Zombie Cars

[GMB]

Just watched a programme on TV where they pull out the heart and soul out of a Lancia Fulvia and replace it with an electric motor.

What a shame. All the character and "raison d’être " of the Lancia exterminated, to be replaced with a soulless propulsion unit.

That's the problem.  I think electric cars are for people that do not understand or appreciate what driving is all about.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it chaps! Blue touch paper now lit............. 

[Malc1]

I mentioned some months back about a company converting older RRs and Bentleys to EV ......  about £400k tho' 

Malc

[Boomer54]

30 minutes ago, Malc1 said:

I mentioned some months back about a company converting older RRs and Bentleys to EV ......  about £400k tho' 

Malc

Reminded me of that RR with a spitfire engine that was in a police chase years ago. From memory the police burned out their engine trying to catch it. I was searching online for the news article ,but couldn't find it.

[Mincey]

2 hours ago, Boomer54 said:

Reminded me of that RR with a spitfire engine that was in a police chase years ago. From memory the police burned out their engine trying to catch it. I was searching online for the news article ,but couldn't find it.

Was it The Beast? https://www.topgear.com/car-news/retro/beast-auction-john-dodds-famous-merlin-engined-monster-sale

[Linas.P]

28 minutes ago, Mincey said:

Was it The Beast? https://www.topgear.com/car-news/retro/beast-auction-john-dodds-famous-merlin-engined-monster-sale

Doubt it - the beats would run from police until the first corner at best... must have been very straight road then. The car basically does not turn.

As for the topic - I agree, I have tried electric cars and despite their admirable technology and efficiency they all lack "soul" for me... I always feel like in glorified milk float or golf buggy... actually funny to say it as I never drove milk float, so I just assume they feel like that, yet they may actually be better. But I have driven golf buggies a lot, I swear not because I play golf!

[Mincey]

5 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

Doubt it - the beats would run from police until the first corner at best... must have been very straight road then. The car basically does not turn.

 

A fair point! 😆

[Bezzer]

20 minutes ago, Mincey said:

A fair point! 😆

Unless the police car was a Jaguar xj12 we used to have as motorway patrol cars in the 70's, fine on the motorway but they were useless when they left it and met a bend, even the Range Rovers were better.

[Mr Vlad]

Mmmmmmmm. Looks like a thread that's gonna get shut down at sometime down the line lol.

[Boomer54]

The incident involved an RR adapted with a spitfire engine. It was recorded at about 170mph by police chasing it on the MOTORWAY. They burned out their engine giving chase, but eventually of course it was stopped. I remember it went to court for prosecution. I cannot however recall who was driving it.

[Spock66]

22 hours ago, GMB said:

What a shame. All the character and "raison d’être " of the Lancia exterminated, to be replaced with a soulless propulsion unit.

Also hugely expensive to do, far outweigh's the cost of rebuilding the engine.

[Mincey]

27 minutes ago, Boomer54 said:

The incident involved an RR adapted with a spitfire engine. It was recorded at about 170mph by police chasing it on the MOTORWAY. They burned out their engine giving chase, but eventually of course it was stopped. I remember it went to court for prosecution. I cannot however recall who was driving it.

My Googling skills haven't been able to turn anything up - I hope someone else has better luck as I'm intrigued!

[Boomer54]

18 minutes ago, Mincey said:

My Googling skills haven't been able to turn anything up - I hope someone else has better luck as I'm intrigued!

It might be tough finding ,because it was a long time ago.

[HighlandJohn]

Wasn't Vintage Voltage, was it?

[GMB]

4 hours ago, HighlandJohn said:

Wasn't Vintage Voltage, was it?

Yes. They even destroy Morgans and Bentleys.

 

5 hours ago, Mr Vlad said:

Mmmmmmmm. Looks like a thread that's gonna get shut down at sometime down the line lol.

Yes. Story of my life.....

If you are going to put an electric motor in something don't spoil a classic. Put the motor in a dustbin or fridge or some other appropriate receptacle.

 

[Mr Vlad]

I use to watch vintage voltage as I was initially interested. However after a good few episodes I started to go off it. The attitude of the bloke 'moggy' in the programme started to grate me. He's just so blinkered in his 110% belief that electrifying classic cars is the way to go. 

The quality of work is 2nd to none I grant that. However the range of those conversions is shockingly low.

Those who get the conversions done, to me, have much more money than sence.

[HighlandJohn]

2 hours ago, Mr Vlad said:

The quality of work is 2nd to none I grant that.

I'm very much an amateur who can melt metal and get it to stick together [I def wouldn't refer to myself as a welder] but I thought some of their welding was poor, and given it was to be subject to stress in use, I'd not have passed it out as 'acceptable'.  

[Mossypossy]

It is a tv show! Like the instant home tv makeovers that leave the householders with shoddy work that has to be made good at a later stage.

Back to electrifying vehicles. A while ago poor old Neil Young poured lots of his money into his LincVolt project....then Tesla came along to provide instant solutions to the likes of Moggy.

[Shahpor]

Depends on the car I suppose.

To me, this is sacrilege! 

However, this doesn't look like a bad idea considering how terrible the original driveline was:

Also, I think it kinda suits the character of the DeLorean.

[Linas.P]

3 hours ago, Shahpor said:

Depends on the car I suppose.

To me, this is sacrilege! 

However, this doesn't look like a bad idea considering how terrible the original driveline was:

Also, I think it kinda suits the character of the DeLorean.

Yeah - totally agree, as well they did some Ferrari 308 or 328... which at first seems like sacrilege, but knowing how slow the cars actually were and how unreliable and finicky the original running gear is... actually not as bad idea.

Basically... if I had classic with blown engine, perhaps one that was never really sounded that great anyway, or was slow (VW Beatle) or parts are simply unobtanium, so driving it means engine swap anyway... then I can see the point of conversion. But to take cars with legendary engines, with loads of charisma and butcher them for blind goal of "electricity is the future" is sacrilege. 

[Spock66]

58 minutes ago, Linas.P said:

Basically... if I had classic with blown engine, perhaps one that was never really sounded that great anyway, or was slow (VW Beatle) or parts are simply unobtanium, so driving it means engine swap anyway... then I can see the point of conversion.

Or why not just put in a small block V8 like folks have been doing for years, these types of car are always for a bit of fun not as a serious mode of transport so mileage will be relatively low and probably less environmental impact than all those batteries.

[Linas.P]

1 hour ago, Spock66 said:

Or why not just put in a small block V8 like folks have been doing for years, these types of car are always for a bit of fun not as a serious mode of transport so mileage will be relatively low and probably less environmental impact than all those batteries.

Not sure about small block V8, I kind of like staying more or less true to nature of the car. So perhaps in Triumph Spitfire I would put 2.5-3L L6 from BMW, to VW Beatle perhaps 4-6 cylinder boxter from Porsche or Subaru and so on, classic BMW works very well with modern BMW straight-6s etc. 

But you 100% right about environmental impact, presumably one is fitting engine from scrap car, so the engine is technically carbon neutral, the mileage will be very low so tailpipe emissions pretty much irrelevant. On contrary - large Battery will be extremely detrimental for environment as the pollution is stored in the Battery, so for BEV the higher is the mileage the better and classic cars as you say don't actually do high miles. Obviously, if batter is as well salvaged from some crashed Tesla, then perhaps it is less of an issue, but now many conversions actually use new parts, because there is simply not enough of crashed Teslas to do all the conversions (because of how popular they are, and they are used not only for cars, but as well solar energy storage etc.), as such the environmental impact is HORRIBLE for these classic conversion. Indeed just keeping the cars as they are or doing reasonable ICE conversion would be much more environmentally friendly.

Let's just be clear - these conversions are not about environment, it is new stupid fashion, ripping apart classic cars to make them electric, because in some religious cycles that is cool. If they would be about environment then classic cars are the last cars to be made electric... again as you said - just because how little they are used.

[Mr Vlad]

I wouldn't dream of converting any car to electric. From memory a kit from that vintage voltage place is in excess of £30k and that's for a small Battery and motor kit. For 30k one would be able to totally refurbish a V6 or V8 etc etc and still have change to run it's fuel bill for years.

[Malc1]

It’s a bit sad to convert Bentleys and RRs to EV even when there’s nutters around to pay £400k for one ……. Classic ones or nay ! 

Malc 

[steve2006]

Interesting article on electric vehicles linked below 😀

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/07/the-milk-float-was-the-first-truly-successful-last-mile-delivery-ev/

By strange coincidence Linas I have actually driven one, a mate of mine was a “milkman” in the late 1970s and I often used to drive it around the estate for him.

If you also consider the bottles were all recycled and the propulsion method used then we sure went backwards before coming forwards again on EVs and recycling.

[Malc1]

Then of course the ultimate London Transport EV in my early life were the London Trolley Buses ……. TfL “ eat your heart out “ ( if you have one ) 😂

Malc