Time and space have seemingly been bent, and it was a small engineering firm in Japan that made it happen. Until today, the idea of a sub-2-second 0-60 time in a street-legal hypercar seemed the impossible barrier to break, but with the recent accomplishments of the Aspark Owl, announced yesterday, it is starting to seem like it could happen.
The Aspark Owl is a surprisingly sexy electric sports car, was launched at the Frankfurt Auto Show last year, where it was spotted by our own David Tracy. Back then the car was claimed to theoretically make 430 horsepower, 563 all-wheel lb-ft of torque, weigh under 1900 pounds, and sprint to sixty in just two seconds flat.
It has now beat that last number.
In the video above, Aspark has thrown down the gauntlet to the world of supercars, setting a 0-60 time of just 1.921 seconds. Admittedly, the car was fitted with a set of Hoosier racing tires (they appear to be quite similar to the Continental racing tires currently used in the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship), and a rear-wheel-only burnout was conducted before the test to warm up the tires, but a 1.921 second 0-60 is a 1.921 second 0-60. While this was an incredible feat, Aspark claim they will continue to tweak the formula until this sub-two-second 0-60 time can be accomplished on street-legal tires.
The test appears to have been completed in the back lot of a small manufacturing facility, perhaps the same facility where the car was assembled. It must take serious balls to point an expensive prototype built of fragile carbon fiber at a short stretch of pavement and aim for 60 miles per hour. The test driver proved he had plenty of balls.
Aspark says the OWL will enter a production run of 50 units soon, and will be priced at about $4.4 million. If you absolutely have to show your Tesla-owning middle-management neighbor who is the boss of the electric car commute, buy yourself an Aspark.