Future’s electric?
Dear Classic American,
I have owned a 1959 Cadillac Coupe de Ville since 1990 which still has less than 30k miles from new. Mine has the uprated three dual choke Rochester carburettors. I am thinking of buying a Mercedes Benz EQS at about £120k (with extras). However, I am also thinking of electrifying my Cadillac and coincides with your editor’s comments in the September 2022 issue Viewpoint, last sentence.
However, my quandary is: do I keep the Cadillac original or do I electrify; £120k buys a lot of conversion, but what do you think will happen to vehicle prices after 2030? Will the public favour EVs or will original vehicles like mine hold their price?
Bernard Brignall 80-year-young petrolhead
Well Bernard, it sounds like your Cadillac must be a very nice, original car, so it would be a shame to rip its guts out to replace them with an electric drive train. With electricity prices going through the roof, it’s not even like there’s a financial advantage and a ’59 Caddy is a very big heavy car, so it’s debatable even if electrifying it would be possible, given the number of batteries it would require – a 50-mile range would hardly seem worth it, as you’d spend more time charging than driving.
Finally, with electric automotive technology changing so rapidly, there’s also the possibility that whatever technology is used now will be superseded by newer technologies in as little as a decade. And it would almost certainly devalue your Cadillac. As things stand at the moment, classic cars seem to be exempt from lots of things: MoTs, road tax etc. So, there’s no reason to believe that this will change. If anything, you could have the best of both worlds, a new electric Mercedes and the classic driving experience of your Cadillac.