Electric Triumph Vitesse Project 

BMW makes cars and motorbikes. I also don't understand why you guys haven't had an MGB or MGA in there yet. I thought they were more prolific as a popular classic. Certainly are here in Australia.

The original engine for that Mk.2 Vitesse was 104bhp, the figure of 70bhp you quoted was for the earlier 1600cc engined version

You know Triumph has been making motocycles since biblical times, they were mentioned in the bible. "the roar of david's triumph was heard throughout the land"

Any chance of a Countach vid?

It’s a cool conversion. A spot-on restoration! I’d love to do an electric conversion of a 1969 Fiat 850 Spyder. However, everyone of those that I’ve seen have lots of rot. Great job guys on another supreme conversion!

I had a '59 Herald when I was in High School! Ah, the memories! Very much like the Vitesse.

The Vespa (Piaggio) group did make cars (besides scooters) for a short period of time, the Vespa 400.

It's a British car. 100km is probably farther than it went between tune-ups.

Watching Bangers and Cash 50s and 60s cars going for 5 or 6k i think people will start buying them up and converting them to EVs. like the Hillman Minx

I was looking at an NSU RO80 the other day and it struck me that it would make for an awesome conversion....

Hope the gearbox can take the extra HP they were rubbish. A spare box should have been an optional extra 😖

A number of car manufacturers made trucks, buses, military vehicles, motorcycles, and even bicycles, through the decades. (Some also made aircraft and aircraft engines, such as Wright, FIAT, Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, Moskvitch, Bristol, Messerschmitt, Ford, Kawasaki and Daimler Benz.) Raleigh, Wolseley, Coventry Eagle, Humber, BMW, Rover, NSU, Triumph, New Hudson, Honda, Suzuki, Singer, Yamaha and Villiers are just a few of the many which come to mind. And Alvis made cars and military vehicles.

The standard transmission on the Vitesse was frail, you made no mention if it has an overdrive fitted. It is possible to upgrade the gearbox with TR7 and Dolomite parts that will help, but the diff carriers are prone to breaking. Fitting a Quaife carrier will fix that, the rotoflex drive doughnuts will suffer with 120 bhp, there is a CV joint upgrade that will be better. I like the idea of a generic kit, as said the Herald spawned the GT6, Vitesse, Spitfire not forgetting the Amphicar. My personal thoughts would be to fit the Hyper 9 where the gearbox is this would remove the gearbox/ clutch / overdrive weakness and provide more room for batteries. I have a saloon MK2 Vitesse and have relocated the filler to the upper deck n/s Good luck with the project. Simon

Love the engineering and thought that goes into these conversions. Still trying to get my head around a Vitesse or GT6 WITHOUT that beautiful straight 6 engine noise. Same applies to the Stag. Beautiful V8 burble. Head says 100% yes....heart and soul still not convinced at all. There must be another way to be clean and keep the soul intact. All that said, brilliant engineering.

BMW, KTM, Honda and Ariel are the first car/bike manufacturers that come to mind... probably lots more...

What modifications will be done to the transmission and differential. The original diff had issues with the low torque of the 6 cylinder. The Hyper9 may have too much torque for that drivetrain?

A Herald is not Sporty... lol.. i won my class in the Scottish Rally championship 3 years in a row in mine (Gun Metal gray... often seen scattering the forest stage crowds.. or was it laughter). And its still out there competing .. 2nd in class last weekend iirc.. I love my Triumphs. A stag is a great car too.. prime for EV conversion..

The slidy switch in the centre is the one and only interior light which just illuminates the fascia. Very useless. You could do with extra weight over the rear axle to keep the wheels upright, too

BMW, Audi group (Horch and NSU), Peugeot all made motorcycles at some point in time. Peugeout does or did until very recently

Peugeot also made motorbikes, bicycle and grinders (salt, pepper, coffee). They still do. They also made sowing machines and farming implements.

I love an old Triumph, VWs have never really done it for me. Each to his or her own.

Regarding your questions during the video:, the engine mount of the Triumph Vitesse, GT6, Herald and spitfire are all mounted to the front suspension turrets, connected with 2 bolts on either side of a inner vertical flange of these turrets. There your design would fit all if you make use of this position. However there is a slight difference between the gearbox mounting of the 4-cylinder (heralds and spitfires) and 6-cylinder (Vitesse and GT6) as the startermotor is on fitted on the other side meaning the belhousing of the gearbox has a different shape. The bond equipe and several kit cars have the same setup as they used the same triumph chassis and mechanical setup.

Request... cobra with a plaid or high output motor of your choosing.. love what you guys are doing.. keep it up.. also, sorry.. a tremec or other transmission that can handle that torque? Maybe I'm just fantasizing 😂😂😂

TR6 used a bored out Vitesse engine to 2.5 ltr rater than the Triumph PI which was a stroked up version

Ural is another company that (used to) make motorcycles (Bimmer Boxer clones) and trucks.

Front of that car reminds me of a 1959 Buick Invicta with the canted headlamps and fenders

if only you where in north America you could use tesla's NACS plug 😂

I'll be watching this, need to do something with a Spitfire. Tim has a nice looking Healey. My father has had a BJ8 since the 80's he's just restored to sell. Mixed feelings about letting that go.

BMW for bikes and cars. I wouldn't touch either though 😅

Vitesse Mk2 has rotoflex rear suspension which is much better than the Herald

bmw, peugeot, honda, suzuki, ariel, DKW, Lamborghini, Maserati, NSU, Opel, Puch, Sunbeam, Triumph are some that offered motorcycles at some point.

Really is interesting to see how to are able to create these different configurations to fit each make and model.

Waiting for the smart roadster kit. You‘d nail it for sure ❤

To those commenting on the ride height, the plan is to enter it as an electric gasser in drag events ! :)

You guys fill me with optimism for the future. If you can get the price of the conversion kits down to a reasonable level you'll have a sure fire hit on your hands. I've owned 3 spitfires and one stag and I'd have loved to do an ev conversion on them.

Copy Cadillac, and put the 'filler' behind the rear tail light?

A little interesting unrelated snippet/fact - the Heralds used to have a rubber trim on the bumpers. These would often go missing. Some unscrupulous roller skaters would relieve the owner of the rubber strips and use them as a 'front brake' on their skates when out on the road. The soft rubber pad that was effective on the roller rinks wooden floor, was useless on tarmac, so when going out on the road, a quick swap was done - two nuts and washers was all that was needed. The single bolt 'dance' brake was different to the twin bolt speed skaters brake. All modern brakes seem to be of the single bolt design, but back in the 60's/70's the twin bolt versions were bolted directly to the baseplate.

Have you thought if doing a kit for the Fiat 128? There were over 3,000,000 made, plus another 1,000,000 under licence by Zastava, making them one of the most built cars ever. Even if only 25% remain, that’s still a helluva lot of potential customers. Much of the 128 running gear continued into subsequent Fiats such as the Regatta, Strada, etc … . The VW Golf was based on the 128; there may be sufficient similarities to do a generic kit that fits both marques.

BMW

Be interested in more details as soon as a Spitfire conversion kit is available please. My Mk3 is 'mid resto' (for several years now...) and I've been waiting on a mainstream EVconversion option - looking forward to the Vitesse completion.

Holy crap, I have a couple of Bond Equipes which are a fibreglass body over the vitesse 2ltr running gear. I am really interested to know how this goes and the cost because while I love the straight 6 burble at idle and the torquey roar on acceleration it would be interesting to see if there is a green future for these classics (maybe I could change one to electric and get a specially adapted audio system to make the brrmm brrmm noise).

Use tesla charging port (9:45)

Fantastic looking car to convert. Just wondering if the ~100 mile range is going to be a bit limiting, as I would have thought this is going to be a joy to take on a country drive where you may want a bit more range. Is the weight the paramount limiting factor, or is it space that has determined the 5 battery modules?

Don’t know if anyone has mentioned it, but Audi now owns Ducati.

Rover also used to make bikes until the mid 1920's

Would love to see a C3 Corvette 1968-1982 alot of chassis so any kit would apply to a whole lot of them.

Great work you guys, I’m in the middle of the restoration of an MGB Roadster, (see RU-vid) and I was wondering if you had any ideas on converting one of these to an EV, or maybe there’s a kit somewhere out there, before I waste time with the engine and gearbox, regards Steve.

Question to the team: if one would want to have a real GT (grand tourer) oldtimer to be transformed to electric with a reasonable 200 miles (300-320km) 100% range, reasonable power (100-150kW) and especially of course a reasonable CCS charging (100kW thereabouts) to use it for long trips... and not want to spent 100k on car inkluding transformation: What would be a car that you would recommend to get done with you?

Ok firstly the Vitesse with the 2000cc engine was rated as104 bhp. The 2500cc Triumph six is a straight swap into the Vitesse and i'll bet the Vitesse with a 2500 will give the Healey a run as it should be lighter too. That said, i do like most of your conversions but i'd rather have the straight 6 instead of an electric motor in this case, hearing a Triumph 6 especially a tuned one is pure joy, just love hearing the banchee cry when you wind it up.

I have an idea, and I need to share it, if only to stop me dwelling on it! It involves the Triumph TR6, and possibly earlier TR's The TR6 was beautifully designed, and I believe it's the only convertible that is a proper blokes car! Anyway, the idea..... The early TRs front suspension was woeful, dating from the 1940s, and the rear was a live axle, with leaf springs, later updated to independent rear suspension, that was also questionable. The good news is that all the TR6 body parts are available and a heritage body tub has been remanufactured. This is begging for ECC to fabricate a whole new chassis, to incorporate a Tesla drive unit at the rear and modern spec suspension at the front. The HV lines could run in the box sections of the all new chassis. Conversions would be speedy; body off the old chassis, and dropped onto the new. I'm no expert on TRs, but I did own and restore a basket case TR3a, and I think it may be possible to retrofit this set up on the earlier cars(?) Worth thinking about?

TR2, 3, 4, 5, 6 would all be good, plenty of bonnet to work with. Sod the TR7. 2.5Pi might interest you? I think a Frogeye Sprite would prove quite a challenge for you.

9:37 re ideas for where to put the charge port (and @ John T.), pretty sure my dad's Ford Zephyr had the fuel filler behind the rear number plate (was a hinge drop down)

My Vitesse had an overdrive switch on third and fourth gears to reduce the amount of gear changing.

I think it would be interesting to see one of these kits installed in one of the small American cars from the 1950’s and early 1960’s. Such as a Nash or Rambler American, Chevrolet Corvair, early 1960 to 64 Ford Falcon or Mercury Comet, Plymouth Valiant or 1960 to 64 Pontiac Tempest or Le Mans. Those are all small light weight cars, and could take more power from the electric motors with standard driveline parts. You could even do a International Scout or a Jeep CJ-5 or Ford Falcon Ranchero from 1961 to about 1966. Then there are the Corvair 95 pickup and vans, the Ford 1960 to 66 falcon based vans and the dodge A-100 vans and pickup. And then there are a number of other small dispatch and postal deliver vans that are light weight and compact.

Not a classic car (yet), but would happily convert my MK6 Fiesta if something was available for it! Think this should be the way forward for a lot of older cars, rather than scrapping and building an entirely new car. Less environmental impact.

BMW make cars and bikes. Singer made cars and bikes.

BMW also does cars and bikes :-) Oh and seeing that Countach body up there in the background is killing me!!! Looking forward so much to seeing it EVed ...

Triumph Stag is crying out for an electric conversion as the engines are commonly the most problematic part of the car . Try to swallow your pride for commericial realism and the benefit of a classic car.

>meh< Too bad they ruined such a nice Vitesse. My daily is an EV so I am in no way anti-EV, but this defeats the purpose of owning a classic. 100 mile range on a good day. Most of the club drives I go on are 100 mile in the mountains. I'd imagine it'll be about a soulless as a cordless drill when they're done with it. To each there own.

As a classic car enthusiast, and having owned a couple of Vitesses, many years ago, I cannot see the point in converting one of these to battery power. Half of the enjoyment of the Triumph Vitesse is the sound and feel of that lovely straight 6 cylinder engine. Also, how does it affect the MOT test, and is it set up so that it be converted back to running on an engine again? Surely it would have been better to convert a humble 4 cylinder Herald or Spitfire?

I learned to drive in a Herald in Australia. It was unregistered and a bit of a dirt track bush basher. Good memories

You only use the original gearbox when the customer is cheap, it's always better with a reduction box

The conversion should also fit the Bond Equipe 2 litre, and the Bond equipe GT4S same chassis.

Another great video Is there any room under the rear seat for additional battery packs if more range required?

Both the Herald and Vitesse (and Spitfire) gearboxes are known to be weak so have you done anything to handle the extra torque of the electric motor?

the real sporty one was a herald jack brabham conversion with the coventry climax engine

I've always liked Dolomites, especially Sprints obviously, but can physically only drive autos and I've always thought an 1850 auto conversion would be great. Easily Sprint performance and you could "sprintify" it physically as well.

My first car was a Vitesse 6 (1.6 litre 6 cylinder) The turning circle was brilliant but I had to change the steering plastic bushes every year.

I’m not sure if maintaining the nostalgia of shifting occasionally would outweigh the possibility, or I should say probability of replacing the drivetrain on a regular basis. The “expected” torque should be well in excess of the original.

Volkswagen don‘t really make motorcycles, but they own Ducati! 😅

Another point for keeping the gearbox that wasn't mentioned is the speedo drive often comes from the gearbox in old sports cars. Yes it's possible to use an inductive pickup and use a motor to drive the analogue speedo, but it's a lot of work. You also missed of what I would argue is the best Triumph and the king of the 'camping holiday' ragtops, the TR6.

Honda, Suzuki, BMW. Ducati is owned by VW Group if you want to stretch :D

I have a funny feeling that the first time the Triumph 6 got into that smaller body that it dropped to being 1750 CC.

My ideal would be converting a Y2k era Fiat Multipla , Mk11 version MPV. 6 full size seats, decent boot space, modest footprint and excellent ground clearance with plenty of underfloor space for batteries. I miss my old diesel one so much and just need enough cash to commission ECC to do the job for me - somebody please!

Herald, Vitesse, and GT6 all use effectively identical engine mounting. The Spitfire has slightly lower engine mount positions on the suspension uprights, but the front plate on the engine side is identical to the Herald dimensionally. If you copy the original engine mounting positions, as it seems you have, this will drop into any of the Herald-derived cars quite easily.

DKW made wonderful cars and motorcycles. Growing up with dkw (and Auto Union) cars and a dkw moped, they hold a fond place in my ❤. Keep making the fun, informative videos!

Beautiful resto! Still waiting for that modified Fiat 500 kit to fit a 77 Fiat 124 Spyder 😊

I briefly had a 1962(?) Triumph Vitesse. Bought two junkers and put them together into a running vehicle but then literally got run out of Abilene by the Sheriff and had to abandon the car. Loved it for a few months.

12:45 Shame you don't like the Stag. The only thing wrong with it was the somewhat troublesome engine. Convert one of those and that problem would be gone.

Great old Triumph Vitesse

The Herald you showed was the 1360, there was an even less "sporty" version! 😂

and Bmw…

BMW make motorbike aswell as cars

Use the NACS socket in the fuel cap hole with an adapter for the UK charger network

That is a beaut of a restoration regardless of the drivetrain! Rolls Royce has to be the ultimate EV conversion? Also the big Jags from the 60's

BMW, that's where they began,

I'd be very keen to know more about how you are driving the rev counter / info on a product I could buy from you.

A car that would be cool to see as a EV conversion is a Renault Avantime. Futuristic looks with modern drivetrain. Traveling in comfort for 4 people.

Cars & bikes: Honda, Suzuki, BMW, KTM, Ariel, Triumph, Yamaha

Absolutely bloody gorgeous. One of my favs so far. Great to see some of the British classics warmed up.

Nice lil red sports car. There I said it

love the videos but you must shave off those mutton chops, so 1970's

I know it's not quite the same, but diidn’t Rover start out manufacturing bicycles before cars? Triumph Motorcycles and Triumph Cars split in 1936. Triumph Cars went bankrupt in 1939 and was bought by the Standard Motor Company in 1945. Standard Triumph was bought by Leyland in 1960 then merged into Brtish Leyland in 1968. The modern incarnation of Triumph Motorcycles was set up in 1983 and the rights to the Triumph Cars marque is owned by BMW.

BMW cars and motor cycles

BMW makes bikes and cars...

Really glad that you guys are doing more FR cars... would like to see more FF too.

How about a custom adapter to fit a standard charge plug on the fuel fill opening?

I love these conversions, have you ever done a Hillman Imp?

If it were me, I'd have the estate and have the stance adjusted accordingly.

Lovely! Is the hyper9 + old gearbox a little bit less efficient than a Tesla motor, or is it miles less efficient? How many more miles with the same 26kwh pack would the vitesse get if it had a Tesla drive unit? Thanks!!