How to turn your favourite classic car into an EV

Last updated on May 7th, 2021 at 10:45 pm

Introduction

Your first outing in a premium EV such as a Tesla is likely to be a memorable driving experience. But many of us will look at the futuristic appearance (and spartan interior in Tesla’s case) and hanker for something with a bit more individualistic character. Unfortunately, one of the big casualties of the push towards low emissions is the modern classic car. London’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone, for example, will banish classic cars younger than a 1981 year of manufacture when it arrives in 2021 to outside the North Circular, unless a fee of £12.50 per day of usage is paid.

But what if you could drive a vehicle full of personality that you’ve always dreamed of since childhood, but without the emissions baggage? What if it was a lot more reliable, too? Well, with the help of one of a growing number of UK companies, you can have the best of both worlds. We asked two of the leading UK-based EV classic car conversion companies to explain what services they offered, how much it could cost, and what the end results might drive like.

Electric Classic Cars (ECC) is based in Newtown, Powys in Wales and claims to be biggest EV classic conversion company in the world, while Electrogenic operates out of Kidlington in Oxfordshire. Both companies have converted hundreds of cars, with standouts like Electric Classic Cars’ Ferrari 308 and Electrogenic’s Rolls Royce Silver Shadow and “Marmite” VW camper pickup. We learned that almost any car can be made into an EV. Read on for all the details.

Finding your donor car

“More or less anything can be converted,” explains Steve Drummond, Director of Electrogenic. “The biggest problem is physically fitting the batteries, so a very small car makes compromises on range. So is big square and heavy, which will be better for cruising at 50-60 than 70mph.”

Richard Morgan, Director of Electric Classic Cars suggests that you should start with what your requirements are. “Do you want a two-seater sports car for summer or do you want a daily driver?” he asks. “Do you need back seats? Do you want to be able to tinker with it or just get in and drive?” Morgan also recommends a manual donor car rather than automatic, arguing that the classic auto boxes sometimes can’t cope with the immediate torque of an electric engine.

Electrogenic converts a lot of minis, whilst ECC does a lot of Fiat 500s. Both find air-cooled VWs such as Beetles and camper vans are popular, as well as Land Rover Defenders. The latter are particularly easy to work on, as they have loads of room inside. In fact, ECC is currently working on equipping a Defender with 200kWh of batteries weighing 900kg on their own, which should provide a range of over 300 miles. However, since Defenders can cope with a gross vehicle weight of 3.1 tonnes, this isn’t a problem. Morgan stresses that you need to work within the gross weight of the donor car, because otherwise the conversion would be illegal. Drummond told us that it was possible to fit up to 30 Tesla batteries in its “Marmite” VW camper van pickup, giving 159kWh of capacity.

Drummond says that you want to start with a car with good bodywork, running gear and gearbox. Getting a car that needs a lot of work in these areas will really push your costs up, because the whole thing will need to be fully restored, rather than just the conversion, and getting rid of lots of rust is expensive. Morgan explains that the Fiat 500 is a great starter option because you can find them for under £8,000, so your primary cost is the electric running gear. Both Electrogenic and ECC can help with sourcing if you don’t want to bother with this yourself.

Drummond also explains that you must be careful to avoid changing too much about the car, otherwise DVLA rules will mean the car needs to go through homologation – a lengthy and expensive process. So Electrogenic doesn’t touch the chassis, suspension, or (usually) the drive system. To retain the original registration, a vehicle must have eight or more points according to the DVLA’s system, where the chassis counts for 5, whilst suspension, axles, transmission and steering count for 2 each. Removing the engine loses just one point, so swapping this for an electric one will be fine. However, you can switch to direct drive, losing the transmission, and still comfortably make up 8 points.

How much does a classic EV conversion cost?

Converting a classic car to electric is not a cheap route to EV ownership, but it’s not an absolute fortune only for the landed aristocracy either. Aston Martin’s EV conversion might set you back half a million, but Electrogenic quotes around £35,000 for a Beetle conversion like Drummond’s own vehicle. This has seven Tesla batteries, and a potent Hyper 9 engine, which allow it to hit 0-60mph in just 7.5 seconds (amazing for a classic Beetle!) and achieve a range of between 140 and 180 miles.

Morgan says ECC could convert a Fiat 500 for between £22,000 and £25,000. ECC also sells kits so you can do the conversion yourself, which cost around £18,000. With a donor car of £8,000, that’s £30-33,000 all in. The end result is a little town runabout which will hit 60mph in under 10 seconds and has a range between 50 and 70 miles using three Tesla batteries for 15.5kWh. Adding an extra battery for £1,440 would extend the capacity to 21kWh and the range to around 100 miles and this still fits neatly inside a Fiat 500.

You don’t need to spend an absolute fortune to end up with something truly staggering, either. ECC’s famous Ferrari 308 GTSi conversion only cost around £55,000 (plus the donor car). This uses a Tesla direct drive system delivering 470bhp and 18 LG Chem batteries providing 47kWh of capacity. The result is a car that could hit 60mph in 2.7 seconds, although ECC has toned it down to 3.5 seconds so as not to stress the donor chassis too much. The original car took around 7.3 seconds, so this is still a huge leap in acceleration. It has a range of 150 miles if you drive it more gently, too. Perfect for city shopping. The handling is better too, because the weight is now distributed 50/50 across the car instead of mostly at the back.

Working out what this does to the value of your original car is hard. Drummond doesn’t want to guess about the final value of a conversion but argues that as they don’t do any major chassis modification, you could put the old engine back in and essentially have the same original vehicle, so you’re not losing any money. Morgan, however, thinks that the value would increase, because the result is unique, citing a Fiat 500 which would cost under £8,000 in original form but easily fetch £25,000 converted. A Porsche conversion ECC did was sold on for more than the cost within a few weeks of completion.

What components do you need?

Once you’ve found your donor car, there is a huge range of options regarding how you electrify it. As well as doing the conversion for you, ECC can sell you the bits you need to do it yourself, which provides a good idea of the possibilities. A 47bhp HPEV AC20 motor costs £3,593 and a 120bhp Netgain Hyper 9 engine with 230nm of torque is £4,580. The latter can be installed as an in-line pair for twice the performance. It’s also possible to add more via pulleys, although this isn’t recommended. All of these operate through your existing gearbox, so are essentially a replacement for the petrol engine. However, the gearbox might need some modification. Electrogenic’s Drummond told us his Beetle has had first, second and reverse removed by Bears Motorsport, with third and fourth altered, to give a simpler, smoother drive and a 120mph top speed – which is pretty stratospheric for VW Beetle.

Instead of more than two Hyper 9s, the next rung up is to use Tesla drivetrains, which require more work on the car in many ways. Electrogenic doesn’t do this conversion so often, or recommend it except for very specialised projects, because Tesla motors operate at 400V, so you need enough batteries to supply this and more expensive wiring. Each Tesla battery provides a maximum of 25.2V, so at least 16 Tesla batteries are required. But ECC estimates around £8,000 for a “small” 350bhp Tesla setup, or £10,000 for a “large” 450bhp motor and £15,000 for 600bhp. A Tesla conversion would set you back £30-35,000 in total.

The next major consideration is batteries, and most conversions will use Tesla ones because, as Electrogenic’s Drummond admits, “Tesla makes the best batteries.” These come from crashed Teslas, because Tesla won’t sell them new, so they will typically have around 25,000 miles on them. Given that they’re rated for 200,000 miles, this isn’t a major problem. A single Tesla Model S battery is £1,440 for 5.3kWh, which equates to £270 per kWh. You’ll need quite a few of these, too, since each one will only be enough for 20-25 miles, but at 26kg apiece it’s also a trade-off against the overall weight of the vehicle.

The basic Standard Range Plus Tesla Model 3 has 54kW of batteries, so to match this you’d need around 10 of these for a 260kg weight. You will also need a custom container box for the batteries. One thing you probably can’t do with a classic car conversion is the clever installation of batteries in the floor that gives Teslas so much room. Some can go in the engine bay, and some in the boot, which can reduce luggage capacity.

Your car will also need an on-board charger, so you can plug it into standard home 240V adapters or commercial outlets. These range from £1,747 for just the charger to £2,195 for the complete kit of parts including Type 2 inlet. Electrogenic doesn’t fit faster chargers than 7kW AC, but ECC will provide 22kW and 50kW DC options on request, although didn’t disclose pricing. You might also need extras like custom drivetrain components and adapters. ECC has adapter kits for popular classic cars so you can hook the electric motor up to the existing drivetrain easily. These range in price from £1,030 to £1,840, and include BMW, Fiat, VW, Porsche and Mazda models.

Then there’s installation on top of this, which can be a bit of an unknown quantity, but taking ECC’s Fiat 500 example above it appears to be somewhere between £4,000 and £7,000 for a basic conversion, and then almost certainly upwards. ECC also sells a particularly fun charging station that looks like an old-fashioned petrol pump. At £3,500, it’s quite a bit more expensive than a standard charger, but very amusing if you can afford it.

What's a classic car EV actually like?

You’ve dropped £30,000 on your classic car conversion. What might you expect at the end? Well, both Drummond and Morgan stress that the EV will be a lot more reliable than the original. Electrogenic’s conversions come with a two-year parts and labour warranty, although this doesn’t apply to damage caused by abuse. The company is also now fitting custom circuitry for remote diagnostics. The EV will also be much quieter, although both companies stress that they deliberately don’t soundproof so you get to hear the whirr of the electric motor. Some might miss the roar of a V8 and throaty exhaust, which could be a downside, but many won’t – particularly if you’ve created a vehicle for city usage.

The upgraded car is likely to be a little heavier than the original. Drummond says a Beetle with 5 Tesla batteries is about 20kg heavier than the donor with a full tank of petrol, and with 7 batteries it would be 70 or 80kg heavier. But as some of this is at the front, driving dynamics is improved, and this will be the case with a lot of conversions where the batteries are placed at the back, so weight can be much more evenly distributed. Power will also be considerably improved. A 1.5 litre Beetle from 1970 had 43bhp; a Hyper 9 motor has 120bhp.

As a result, performance is likely to be a lot better. Even the basic Fiat 500 conversion will provide 0-60mph between 8 and 10 seconds. If you’ve driven a basic EV like a Nissan Leaf, you’ll also realise that 0-30mph is amazing in pretty much any EV, which is exactly what you need around town. Even without going for a direct drive Tesla option, two Hyper 9 motors will provide 240bhp, which will give most classic vehicles a major upgrade in horsepower. Even with the original gearing intact, delivery will be a lot smoother because of the constant torque curve of electric engines compared to internal combustion.

It’s worth noting that classic conversions often leave the original brakes alone, which may sound like a worry if the donor car had old-fashioned drum brakes. However, the regenerative breaking from the electric system will mean that the braking is actually much better in practice.

The final thing to consider is range. Apart from the 200kWh Land Rover Defender mentioned above, and the 159kW VW van, most classics won’t provide the kind or 300-mile range we’re starting to see from the best premium EVs. A simple city-oriented Fiat 500 or Mini conversion might offer 50-100 miles of range, and a larger classic with more batteries could get towards 200 miles, but that’s probably the limit without adding too much weight and losing all practical storage space. But that should be more than enough for metropolitan transport or a daily commute, even if a tour of Wales or Scotland might need serious thought given to strategic charging stops.

There’s no doubt that electrifying a classic is an incredibly fun idea. It may not be a budget way to EV ownership. You need to be a classic car lover first, as Electrogenic’s Drummond particularly emphasises. But it’s also not so exorbitant either. Where £35,000 might get you a Hyundai Ioniq Electric with very little driving pleasure, it could also get a classic VW Beetle EV conversion with similar range, perhaps better performance, and a real sense of occasion every time you get in it – all without the fear that it might not start or will break down that the original air-cooled classic would have given.

Both ECC and Electrogenic have some very exciting-sounding vehicles in the workshop right now. Electrogenic is converting a TVR Cerbera to offer 0-60mph in under 3 seconds using “secret sauce” batteries from a fighter jet, about which Drummond wouldn’t tell us anymore. ECC is working on a Lotus 7 with the aim of a similar 0-60mph capability. In fact, ECC has 18 cars currently in the workshop and 42 in the queue waiting to be started. These include a DeLorean, although we suspect ECC won’t be fitting time travel capabilities. There’s a Maserati Ghibli from 1967, a BMW Isetta, a Jaguar and a Mercedes, and even a Gordon-Keeble, which is an obscure 1960's British brand you’ve probably never heard of before.

There were only 100 Gordon-Keebles produced in the first place, so an electrified version will be one of the most unique vehicles in the world. This truly epitomises what electrifying a classic car is all about – having a singular driving experience that’s also ecologically sound, practical, convenient, and fun. It also recycles not only the donor car but the Tesla batteries as well. If you’re a classic car lover and have a bit of disposable money to spend, it’s a recommended project to try.

Electric Classic Cars is featured in an episode of Vintage Voltage, which is out in the UK on Quest in June 2020, or you can buy episodes of the series on Amazon Prime Video US or MotorTrend.

A preview of ECC’s work can be viewed on Vintage Voltage Conversions’ YouTube channel.