A group of University of Canterbury students are aiming to break the world land-speed record in a rocket-shaped electric car which they designed and built.
The UC Motorsport club will be taking their creation to Lake Gairdner in South Australia to compete in the Dry Lakes Racers Australia Speed Week next March.
Inspired by the 2005 Roger Donaldson film The World's Fastest Indian, the students are hoping to take the legacy of the Munro family to new speeds.
UC Motorsport Team Principal Kaenan Ferguson told 1News the Munro family have been hugely supportive of the club.
"We kind of reflected on the whole Burt Munro story and the World’s Fastest Indian, and reflected on how key that was in quite a lot of our lives."
The World E-1 land-speed record is currently held by Brigham Young University in the United States.
"Their record sits at about 329 kilometres an hour, so a bit of a challenge," he told 1News.
It's the first time a New Zealand university team has ever attempted a land-speed record at the event, and only the second time a university team from anywhere in the world has entered the electric competition class.
"We'll be testing this vehicle over the next month here at the Wigram Airforce Museum and then in early January we will ship the car off to Australia."
Built from the ground up, the vehicle is 7.5 metres long.
"We have to do the whole design, you know we manufacture the whole casing, how all the systems work inside the car, all the body panels you see there - we have made those from scratch.
“All the space frames, all the rims of the wheels have been done by us."
Canterbury student Will Scharpf is in charge of the powertrain engineering in the vehicle. He says it was a quite the work load.
"Kind of stressful especially with all the calculations and knowing there's not a whole lot of people checking what you're doing," Will told 1News.
This month marks the 10th anniversary of the UC Motorsport group, having built a new race car every year.
UC Design Engineer Bruce Robertson oversees the project, and says students are familiar with all the technology.
He says it’s an opportunity for students to apply what they know, to a real-world situation. Offering more than just a text-book experience.
"I kind of think of it as them being a little bit battle hardened. They find out the realities of a complex project and learn a lot of things they can't really learn in a lecture theatre, or just through standard assignments," he told 1News.
“It has been a lot of fun!"
A driver for the race is yet to be chosen from the 16 members in the club.
The club members are planning to travel to South Australia next year, for the speed week event. Fuelled by a legacy which is driven by their own ambitions.
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