Yesterday I spent the morning driving restomod company Everrati’s electric Porsche 964, which to many is completely sacrilegious in theory, but in practice it was awesome. You’ll have to wait for my full review for all my thoughts on that electric 911, but it got me thinking again about other classic cars that could benefit from an EV swap, and that’s brought me to our question for today: What vintage car do you want to EV swap?
My first-thought answer already exists. My favorite car of all time is the Citroën DS, and British company Electrogenic will build you an EV-swapped DS that retains its original hydraulic suspension. How cool is that! But for the purposes of this post, I’m gonna go with something that I haven’t seen done yet — gimme an electric 1959 Cadillac Eldorado.
I have a huge soft spot for that era of American car design, when everything was gigantic and gaudy and covered in chrome and bright colors. The jet-age styling feels especially prescient these days, and the ’59 Caddy is perhaps the pinnacle of the time. The Eldorado had a massive 6.4-liter V8 engine that put out a very respectable 345 horsepower, but these things were gigantic and heavy, and thus pretty slow by modern standards. Gas mileage was quite horrible, too. Fitting a Eldorado with a powerful electric motor or two and enough batteries for a 200-ish-mile range, plus modern brakes and steering, would be incredible. In fact, I think basically every car from this era would be improved by an EV swap. You could even fit them with low-speed spaceship noises like in other EVs, which would perfectly suit the styling.
Now, your answer can definitely be a car of which an EV-swapped version already exists, but feel free to let your imagination run wild. Do you want an old Jeep with an electric powertrain, or maybe a ‘70s pickup? What about an obscure classic sports car, or a Mercedes 600 Grosser? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll round up the best answers later this week.