Phil Davie has been building hot rods for two decades, but last summer he started a new type of hot-rod business, one that removes a classic car's internal combustion engine — and nearly all of the innards — and replaces it with an electric motor and batteries to make it all-electric. He calls this new hot-rod shop EV Detroit.
"EV Detroit is the modern speed shop," said Davie, who also owns a traditional "speed shop" that converts standard cars into souped-up hot rods.
"I started it partly because of the interest in EVs," Davie said. "Plus, I was so fascinated with the technology and what it can be: I can build something and give people the electric vehicle experience."
These types of conversion shops have been popping up all over the country as interest in electric vehicles proliferates. Most of the shops have extensive waiting lists, with customers from as far away as Morocco shipping internal combustion engine vintage cars to them to be converted to electric.
The trend also has sparked an aftermarket for wrecked modern EVs with still-good batteries and parts inside that can be used by the conversion companies. A wrecked Tesla, for example, can sell for $30,000, and a wrecked Chevrolet Bolt can command $20,000.
So, obviously, the cost to turn a classic car into an EV isn't cheap. In some cases, it can top $100,000, depending on the car, how much driving range a customer wants and other amenities. The motivation to spend that amount of money isn't to save the environment as much as it is to get better performance and reliability out of an old car.
"Anytime you own a classic car there's that anxiety of, 'What's that smell? Am I going to end up on the side of the road?' It takes away the joy of driving," said Marc Davis, owner of conversion shop Moment Motor Co. in Austin, Texas. "You're either a mechanic who loves to work on your car, or it sits in the garage for a year waiting for you to take it to a mechanic. By electrifying things, we're removing the source of 80% to 90% of the problem, and we do it in a way that doesn't rob the car of performance."
A makeover for Audrey
Audrey is a 1987 Mini. Owner Stephannie Behrens, who lives in Austin, bought the vintage car — which she named after actress Audrey Hepburn — with the intention of converting it to electric.
"A classic Mini has always been my dream car. That being said, they were not known for their reliability. They were budget cars," Behrens said. "The only way to really have it was to convert it."
Behrens declined to say how much she paid for the conversion, but Davis said he typically charges $50,000 to $100,000. Audrey likely landed on the higher end of the scale because, in addition to making it an EV, Behrens had it changed to left-hand drive from the original British right-hand drive, as well as replacing the suspension and updating the brakes.
Major rebuilds like that are common for David Benardo, the CEO of Zelectric, who calls himself a "retrofuturist."
He and his wife, Bonnie Rodgers, started Zelectric, a San Diego-based conversion company, in 2013. A few years earlier, they had another conversion company, EV West, convert a 1960s VW van to electric for them, and they fell in love with it.
The demand for their conversions has exploded, and the company is booked well into 2023. Customers pay a $5,000 fee to reserve a production spot, Rodgers said.
She credits the automakers' interest in adding EVs to their lineups with driving the business' growth.
"It's great. It lends credibility to driving electric and it doesn't in any way narrow the niche we have," Rodgers said. "It celebrates a better way of driving, and people are on board with that now."
The swelling demand doesn't come without problems, however.
"This is a brand-new industry and you're kind of pioneering something," Rodgers said. "There is only a handful of people who know how to do this."
Rodgers' lead engineer worked for a competitor when they hired him. Now he has apprentices he teaches because there are no trade schools that teach conversion.
At Moment Motor, Davis first hired people who worked on hot rods to teach them how to do conversions. But he admits it's been a struggle to find people with the right combination of skills.
"It's a whole new world and they have to learn things," Davis said. "This is the new hot-rodding, and there's no certification they can get that will help us here. Every car is different, and every car is new, and they have to learn."