10 Of The Wildest Pikes Peak Cars Ever | Feature
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This weekend sees the 102nd running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, a legendary mainstay of the world of motorsport that sees a bonkers array of vehicles get fully sent up a 12.4-mile, 156-turn road that goes… well, absolutely nowhere, except to the top of a 14,000-foot mountain in Colorado.
We always get excited about Pikes Peak, because the rules – or lack thereof – mean that competitors turn up in some properly ludicrous machinery, designed with the sole purpose of scrabbling its way up the mountain as quickly as possible. Quite often, it’s a big car manufacturer setting out with something to prove, and this year’s no different as both Ford and Hyundai send specialised electric racers up the gruelling course.
We’ve been taking a look back over previous runnings and, as hard as it was to whittle them down to 10, picked out our favourite machines ever to take on Pikes Peak.
Peugeot 405 T16
Peugeot 405 T16 Pikes Peak
Where else can we start? Peugeot has one of the strongest links to Pikes Peak of any manufacturer, and the 405 T16 is probably its most iconic competitor. Where the roadgoing 405 was a humble front-drive saloon, the T16, crafted from the remains of a car Peugeot was developing for the cancelled Group S rally rules, was a wild mid-engined coupe with a carbon-kevlar body.
With four-wheel drive, the best part of 600bhp from a 1.9-litre turbocharged four, and aero that dwarfed anything F1 used in period, the 405 T16 took the overall victory at Pikes Peak in 1988 and ’89. It’s rally supremo Ari Vatanen’s ’88 run that everyone remembers, though, as it was immortalised in the almost impossibly cool short film ‘Climb Dance’.
Peugeot 208 T16
Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak
It would be almost 25 years before Peugeot returned to the mountain, but when it did in 2013, it was with something very much in the 405’s spirit. This time wearing a body loosely resembling the 208, it had – surprise, surprise – almost nothing to do with the little supermini.
It had a motorsport-spec 3.2-litre twin-turbo V6 pumping out 875bhp, which it satisfyingly matched with an 875kg kerbweight. The vast rear spoiler was lifted straight from the Peugeot 908 Le Mans Prototype. Pug once again brought in rallying royalty to drive it, this time the sport’s statistical G.O.A.T., Sébastien Loeb. He absolutely demolished the previous record by over a minute and a half – although this was the first year the course was fully paved.
Toyota Tacoma
Toyota Tacoma Pikes Peak
Kiwi Rod Millen has excelled in all kinds of motorsports, but perhaps his biggest impact was at Pikes Peak in the late ’90s, when he rocked up in this 986bhp slice of lunacy that vaguely resembled a Toyota Tacoma pickup. That power was courtesy of a 2.1-litre turbocharged 3S-GTE engine – the same one that powered the iconic JGTC Supra, but completely unshackled.
The Tacoma took the overall victory in 1998 and ’99, but just in case it wasn’t impressive enough yet, Millen brought it back to Pikes Peak in 2022, driving it to eighth overall. At the age of 71. What an unbelievably cool man.
Image: Brian Snelson, CC BY 2.0
Suzuki Escudo
Suzuki Escudo Pikes Peak
Gran Turismo fans will instantly recognise this one for being a game-breakingly rapid inclusion in almost every mainline GT title since GT2. In fact, its video game fame has probably eclipsed its motorsport achievements, but it’s still absolutely worthy of inclusion here.
Featuring a body that vaguely resembled a squashed version of the regular Suzuki Escudo (known as the Vitara in Europe), in its ultimate iteration it was pumping out 981bhp from its 2.5-litre twin-turbo V6. Piloted by Pikes Peak legend Nobuhiro Tajima, who casually goes by the nickname ‘Monster’, it never managed an overall win, but did take second in 1996, ’98 and ’99.
Image: PETE Alin., CC BY-SA 3.0
Suzuki Cultus
The Escudo, though, wasn’t even the maddest thing Suzuki took to the mountain in the ’90s. Prior to that, it was experimenting with the complete engineering headache of a twin-engine layout. Nominally based on the little Cultus supermini, which we knew as the Swift, this early ’90s creation had a separate 1.6-litre turbocharged four-pot powering each axle, for a combined output of around 800bhp.
Once again driven by ‘Monster Tajima’, it took the Unlimited class win in 1992 and ’93. Of course, it also sat alongside the Escudo in Suzuki’s special models showroom in Gran Turismo 2, which is perhaps what it’s best known for.
Audi Quattro
Audi Quattro S1 E2 Pikes Peak
Perhaps spotting the writing on the wall for Group B rallying, Audi withdrew from the WRC after the tragic 1986 Portuguese round. It left the company with the reasonably new S1 E2 version of the Quattro rally car sitting around not doing much. Its solution? Send it to Pikes Peak.
Freed from Group B regulations, Audi was able to drop the Quattro’s weight significantly, improve its weight distribution, and massively turn up the wick on its warbly 2.1-litre turbocharged five-cylinder. Official power numbers are hard to come by, with everything from 740 to 1000bhp floated. Whatever it was, it was enough, as Audi rallying hotshot Walter Röhrl became the first person to break the 11-minute barrier in 1987.
Four-Rotor Mazda 3
In case ‘Monster’ Tajima wasn’t a telling enough nickname, perhaps ‘Mad’ Mike Whiddett gives you an idea of the sort of person it takes to tackle Pikes Peak. The New Zealand drifting legend tackled the mountain for the first time in 2023, and, this being Whiddett, it was in something utterly unhinged.
He took a Mazda 3 hatchback and dropped in a twin-turbo, four-rotor Wankel engine sending around 1400bhp to the rear wheels and making a noise that sounded like a million enraged wasps trapped in a machine gun. Whiddett completed a 10min 35sec run, breaking the record for the fastest rotary-powered car up the mountain.
Porsche 911 ‘Hoonipigasus’
Porsche 911 ‘Hoonipigasus’
Something that could only have come from the brains of the late Ken Block and his Hoonigan cohort, the ‘Hoonipigasus’ was a one-off creation vaguely resembling an air-cooled Porsche 911. Its twin-turbo flat-six sat in the middle of the car rather than its traditional location out back, and sent 1400bhp to all four wheels.
Block was preparing for a full-bore run at Pikes Peak in 2022, but an engine failure during practice meant the car never got to compete. Plans were quickly underway for a return in 2023, but would never come to fruition due to Block’s tragic death at the start of that year. It would, however, be given an emotional demo run at that year’s event by his 16-year-old daughter Lia. No, YOU’RE crying.
Ford Transit SuperVan 4.2
Ford Transit SuperVan 4.2
Ford is returning to Pikes Peak this year with the electric F-150 Lightning SuperTruck, but it narrowly missed out on overall honours in 2023 with the Transit SuperVan 4.2. A development of the SuperVan 4 demonstrator, in Pikes Peak spec it used a total of three electric motors to push out 1400bhp.
That’s all the more impressive when you learn that it’s not just a silhouette racer: apparently, somewhere deep within it, are the bones of a regular Transit van. With current Pikes Peak record holder Romain Dumas at the wheel, it claimed runner-up at the 2023 event, a second place that should be sufficient motivation for Ford to try and best it with the SuperTruck this year.
Volkswagen ID. R
Volkswagen ID. R
We could only end with the most specialised, viciously fast bit of kit ever to get thrown up those 156 turns. Volkswagen pitched up at Pikes Peak 2018 with the ID. R, an all-electric statement of intent. Looking for all the world like a Le Mans Prototype had escaped the bounds of a racetrack and pitched up in rural Colorado, its two motors made a peak of 671bhp.
That’s a relatively small amount next to some of the other cars on this list, but unlike combustion-powered cars, it’s not losing any of that power as the air gets ever-thinner towards the mountain’s summit at 14,115 feet above sea level. With Romain Dumas (yep, him again) at the wheel, the ID. R absolutely monstered the overall record, setting a new benchmark of 7min 57.148secs. It’s a time that nobody’s come close to beating yet, and would require a very special machine indeed to best.
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