Electricity – It’s Not The Future (Of Classics)

Our Editor, Chris Pollitt, has been let off the leash again to deliver his, erm, unique views on what’s happening in the classic car world. This time, it’s the trend for electrifying classic cars that has fallen in front of his cross-hairs.

I should start this by saying I have nothing against electric cars. I think they’re a good thing on the whole, they’re examples of technology at its finest, they’re increasing in usability on a near daily basis and once the technology fully permeates the automotive world, all the penguins and polar bears will no doubt do a little dance in the not melted snow. 

I also like electric cars because they save petrol for classics. As the years roll by and the reserves of liquified dinosaurs run out, I feel that petrol should be afforded to those of us who will burn it off via a worthy engine. A V8 from a TVR, the T Series turbo in my Rover, hell, even a little ‘put put’ engine from a 2CV. It doesn’t matter what the engine, just so long as the fuel is being used with appreciation. For me, that’s the future of internal combustion and of classic cars. The future is not, however, the electrification of said classics.

I perceive electrification to be the future of motoring. Modern cars are soulless goods that we don’t bond with. They are a means of transport, that’s all. Nobody has, nor will ever, found themselves misty-eyed as they look at a Mondeo diesel. Modern cars are just cars in the dictionary sense of the word. I’m sure many car designers will spill out much rhetoric about design language, connectivity and so on, but it’s all just PR talk. I drive a 2012 C Max. It’s my ‘dad’ car. It does its job well, but if a bus were to clatter into it, I wouldn’t be sad. I’d be annoyed, but not sad. If something happened to my Zephyr, I’d be distraught. 

Where am I going with this? Stay with me. Modern cars are dull, and they’re dull because they lack the traits of old that made cars exciting. The big one being the noise. The burble of a V8 will almost always provoke a burble in the trouster area, too. Even if it’s from an LDV van. The snarling bark of a pair of twin 48s will render many a car fan uncontrollably aroused. The piercing howl of a tuned race engine, well, that’s just aural bliss. New cars don’t have that. Modern electric cars definitely don’t.

The engine of a classic is its soul, it is the fabric of its very being. It is intrinsic to the car’s very being. Replacing that with batteries is… wrong. I don’t want my Aston Martin to glide by like some silent, wire-wheeled ninja. I want it to growl and rev. I want to do that thing Hugh Grant did in Bridget Jones where he revved the engine and mouthed roaring noises. I want to smell unspent fuel as it washes past my expectant nostrils. I want the full experience. I want the full car. That is why I like classics. I like the smells, the rattles, the noises and the resultant ‘event’ that it all comes together to create. I don’t want a sterilised version. Who does? 

And therein lies the problem. I’m not gatekeeping classics here, but the kind of people to buy an electric classic aren’t the kind of people who would buy one with a petrol engine. They don’t want the bother of the mechanicals. They want the look, the image, the association with classic cars, but without getting their hands dirty. That doesn’t sit well.  You’re either into these old cars or you’re not, you can’t just cherry pick the bits you like. I’m not saying everyone who owns a classic needs to be a mechanic, but you at least need to be understanding of the mechanicals. Appreciative, too.

Why can’t designers just come up with a heavily retro-themed EV? Honda have had a damn good go with their latest small EV, which harks back to the first-generation Civic. Why not more of that? The buyers for these converted classics, in my admittedly limited experience, don’t actually want a classic, they just want the look. So why can’t we just design something accordingly, with the looks of a classic?

Classic cars are already facing an uncertain future given the pressures of global warming and so on. Can we, as enthusiasts, just be left to deal with that, rather than be forced to sit here and watch beautiful cars have their soul ripped from them in favour of some AA batteries?  

Furthermore (and you’ll be glad to know, in closing) classic cars have paid their debt. A car built fifty years ago that’s still in use is far more carbon friendly than any new car. Electric, solar power, gerbil power, whatever. A classic was built once, decades ago. That effort, that carbon output to create it has been paid off ten times over by the fact that the car is still in use rather than having been thrown away after five years. We’re not doing mega miles in them, we’re not running them with smoke belching from the rear, we’re just enjoying the fruits of decades old labour. And that should be applauded and welcomed in this blindly throwaway society we have. It shouldn’t be pillaged and robbed of its soul because someone wants to glide around London in a silent 1956 Bentley. Buy a Leaf.