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I know that there are companies that will convert old classic cars to EV's by taking out the engine and fitting a EV motor and gubbins for you.
I have a plan to buy an old Ford Mustang, and get it converted. In terms of environmentalness, would it be better to get a working old car, and run it until it dies and then convert it, or buy an old car that isn't currently running, and convert it straight away? (all other road worthiness things being equal - so everything else works, but you run a working car till the engine dies, or you buy a working car with a dead engine).

what are your thoughts on this?

Can work either way.

You can buy a working vehicle and sell the working ICE parts to cover the cost of new electric parts.
Some re-use the old gearboxes, keeping the original mounting points in place so that if the value of said car rockets and originality is key, you can always revert it back to ICE.

I am toying with the idea of going electric on one of my Lotus. This is made easier as they have already had many of the upgrades required.

You will need bigger brakes, better suspension etc. Once you adjust one item, you will need to adjust others.
Brakes, you will need an electric pump for vacuum and heating matrix will likely need changing.

Not sure I would convert a classic myself BUT thats just me, if you do fancy it then theres been a TV series on Moggy that you can probably download and his web site is here : https://www.electricclassiccars.co.uk/

I know hes been doing these conversions since the early days so hes well worth a chat to.

Moxi

Crastney wrote: ↑Wed May 21, 2025 11:47 am In terms of environmentalness, would it be better to get a working old car, and run it until it dies and then convert it, or buy an old car that isn't currently running, and convert it straight away?

Burning a UK gallon of petrol generates 10.9kg CO2. Divide 10900 by your mpg and you get a figure of CO2/mile. Our Volvo MHEV achieved a whopping 32mpg so it's environmental cost was 340g/mile.
Running an EV is far, far better. Even charging it when the grid is relatively "dirty" at 200g/kWh, and doing a fairly rubbish 3.2miles/kWh yields 63gCO2/mile.

EV conversions often use reclaimed parts from crash damaged EVs, so there's no direct environmental impact on manufacturing the "big stuff" like the battery and motor, it'd be manufacturing brackets and a battery case, unless you want a new motor and battery.

So, I'd say - buy the best chassis and/or body you can, ditch the oily bits and get the electric stuff in.

I’ve been a fan of these projects since people were using lead and forklift motors.

Some people use a doner such as a LEAF, others buy kits.

Ready-built EV-converted classic cars seem to be advertised for eye-watering sums!

Moxi wrote: ↑Wed May 21, 2025 11:58 am Not sure I would convert a classic myself BUT thats just me, if you do fancy it then theres been a TV series on Moggy that you can probably download and his web site is here : https://www.electricclassiccars.co.uk/

I know hes been doing these conversions since the early days so hes well worth a chat to.

Moxi

My company worked with Moggie when he set up ECC - had great fun producing the promotional videos and animations for their website!

BTW, I've been following this fell for a while: https://x.com/KiwiEV

I would tend to convert as soon as possible from an environmental pov.

I did consider doing an ev conversion at one point, but didn't have the time.

I don't know what age range your classic vehicle comes in, but I would aim for pre 2000 model if possible*: dvla introduced the emmissions part if the registration around then (the g of co2 / km figure). Pre 2000 vehicles can be reclassified as ev and go into an appropriate tax bracket, but dvla didn't make provision to change the emmissions class for post 2000 vehicles, meaning you will end up paying gas guzzler road tax for your ev.

* if it's old enough to be tax exempt then that's not an issue of course.

Marcus wrote: ↑Wed May 21, 2025 2:49 pm I would tend to convert as soon as possible from an environmental pov.

I did consider doing an ev conversion at one point, but didn't have the time.

I don't know what age range your classic vehicle comes in, but I would aim for pre 2000 model if possible*: dvla introduced the emmissions part if the registration around then (the g of co2 / km figure). Pre 2000 vehicles can be reclassified as ev and go into an appropriate tax bracket, but dvla didn't make provision to change the emmissions class for post 2000 vehicles, meaning you will end up paying gas guzzler road tax for your ev.

* if it's old enough to be tax exempt then that's not an issue of course.

You can't reclasify for the purposes of LEZs (so far as I'm aware...).

If I convert mine it will be once it hits 40 years old.
You get historical classification.
This way NO ULEZ and NO TAX.
This will be even more important if they decide to introduce pay per mile tax in the future. It then becomes a massive loop hole for tax avoidance.