Price: £150,000+ | 60kWh battery pack, 150 bhp
Here's how to drive up hill, down dale and through the most demanding of low emissions zones in classic style. Everrati has taken a Series IIA Land Rover, widely regarded as the sweet spot of these great vehicles, meticulously restored it, and most importantly added an electric motor to replace the smoky old diesel. The past, meet the future.
You'll notice that this isn't a cheap vehicle. But then, these classic off-roaders are commanding higher and higher prices whether or not they've been updated to meet a future free of the internal combustion engine. For important vehicles - and early Land Rovers are important, not least because they defined the idea of the domestic off-roader - battery power guarantees their continued existence.
London-based Everrati is the company responsible for the conversion. Their stated aim is to "restore and modify classic and iconic Land Rover cars ... to enable them to be used and enjoyed in a low carbon world". Just in case that sounds a little worthy, they helpfully provide performance figures: this little brick of a Land Rover will now reach 60 mph in 13 seconds, a full 10 seconds faster than the non-electric original. You're going to have some fun at the traffic lights.
They've chosen a piece of British engineering genius for the conversion. The Series IIA was an update on the genius of the original, conceived by the visionary Rover designer Maurice Wilks after he used a war-surplus Willys Jeep on his farm. Wilks realised that a domestic 4x4 with a few more refinements than a Jeep might just find a market. His solution, introduced in 1948, was the first Land Rover. Its form-follows-function ethos was an immediate success.
You might say that Everrati are simply building on the idea of what's necessary and nothing more. The internal combustion engine as an invention is, after all, nearing the end of its useful life in a world increasingly conscious of its environmental cost. Here, it's replaced by 60 kWh electric power with a range of about 100 miles and combined AC and DC charging. Silent, fast progress is guaranteed.
Restoration is thorough, so you're getting what amounts to a future-proof, brand new classic Land Rover. Climb every mountain, ford every stream? Guaranteed, in guilt-free silence.
Check out another Land Rover we can't get enough of: the Land Rover Defender 110 Twisted.
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