eBay find of the day: Electric Porsche 356 Speedster replica

Monday, September 28, 2009

eBay find of the day: Electric Porsche 356 Speedster replica

Posted by SharK at 12:17 PM

Electric Porsche 356 Speedster replica - click above for high res gallery

If you've been wanting to get yourself a low-carbon car and really dig the classic lines of the Porsche 356 Speedster, the unblemished beauty above could be your convenient response to "An Inconvenient Truth." EV-TV, the team currently converting a new MINI Clubman to run on electricity, has put their original Porsche project up for sale on eBay. This replica features a 3-inch tubular steel chassis underneath a sleek fiberglass body and is a great marriage of the technology available today and vintage styling from the '50s. It gets about 193 horsepower from a DC motor that will take it on up to 95 mph and boasts a 24 kWh lithium ion battery pack that easily fulfills its recommended 85-mile range. The suspension and brakes have been beefed up as well and the car is said to accelerate, handle and stop better than the original.

The interior has the clean look of a 1957 356 but closer inspection reveals a couple updates. The instrument cluster retains its speedometer and tach but the center circle now contains an EVision display that can feed all kinds of different battery pack information to the driver. Entertainment and navigation is also 21st century with a DVD/GPS rig that also displays a rear view camera feed on its slide-out screen when reverse is selected. If you want to know more about this proof-of-concept conversion or about what it takes to make one yourself, go ahead and check out the informative video after the jump in which this car is featured. We don't know whether this slice of sweetness will reach its reserve in the two days left in the auction, but if it doesn't we suspect the seller won't be too upset having to see this beauty in the driveway a little while longer.

Gallery: Electric Porsche 356 Speedster replica