Should you electrify your classic car?

Inspiration comes in unusual forms. David Lorenz’s lightbulb moment arrived when his classic Mercedes broke down. His small daughter was in the car, and Lorenz began thinking about ways to make it cleaner, more reliable and give it a long term usable future in a world that is turning its back on the internal combustion engine.

This led him to set up Lunaz Design, close to the Silverstone racing circuit in Northamptonshire. It’s high end old car restoration business that fits electric drive systems to sometimes exotic period Jaguars, Rolls-Royces and Aston Martins amongst others.

According to commercial director James Warren, giving treasured, collectable old cars electric heart transplants might be the start of a broader social trend to apply similar vehicular surgery to less coveted models. The costs will need to come down a bit first though. The company’s labour intensive, bespoke restoration/conversion is spectacularly expensive. The work will set a classic Range-Rover owner back £290,000.