CHRIS HARRIS
The engine is a crucial part of a classic’s character, says Chris. Better to retire them gracefully than go electric
“THE ENGINE IS THE DOMINANT EXPERIENCE IN ANY CAR. IGNORING IT ISN’T AN OPTION”
The next big thing is the electrification of existing internal combustion engined motor cars. It has to be – David Beckham has invested in a company called Lunaz that does just this.
And Lunaz isn’t alone in wedging electric bits into old dinosaurs, it’s happening everywhere, old 911s, Mercs... even a Triumph Spitfire on something called TopGear. It’s an idea so beautifully simple – removing the dirty workings of an old car and replacing them with something that produces zero local emissions – that it’s hard to find any argument against it. Unless you like engines, in which case you might lodge an objection.
This isn’t new emotional territory either. The notion of a car being great regardless of, or in some cases in spite of, its engine is nothing new. So you could argue that any process which engages with this in the form of electricity is merely continuing the work that gave us the Lotus Elise.
Which raises the question: what is the best car with the worst, borrowed engine? Maybe it is the Elise? The first Clio V6 motor was pretty tragic, but then so was the rest of the car. Every small volume TVR rival that used the Nineties quad-cam Ford V8 was worse off for doing so, but none of them were much cop either.
What I find fascinating here is that something as integral, something that is without wanting to resort to cliché, the very heart of an object as complicated as a motor car can often be ignored in the overall evaluation of that machine. I can remember being on one of those big end-of-year magazine shoots the year the Lotus Evora was launched – the car was pretty good, but the Toyota V6 was dreadful. Yet several people voted it should win over a 997 GT3, all of them willing to ignore how crap the engine was in the Lotus. I’m still staggered by this because the engine is the dominant experience in any car. Ignoring it just isn’t an option.
Unless it is silent. In which case we are being invited to ignore it. I have a very clear rule here, and it follows the type of car we’re dealing with. Put simply, there have always been two types of engine development: one is concerned with economy and silence, the other with outright performance. It is as conceivable that an electric motor would be able to replace the former as it is inconceivable that it might do anything other than ruin a car that relied on the latter. It’s sad to admit, but all those creamy smooth V12s with their fastidiously milled counterweighted crankshafts are totally redundant now Elon has arrived. I mean, what’s the point in a ferociously complicated mechanical object whose sole aim is to be as silent as possible if it can’t complete with an electric motor?
But all these sports car swaps just don’t do it for me. An electric, classic Porsche 911? No thanks. Even if that means one day quite soon parking them and remembering how lovely they were, I’d rather do that than turn them into creepily silent cyborgs.
Strange how this all comes back to the innocent little Elise, isn’t it? That was the car Musk used for his first electric adventure. My thoughts on it many years later haven’t changed from the day I first drove a Roadster – impressive, but inert.