Where do we go from here?

As long as I can remember, I have been a certified gearhead. When I was a baby my parents would plop me in a running car to stop me from crying and one of my first words was “wheel”.  I was obsessed with old VW’s and spent much of my time pretending to drive my Dad’s ’68 Beetle in the garage. I pestered my folks every year to take me to the Los Angeles Auto Show as many times as they could stand it when the show was in town and as soon as I got my license I was traveling to all the VW and hotrod shows SoCal had to offer. When I finally got a VW of my own, I spent every spare dime at the local VW parts place to fix up my ’71 Super Beetle to make it lower, faster, and generally cooler while poring over car magazines to moon over dream cars I thought I could afford one day if I made it big. My driver’s license was my ticket to freedom and I was the first one in line for the drive test at the DMV on the morning of my birthday behind the wheel of my Mom’s ’82 Eldorado Biarritz. The Super gave way after a few years to a beautiful gray Mustang 5.0 and my pursuit of horsepower and adventures on the road was off and running.

Over thirty years later, the automotive scene for teens has changed a great deal from when I came up in the 1980’s. My kids and their friends are not in a hurry to get their licenses and mostly are content to use their folks, Uber, or Lyft to get around. Some do want to drive, but most of them seem to want a Prius or something even more boring to easily get from Point A to Point B with no drama. They are after practical, ecologically responsible transportation rather than the big-cammed, glasspacked, and generally obnoxious rigs my buddies and I tore around in burning gas as we looked for some excitement. There are some young gearheads out there but most of them seem to be into super high tech rides instead of older vintage machines that require a bit more cash and love to keep on the road.

So how do we get the attention of the kids who really aren’t into cars while inspiring the kids who are into both vintage iron and new “green” transportation? The answer came to me when I saw some projects coming out of the EV West shop in San Diego. EV West has been modifying all sorts of classics and even more modern sportscars with electric powertrains that use a combination of parts to create vehicles that truly marry vintage iron with modern thinking. Zelectric, a company which is also based near San Diego, has taken that concept a step further by fully restoring vintage Volkswagens and then repowering them with the kits sold by EV West. The Zelectric cars have been a hit and are quite sought after. The cars are also attracting media interest as one of Zelectric’s T2 Buses was featured on the Jay Leno’s Garage TV show and their monster twin motor Baja Bug took a spin with racing driver Leh Keen at the wheel on the show “Proving Grounds”. 

With building that sort of sizzle in mind locally, I made the decision that my ’71 Beetle named Clementine could be improved with an EV West kit. She will be rechristened EClementine to fit her new greener identity and I will be documenting everything done to make her much cleaner, hopefully faster, and easy to keep on the road for many years to come. Better yet, to get some local kids involved I will be working with the Davis Senior High Auto Tech program and the kids will be doing the conversion under the watchful eye of master instructor Robert Thayer. The deposit for the EV West kit has been thrown down so check back in soon as we begin our journey by seeing just how Clementine performs with her current gasoline power and what sort of impact that old school combination has on the environment.