I’ve been interested in electric vehicles for quite some time, both personally and professionally. Working in the tech industry, I was meeting Tesla devotees from their early days. Researching the future of energy for CMS back in 2016 really cemented for me that our energy future was purely electric. And then the foresight project I undertook with Auto Trader on the future car in 2019 led me to a lot of the work that was going on to convert existing petrol-engined vehicles to electric, with open source components.

My personal interest in cars goes back way beyond that. I’m not particularly into speed or racing. But cars are such a big machine that they were always going to fascinate a geek like me. This fascination has been passed to my daughters and particularly my eldest (who hasn’t decided yet if she wants me to name her here). Watching Car Masters: Rust to Riches, and then the tours of the Petersen Museum in California together, she developed a real passion for retro cars. And so, our first DIY EV project was born. Could we together take an existing vehicle, convert it to electric, and give it some of that retro style?