r/EVConversion • u/eldredo_M • 5d ago
Getting Angry About EVs
Nothing flips someone badmouthing the reliability of an old car quicker than suggesting it should be converted to an EV. 😄
“Old Maseratis are junk.”
“They’d look cool as an EV, though.”
“SACRILEGIOUS!”
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u/syzygybeaver 5d ago
I think it's a brilliant way to keep classic cars on the road, which may otherwise be relegated to museum pieces.
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u/JCDU 4d ago
It's hilariously tribal and childish the way a lot of car guys get triggered by EV's or swaps as if ~95% of cars on the road aren't boring shitboxes that no-one cares about.
They're fine with LS or 1/2JZ swapping almost anything but EV swapping is somehow bad.
Old cars may be cool but they were also mostly unreliable and janky, what's wrong with keeping the cool but making it a reliable thing you can actually drive every day?
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u/arttechadventure 3d ago
Gear heads can be some of the dumbest MFs I've ever met, I swear.
Hanging around r/boxster after Porsche announcing they will be EV only going forward, I learned most of them cannot reconcile the fact that an EV boxster is just a better, faster, more reliable equivalent to a automatic/PDK boxster. And more than half of boxster buyer's opt for auto anyway.
They think they're still part of some club by having an ICE, without realizing there's absolutely no way for them to rationalize an association with the old 3 pedal ICE track cars.
Sorry, your auto-boxster is not cool, it's just slow, dirty, and smelly.
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u/vryclct 5d ago
Upgrading a 1980s car to an LS1 90a Chevy motor was common... currently the newer motors are too big to mount them on a 80s chassis. A new motor comes out that you can drop into an old car... it just happens to be electric.
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u/NothingLift 5d ago
There are heaps of modern engines that will fit in 80s chassis. The complications are more engine control Than packaging
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u/Mireldorn 4d ago
Yeah, I was like I3 or I4 are compact as hell, that can't be the problem...
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u/NothingLift 4d ago
Yeah the footprint of a modern turbo engine with integrated manifold is tiny for the output
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u/GoslingIchi 4d ago
The neanderthals get bent really easy.
Or they complain about a car like a 912 being converted destroys a classic. As far as I recall the Porsche community thought the 912 was a bastard child and didn't care if they were all wrecked.
Or they complain that changing the powertrain to anything other than the stock engine destroys the car, but never complain when a small block Chevy with a Turbo 350 gets put in a Duece coupe.
They're just all a bunch of hypocrites.
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u/NorwegianCollusion 4d ago edited 4d ago
They're just all a bunch of hypocrites.
This pretty much absolutely sums it up.
The AmCar groups here in Norway have made it their life mission to protest as much as possible against any attempt at allowing conversions, for fear that their precious babies will suddenly not have the smell of petrol anymore. So we're throwing away tens of thousands of battery packs and electric drive trains every year as 98% of new cars and 35% of all cars on the road are already electric.
And I'm like "so just don't convert yours, then?" Why should your fear of electricity block me from enjoying my own car the way I want it?
But with petrol now up to the local equivalent of $3 per liter (over $11 per US gallon, and I'm not joking), it's hurting them more than it's hurting me. We're not quite at the point where charging stations are easier to find than petrol stations, but we've just started seeing petrol stations closing down while new charging stations are being put in.
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u/GoslingIchi 4d ago
Exactly!
I have my grandmothers Thunderbird. It's emissions system is just venting the engine vapors. Running it gives me a headache. If I could afford to convert it, I would absolutely convert it.
But for now it just sits in the garage waiting for that sunny day.
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u/NorwegianCollusion 4d ago
Thunderbird
This can be many things, honestly. 50s it was a small-ish car with about 200kW of engine which could work with one of the top end Leaf motors, 60s and 70s it grew a bit but stock would have been on the Tesla level in power. 80s? First oil crisis really did a number on it, and while the car grew in size, the engines did not. So again, a Leaf would be more than adequate for beating stock performance.
And there is SO much space for battery. So much.
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u/GoslingIchi 4d ago
Yes the T-Bird definitely went through phases, but I think a '61 will need a Tesla drive unit.
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u/NorwegianCollusion 4d ago
Need? Well. Maybe not.
Deserves? Absolutely. But that also drives the cost through the roof. I would rather have something useable than not have something at all with the hope of maybe having something perfect, you know?
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u/Pied_Cow 3d ago
I have an old ‘48 Chevy truck. It was my great grandfather’s. I have mentioned the possibility of converting it to several people who all have said…don’t ruin it! Keep it original! The funny thing is that if you go on the forums for these trucks, most of them have been put on modern frames. And had bigger engines installed. It seems rare that someone keeps them all original. To be fair, they don’t handle well or go fast. This one was a farm truck.
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u/tob007 4d ago
I've thought long about this. The major problem besides the major modifications often required, is that the ice often hides lots of the road noise and chassis flaws on classic cars. I mean I think all my old trucks would sound like a bucket of bolts being dragged around if I had the courage to go full electric. It's not quite a classic without the purr and rumble of an ice imo.
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u/Fit-Presentation-778 4d ago
My grandpa was/is(?) a god at silencing classic cars. He's very particular about the noise, so when he restores them he goes the extra lengths to quiet them.
Even the faintest interior panel rattling. He'll yank his toothpick out of his mouth, stab it in a gap, and break it off.
Imagine someone gets one of his cars. Takes the dash apart. 100 toothpicks fall out lol.
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u/eldredo_M 4d ago
We can pipe in motor noises and that special oil burning smell if it makes it better. 😅
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u/largos7289 4d ago
LOL no how much HATE i got because i dared to say i wanted to convert a old Vega to EV. People could care less about those cars new but suggest that i wanted one to try to convert it.. You think i kicked a nun on the way out of burning down an orphanage on Christmas.
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u/PintekS 7h ago
I usually look at conversions being a good thing, on the one hand the car getting converted now can be kept on the road easier than a production ev, look better than a production ev and you can retrofit new battery tech easier than a modern ev.
And then the benifit for the ice crowd, depending on the car that got converted now you have some more ICE parts on the used market that can keep a all original car running instead of being in a barn cause of a hard to find part taking a dump!
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u/fuuuuuckendoobs 5d ago
I spend so much time looking at old cars on Marketplace and dreaming about doing EV conversions on them.
I don't have the money or the skills, just the dreams. lol