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Lynk & Co's 03 Cyan concept sets two 'Ring records at once

The 528-horsepower sedan is now the fastest four-door car and the fastest front-wheel-drive car around the Nordschleife.

Kyle Hyatt Former news and features editor
Kyle Hyatt (he/him/his) hails originally from the Pacific Northwest, but has long called Los Angeles home. He's had a lifelong obsession with cars and motorcycles (both old and new).
Kyle Hyatt

Now, it's been easy to make jokes about Geely-owned Chinese car startup Lynk & Co because it has a dumb name and its cars are a little odd-looking, but it's been able to use its partnership with former-Polestar racing arm Cyan to do something incredible.

The company announced on Friday that it had used its 03 Cyan Concept -- a front-wheel-drive four-door sedan -- to set a lap time around the Nurburgring Nordschleife of just 7 minutes 20.143 seconds, thereby snagging the record for fastest four-door car from the jaws of 's Project 8 and the fastest front-wheel drive record from Renault.

If that sounds totally nutty, and in defiance of all the laws of physics, we'd agree. The Lynk & Co 03 Cyan produces 528 horsepower from its 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine and sends all that power through a six-speed sequential transaxle and out to the front wheels only. That all amounts to fairly major demands on the poor, tortured front tires on the 03.

We're not sure what kind of weird, dark Lovecraftian witchery that the front axle of the 03 Cyan is using, or what kind of longevity the engine will have while under that much stress, but we know we want to have a go in it.

The record(s)-setting lap was done by Swedish driver Thed Björk (no, not that Björk) who is best-known for clinching the 2017 World Touring Car Championship as well as the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship for three years running.

Lynk & Co 03 Concept sedan peeks out ahead of Shanghai Motor Show

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Watch this: Polestar 1: World's first drive in Sweden