A car, a bike, two good sorts who really know how to shunt them around a track and... no gears, an eerie lack of noise and zero carbon dioxide.
The event was a one-off all-electric exhibition race at Britain's Thruxton track, with Citroen pitting its lean, swoopy Survolt concept against an Agni Z2 sportbike.
The machinery? In lane one, ladies and gentlemen, the Survolt: a super lightweight racing frame with a tubular chassis, flat underside with diffuser, draped in bodywork of full carbon-fibre. At its heart are twin 31 kW/hr lithium-ion batteries, each weighing in at about 140kg and putting power to the ground through two electric motors with a combined output of 224 kW between 0 and 5,000 rpm.
Weighing just 1150 kg, it's good for a sub-five-second 100 km/h sprint, a top speed of 260 km/h and up to 200 km on a single charge (although not, we suspect, at those speeds)
At the wheel, ladies and gentlemen, we have Vanina Ickx, Le Mans and Touring Car series driver and carrier of some genes known in automotive circles to be very special indeed -- just look at that surname.
In lane two we have the equally electric Agni Z2. With an 80-cell battery pack powering a 50 kW all-electric drivetrain, it weighs in at 220 kg. It's been known to reach 100 kays in just 3.5 seconds and go on to an eeeeee-lectrifying 210-kay top speed.
Astride the Agni is Britain's Jenny Tinmouth, the fastest woman around the Isle of Man TT course and championship leader in the 2010 TTXGP -- that's like Moto GP for electric bikes.
The result is... well, an entertaining couple of minutes on YouTube (see the link below), complete with loud music to offset the quiet engines.
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