I drove the electric Ferrari 308

[jackpe]

Many of you will have followed my story buying a Cheap Ferrari 308 unseen at Auction a few months ago. Well, through that and the videos I did I was put in touch with someone who has recently converted their own 308 with a Tesla motor and batteries.



I was massively sceptical as you can imagine but in actual fact I rather liked it! Of course 308 engines are not the best sounding Ferrari out there.. but still. This was hugely fast and a nicely made conversion. Has the equivalent of 500hp and in theory 180 miles of range. This car was originally the GTSi Model so the worst 308 engine.. which helps justify it a little. Very gutless as standard. If you want to see the video on this car here is the link: https://youtu.be/Gad0z2NuSCA

[Benbay001]

I watched your video when you first uploaded it.

To me the car looked like alot of fun.. for the first few drives.

For me, noise is a massive part of any driving experience and i imagine once you have the suspension sorted on your 308 it will be a better package than this electric one, for less money.

[jackpe]

Yes.. one thing I noticed is that this one seems to have much more inertia to overcome when cornering. The weight distribution is 50/50 which sounds good but with so much of the weight over the front axle it is actually less centralised than the 43/57 weight distribution of the petrol car.

[NDNDNDND]

I saw your video on the electric 308 the other day. You certainly seemed impressed by it! I'd be interested in a follow-up video comparing your thoughts on the electric car after driving your own 308 again. Like the poster above, my thoughts on the electric version is that once you've become accustomed to the power it would become rather one-dimensional. Do you think that's the case?

[Andeh1]

Who did the conversion? Impressive stuff.

[cayman-black]

Oh dear , well i,m not impressed whatsoever.

[newsatten]

Youd be really proud opening the lid at a show with what looks like a Respirator/ Dyson for a power plant !

Unless of course your at A Back to the Future reunion

[aeropilot]

newsatten said:

Youd be really proud opening the lid at a show with what looks like a Respirator/ Dyson for a power plant !

Not to mention it sounding like a Scalextric car........

[POORCARDEALER]

Fab if you are deaf

[droopsnoot]

Andeh1 said:

Who did the conversion? Impressive stuff.

There's one in the background in "Vintage Voltage" on Quest, and I've read that company (Electric Classic Car Co, I think) have done a 308, but maybe there's more than one.

[rob07]

I believe the gtsi has different gearing to compensate for the reduced power so in a large part the driving experience is not much different from the carb cars,so it is still a joy to drive. What I so dislike about the electric conversions is they seem such a hatchet job compared to what took a lot of trained engineers working with all the resources of large factories to produce a properly developed car. Not to mention the huge increase in weight, which brings so many disadvantages. If the batteries improved then new electric cars would be good but I still say no for most classics.

[The Ors]

rob07 said:

Not to mention the huge increase in weight, which brings so many disadvantages.

I think he says in the video that this is only another 50kgs over the petrol original.

[jackpe]

The Ors said:

I think he says in the video that this is only another 50kgs over the petrol original.

It’s actually 20kgs lighter than the fully fuelled GTSi, at least according to the owner...

[jackpe]

NDNDNDND said:

I saw your video on the electric 308 the other day. You certainly seemed impressed by it! I'd be interested in a follow-up video comparing your thoughts on the electric car after driving your own 308 again. Like the poster above, my thoughts on the electric version is that once you've become accustomed to the power it would become rather one-dimensional. Do you think that's the case?

Could well be, I wasn’t exposed to it for very long.

Someone else mentioned the GTSi had lower hearing to compensate for the loss of power, that’s true but it didn’t make as nice to drive as a QV or carved car.. it just helped to mask the loss of power at lower speeds.

[GTRene]

like it, and funny in the beginning the night-rider music :-)

[waynecyclist]

In some respects you can understand why people do it but £40k to get rid of what makes a Ferrari a Ferrari (engine) is madness.

£40k would pay for a lot of repairs and fuel for the coming years

Not a fan sorry, classics should be left alone and enjoyed.