Imagine yourself driving along in your Porsche, and you pull up at a red light beside this green 1969 VW Crew Cab. You make eye contact with the driver, who looks like he wants to race. You snicker to yourself, only to be left in the dust as the VW easily, and silently, pulls away from you as the light turns green.
That’s what could easily happen with this VW van, after the guys at Electric Classic Cars got their hands on it. They specialize in electric conversions of classic cars from the ‘50s to early ‘80s, and took this 47 horsepower van and converted it into an electric monster.
For their latest project they imported this 1969 VW from Elon Musk’s home country of South Africa. After stripping it out, they converted it to fully electric with a 450 horsepower motor from a Model S. To make it even better, it is powered by a 100kW battery pack from a Tesla Model X. To charge it, simply plug it in using the old gas cap.
Obviously with that power, you need to do some other upgrades to make sure the car doesn’t fall apart when you take a corner or stomp on the brakes. This VW van has been upgraded with Porsche brakes, Bilstein shocks, anti-roll bars, and an electric power steering unit.
When climbing in, unlike a real Tesla you do need to turn the key in order to turn the power on. From there, there is a custom touchscreen installed in the dash that gives you the major controls of the vehicle, including speed and battery information.
Once on the road, you definitely have to be careful with that sort of power as it doesn’t have any sort of driver-assist features like traction control.
But it sure would be a lot of fun. Check out the full video below.
