If you are fans of Johnny Cash, you may know he owned a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow from 1970. And it turns out that the family of the Man in Black, who died in 2003, had the idea of ‘offer a second life to his beautiful Englishwoman by converting her to the electricity fairy. This is called electric retrofitting, a practice that allows the conversion of existing thermal vehicles authorized in France since last May.
In the case of Johnny Cash’s Rolls-Royce, the transformation was entrusted to the American company SHIFT EV, which obviously had carte blanche. As a result, a new Tesla Model S was purchased and stripped of its powertrain and many other components. The generous wheelbase of the Silver Shadow made it easy to fit the 75 kWh battery pack under the floor . As a result, the Silver Shadow can travel 320 kilometers on a charge, which is quite correct given the significant weight it must display on the scale after this transformation.
SHIFT EV was even able to adapt the power steering, ABS , stability and traction control systems, brakes as well as air conditioning from the Model S into the venerable lady. In order not to distort the so British elegance of the Silver Shadow, the designers had the good idea to relegate the control screen usually present in the passenger compartment of Tesla to the trunk.