At a circuit where brands like Porsche, Mercedes, and Lamborghini obsess over shaving milliseconds, the Nürburgring usually celebrates one thing: speed. But French manufacturer Ligier decided to flip the script completely. Instead of chasing lap records, it went after something no one else wanted—and succeeded. The result? A new, very unconventional record for the slowest official lap ever completed on the legendary Green Hell.
The Bravest Question of All: Would You Drive This Here?
That unlikely hero was the Ligier JS50, a tiny diesel-powered microcar taken onto the Nürburgring by journalists Nicolas Meunier and Martin Coulomb. With just eight horsepower on tap and a top speed capped at 45 km/h, the JS50 is a car you’d normally expect to see navigating city streets—not one of the most demanding racetracks on the planet.
Eight Horsepower Takes on the Green Hell
Against all logic, the JS50 completed the full 20.8-kilometer lap. The stopwatch stopped at a staggering 28 minutes and 25.8 seconds. That time officially makes it the slowest car ever to lap the circuit, beating the previous “record holder,” the Trabant P50, which managed a 16-minute lap back in 1960. To put things into perspective, the current fastest production-car lap—set by the Mercedes-AMG One—takes just 6 minutes and 29 seconds.
Slow, But Shockingly Efficient
Despite the snail-like pace, the drive came with its own kind of achievement. The JS50 completed the entire lap on a single tank of fuel, delivering an eye-opening fuel consumption figure of around 40 kilometers per liter of diesel. Not bad for a car doing laps at the Nürburgring, even if those laps feel endless.
A “Racing Package” That’s Mostly a Joke—and That’s the Point
Adding to the charm, the car wore what Ligier calls an “Extreme Racing Experience” package. In reality, it’s all visual flair—sporty decals and a body kit that suggest performance the car clearly doesn’t have. The joke landed so well that Ligier is now considering offering this package to customers who want their car to look fast, even if it absolutely isn’t.
ArabGT Take
There’s a saying every car enthusiast knows: it’s more fun to drive a slow car flat out than a fast car slowly. This Nürburgring run is living proof. What these journalists did wasn’t about lap times or bragging rights—it was about having fun, embracing the absurd, and reminding us that car culture isn’t always serious. Sometimes, the real challenge is simply crossing the finish line… before nightfall.
