Lightning GT

Region

United Kingdom

Associated With

The Lightning Car Company Limited - developer

Defining Feature

Battery power in a long-bonnet British grand-tourer body

Status

Cancelled - did not reach series production

Overview

The Lightning GT was a British electric grand-tourer prototype unveiled in London in 2008.

Built in Peterborough, its long-bonnet body framed battery power as a hand-built luxury car rather than economical urban transport. The show version proposed four in-wheel motors and rapid charging; by 2012, a journalist drove a revised twin-motor, rear-wheel-drive prototype in Surrey.

Deposits were advertised and production targets shifted, but the programme remained at prototype stage. The company behind it was dissolved in 2023.

Why It Mattered

The long bonnet gave electric technology the shape of a British grand tourer. Combined with promised performance and rapid charging, it invited buyers to imagine battery power as part of a desirable luxury car. Yet the changing specifications and missed production targets also reveal the distance between presenting that idea and delivering it to customers.

Promised Launch Specification

• At the 2008 launch, the company proposed four PML Flightlink Hi-Pa Drive in-wheel motors, an advertised combined 700 horsepower and a 130 mph speed limiter.
• The company described overnight charging, higher-power dedicated charging and a proposed ten-minute rapid-charge option.
• Acceleration, range, power, battery-life, charging and maximum-speed figures were company claims rather than independently instrumented results.

Development Changes

• By November 2010, the in-wheel-motor plan had been dropped in favour of a twin-motor, rear-wheel-drive layout.
• An Autoblog Translogic journalist drove a working version of the later prototype in Surrey in 2012.
• A December 2009 company presentation described grant-assisted work on the first two cars and said further funding was required.
• The British Motor Museum later reported that only two cars were made, though their chassis identities and individual histories remain unresolved.

Reservations, Targets and Outcome

• Reservations were advertised with a £15,000 deposit, but the number paid and their eventual treatment are unknown.
• Production targets moved through 2009, early 2010 and spring 2012 while development remained at prototype stage.
• No series-production run or customer handover is documented.
• The Lightning Car Company Limited was dissolved through voluntary strike-off on 19 December 2023; this legal date is not the established end date of the vehicle programme.

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