Your First Electric Car Could Be a Vintage Ford Bronco
October 02, 2024 at 11:49PMDon’t own an EV yet? Do the current options on the market bore you? Dive into Rosecrans Baldwin’s GQ piece about Kindred Motorworks, a San Francisco startup modernizing and electrifying classic cars, like vintage Ford Broncos and Volkswagen microbuses. Baldwin tours the company’s HQ—”basically a gigantic toy shop for car nerds”—and gets to test-drive a few fun cars.
Modern car ownership means making a version of the same compromise my dad did. Drive anywhere in the States and you’ll be hypnotized by banality: Practically every new car looks the same, and the look is boring, pedestrian, smooth-brained. Ignore the badges, take off your glasses, and see if you can tell the difference from 20 paces between a Porsche Cayenne and an Audi Q5—or a Nissan Rogue, or a Kia Sorento. Even the model names sound both aspirational and bland: the Telluride, the Sierra, the Sequoia. The commercials advertising these vehicles suggest we all dream of fleeing our cul-de-sacs for the wilderness, but the reality is more like piloting toaster ovens to football practice.
So, the question was: How did the Kindreds drive? I began with a restomodded 1958 Volkswagen microbus (starting at $225,000). Painted a surfy seafoam green, it had been updated with improved rear suspension, modern tires, and an electric motor. This was the same bus that had made Julia Roberts smile, and I discovered why: driving around, the ride was cushy, zippy, just plain fun. And I got similar grins from people watching the groovy bus silently slide by. “I call it a smile machine,” Howard said. “And it’ll do 70 on the freeway, no problem.”
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2024/10/02/your-first-electric-car-could-be-a-vintage-ford-bronco/
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