What’s an Everrati?
Everrati’s a UK-based company that takes classic cars, strips out their ICE drivetrains, and converts them to electricity. So far it’s done conversions on a Mercedes Pagoda, 964 generation Porsche 911, and Series II Land Rover, and people seem to like them. The firm’s idea is to give old cars a future when it’ll become increasingly tricky to fuel ‘em, or (in some circles) be seen to be burning smooshed up dinosaurs.
And they’ve done that to a GT40?! WHAT?
No no. While there are over a million 911s in the world, there are nowhere near that many GT40s. Instead it’s teamed up with American company Superformance, who build brand new ‘continuation’ cars under licence. The car getting the Everrati treatment isn’t a sainted Le Mans-winning original or anything like that. It’s new.
Phew! What’re the specs then?
As it’s still a prototype these are targets, but Everrati’s clever people are getting there. 800bhp, 590lb ft, 0-62mph in sub four seconds, 125mph, and more than 125 miles on a charge from a 60kWh battery. Which all sounds fairly impressive, doesn’t it? As it stands, the car’s running 650bhp, but that’s no small change considering Everrati’s claiming it’s 47kgs lighter than a V8-powered car. Without a set of scales we’ll have to take its word for it.
Speaking of V8s… where does all the battery gubbins go?
The engine-less Superformance car was scanned, the images popped into a computer, and then people with thin glasses did some maths to figure out where best to put batteries, its motor, and everything else. Much like the petrol-powered GT40, the best place to put ‘em is the massive sills – there was no room under the floor, ‘else it wouldn’t be ‘40.’
The motor lives in the rear, much as the V8 would do, and the drive is sent to the rear via a Hewland single-speed gearbox. The rest of the car is pretty much as is. Sure, the gauge cluster is less oil and more electricity, but it’s all pretty much there.
What else is different about the interior?
Well, obviously there’s no manual gear shift, but there’s an auto lever that’ll shift it from drive to reverse. And obviously there’s also no clutch pedal: Everrati simply removed that from the Superformance set up. The throttle and brake are super close together though, so make sure you wear thin shoes unless you really want to jam the two down at the same time.
There’s also a few prototype-y switches here and there that’ll be gone by the time the car’s ready to find its way to clients’ hands. It’s hard to miss how wonderful the leather is. There’s acres of the stuff all over the interior – it’s difficult to find a surface that doesn’t have cow peelings glued down.
What’s it like then?
If you’re tall, you’re not getting it. It’s exactly the same dimensions as an original GT40, which means it’s a squeeze even if you’re average height. You have to stretch yourself over the sills, thread your legs under the ‘wheel, and hope you don’t need to get out in a hurry. Just as with the original, the door has a bit of roof on it, so make sure not to clatter yourself as you close it. Once you’re in, it’s…. tight. The wide sill means your right elbow has somewhere to go, but your left may end up in a passenger.
If you’re lucky enough to meet all the criteria for fitting in, you’ll have a blast of a time. Running 650bhp of the promised 800, sure, but considering it’s tiny and light(er) than your average EV thanks to its smaller battery pack, that’s more than enough. Yeah, every EV has the ‘pin it and go’ party piece, but it’s properly rapid.
Everrati’s still working on the handling, and it’ll eventually come with an adaptive damper system, but as it stands… it ain’t a bad steer. The wheel is decently weighty, and you feel what the front end is doing without much issue. The steering and brakes don’t get any of that new-fangled assistance stuff, so make sure you’ve done some bicep curls and haven’t skipped leg day.
Everrati has got a strange V8 noise generator thing in there, but you can (and should) turn it off. It makes suitably futuristic whirring noises as it stands.
What’s the damage then?
It’s, erm, £440,000 (plus local taxes). Which is lots. Everrati’s justification is that it undergoes proper OEM standard testing and development, and doesn’t just gut a car, throw a motor in it, and hope for the best. In fact, its next stop is the US for some hot weather testing.
Is it worth it though?
You have to be very much into the idea to ‘get’ it. For some the idea of a GT40 without a V8 isn’t going to cut the mustard, but if you want (almost) guilt-free GT40 cruising this is looking like a promising way to do it.
Source: Top Gear
