To promote a weekend culture of racing in a safe environment, a team of IIT – Guwahati students has built a racing car that zooms off from 0 to 60 km/hour in 5-6 seconds.

Christened ‘Tachyon’ after the hypothetical concept of particles that move faster than light, the fabrication of the sleek black car, involved a team of 27 mechanical engineering students who participated in the design and manufacture process that began in October 2015.

“There is no culture of Formula racing in India. Most of the people enthusiastic about racing take to the streets. So, we wanted to promote a weekend culture of racing in a safe environment,” Nihar Bharadwaj, one of the members of the team, said. Bharadwaj said that the basic motive was to learn the engineering aspects and thus they manufactured the vehicle themselves.

The vehicle is powered by a 600cc petrol internal combustion engine. It has a top speed of 110-120 km/hour. The thrust is on acceleration. Tachyon recently grabbed the second spot in a category of the Formula Bharat engineering design event that was held in Coimbatore. “The racing event we went to mostly focuses on ability to corner and make sharp turns. For that, we need lower speed but significant acceleration and pick-up so we modified our transmission accordingly,” added Bhardwaj.