Battery-electric swaps go against the grain for some vintage cars—but for these ones, electrons could make things better
Converting classic vehicles to electric power is a topic that carries as much controversy as, say, a German theologian nailing his 95 theses to a church door. Heresy! Take away that combustion engine and you’re taking away a beloved icon’s beating heart, leaving an appliance behind that has no more soul than a toaster.
This got us thinking: what other classic machines could benefit from an EV swap? We mean ones that not even the purists could complain about — machines that are just crying out to be improved with a battery pack and electric drive. Here are seven picks for EV conversions that have the potential to be not only un-heretical, but positively divine.
Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II
“At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.” This famous tagline, penned in the 1950s by ad-man David Ogilvy, is as good as they come. It’s also basically a lie, as a 1950s Rolls looks graceful, but is only genteel when compared to its rough-and-tumble contemporaries.
Citroën DS
The DS is French elegance personified, a car of such peerless grace that saying its name aloud – déesse – is to invoke the French word for “goddess.” Unfortunately, under its curving sheetmetal is a series of four-cylinder engines that are as boring as onion soup.
Volkswagen Karmann Ghia
The Karmann Ghia is beautiful. It is stylish. It is handmade and sporty-looking. It’s also slower than a contemporary Volkswagen Beetle, upon whose platform it rides.
Who wouldn’t say, “Hello, there,” to a classic Karmann Ghia that finally has the straight-line performance to match its slippery looks? And, as the Ghia is common (not quite as common as the Beetle, but still) there’d be plenty of sluggardly air-cooled ones for those who are into that sort of thing.
Aston Martin Lagonda
Nightmarishly unreliable if you don’t know what you’re doing, the futuristic-looking Lagonda saloon did come with a proper V8 under its angular hood. But that doesn’t mean it was powered by eight cylinders — rather that it was occasionally powered by seven, or three, or none at all.
Cadillac DeVille
Yes, that Cadillac. The Boss Hogg one, triple-white with longhorns up front and party in back. How great would cruising around town in this kind of land-barge be? The only thing that could make it better is not having a massive, emissions-choked V8 swilling down the gasoline and while delivering as much horsepower as a hand blender.
Any Cadillac from the 1970s would do here, an Eldorado or a Fleetwood Brougham. Or we can also throw the door open to chief rival Lincoln, and invite one of its football-field-sized personal luxury coupes to join the EV party.
Volkswagen Westfalia
Part of the drawback of converting a classic to EV is how much the conversion costs, which is why people only do it for more valuable cars. Good news, then, if you’ve seen how much a Subaru-powered restomod 1980s VW Westfalia goes for.
Granted, electric conversion of a Westy might come with less roaming range than the gasoline-powered versions. However, having all that reliable onboard juice would make for a much better camping experience, with an actually functioning fridge, cooking surface, and proper LED lighting at night.
It’d be a return to pop-top mini-RV bliss, and if you end up spending a little time at fast-chargers on your road trip, well, you’re in a home-on-wheels anyway.
DeLorean DMC-12
Doc and Marty would love it, and there are of course already people doing this conversion. No-one gets mad about ditching the original V6, not even online. Because it might seem wrong to lose something like the flat-six soundtrack from a Porsche 911, but cars like the DMC-12 deserve the EV conversions that’ll keep them from running outta time.
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