The car you see here is unique. Based on a 1978 Ferrari 308 GTS, the car has been fitted with three powerful electric motors and a G50 manual transmission.
That’s right, kids. This Ferrari 308 is a plug in, fully electric car with a manual transmission. It’s a fascinating thing, to be sure and I, for one, can’t help but look at pictures of that shifter and imagine myself blasting through the canyon roads of the Appalachians in this thing. Shifting, downshifting, and listening to the wind scream.
Temptation is a Manual Transmission Ferrari EV
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to work like that. Jalopnik’s Andrew Collins, who got to drive the car, writes, “Just like any car ever, the lower gears are where you’ll find the most aggressive acceleration and higher gears make it possible to comfortably cruise at speed. Instead of moving your way from first to fourth as you accelerate, you can basically just pick your acceleration rate from a stop and ride whatever gear you like for your entire drive. Second gives you a nice pull off a stoplight and onto a fast canter. Third gives the car a much gentler reaction time. First is borderline scary.”
Still cool.
Plug-in Classic | Electric Ferrari 308 GTS
This electric Ferrari project was born of tragedy. The ’78 Ferrari 308’s engine bay caught fire a few years ago, effectively destroying the most expensive go-fast bits of the old Italian beauty. It was beyond any means of traditional repair.
That’s when the owner had the genius idea to take the car to EV West. The EV experts there ended up replacing the 32v Ferrari V8 with 330HP worth of HPEVS Custom Electric AC-51 “V-8” motor package, Curtis 1239 controllers and 46 kW-h lithium battery.
If that sounds complicated, it’s because it was.
This one-off Ferrari was a build that went far beyond “complicated”. Far enough, in fact, that the car’s creation spawned a 23 page build thread on the FerrariChat forum. All of which kind of begs the question, though: was it worth it?
This one-off Ferrari was a build that went far beyond “complicated”. Far enough, in fact, that the car’s creation spawned a 23 page build thread on the FerrariChat forum. All of which kind of begs the question, though: was it worth it?
Watch the nearly silent-running, all-electric Ferrari do its best Magnum PI impression- along with a few high-torque donuts- in this video, below, then let us know what you think of the car in the comments section at the bottom of the page.
Electric Ferrari 308 + Manual Transmission
Source | Images: Electric GT, via Jalopnik.
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