Chris Demorro

Christopher DeMorro is a freelance writer and journalist from Connecticut with two passions in life; writing and anything with an engine.
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