Decision made!

It was in August 2026 when the decision was made between my wife and me to embark on this journey and spend a considerable amount of money on a dream we both want to come true.

I won’t bore the reader with a long personal background, but I will mention a few points in my biography that seem to be relevant and if anyone is reading this who considers a similar project, it might help putting things in perspective.

I’ve been a car guy all my life. I still remember the very date of my Führerscheinprüfung and the conversations I had with my driving teacher. I started car life with an accident damaged 1981 Honda Civic, that my engineer father gave to me for free if I promised to fix it myself. Not a bad educational act I think.

From Fiat to Jaguar to Bentley

I went on with a 1980 Fiat 124 spider and after a few years I got myself a rather rusty 1964 Jaguar E-type Series 1 Coupé in opalescent silver blue, the best colours of all. I restored it from A-Z incl. engine and Moss gearbox rebuild, interior trimming (I feel I still have glue in my hair from the headliner I removed). The metal work and welding was done by a friend and I assisted as much as I could. I learned so much and the car was fantastic to drive.

I’ll skip a few cars, I might mention the 1962 Bentley S3 Standard Steel Saloon in Regal Red (what a beauty) in a later post.

Driving an electric car makes you not go back

Now the problem: In 2018 I purchased a new Tesla Model S, solid black paint, light grey (not white) interior and free supercharging. Beautiful car, in fact, I enjoyed driving it so much that I sold all my other cars because I did not use them anymore. The Tesla had everything: Space for the family, unbelievable performance, great design, modern digital conveniences. I never wanted to sell it.

That was until the owner of a company became bros with a criminal leader of a country.

I am not going to continue driving a car with that jerk’s signature on it. I looked at the BEV market and there was absolutely nothing that I wanted. Two years later: Still nothing.

British. Nothing else.

And I always wanted to get a classic British car again. I love the British culture, their design, their language, their literature, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Alan Poe, Mary Poppins, Hogwarts – and I started looking around.

Lunaz does fantastic Jaguar, Aston Martin and Land Rover electromods – starting at 600.000 pounds. Sorry – I am not going to spend that much. RBW creates new MGB’s: They purchased the old body shell presses from British Motor Heritage and a producing new cars for the UK and the US market at a price point of approx. 120.000 GBP. I talked to them. Unfortunately, they are unable to make the car road legal in Germany at this point.

Next one: Halcyon in Sussex fully restores and rebuilds Rolls Royce Silver Shadows and Bentley T model. Lovely car with modern design, prices around 450.000 pounds. Doable, but still very expensive, and to be honest, the design is a little too blinky blinky to my eyes.

Settling on the concept

I then researched getting a well restored Silver Shadow or T model and getting the drive train replaced by an electric one. Obviously, I would need to find a company that had done this a few times – and there are quite a few. And I realised I was now flexible on the choice of car model! That made me decide very quickly to focus on the Jaguar Mk2. I always wanted to own one but never had!

For now, I have settled on Retro Electrics. I talked to one of their founders, Tim, and I should receive a concrete quote soon. The costs are going to be around 100.000 pounds, plus the donor car of course. Still a lot, but not much more than I spent on the Tesla eight years ago.