BMW converted to electric and still a manual?!!
Hi, I’m Richard from Electric Classic Cars and on this week’s episode, I think we’ve got one of the coolest electric conversions we’ve ever done. This BMW O2 and not only is it uber cool, but it’s a manual, too. Let’s get into it. All right, to start off with, let’s do a little bit of a history lesson. What is this car? Now, most people when they see this think it’s a 2022 or 2002, but there were a load of different iterations of this car. This car was actually manufactured from uh 1966 to 77. It had a 1500 engine in, a 1600, um an 18, and the 2 L engines in. This specifically is or was a600 engine in it. So that made it a 1602. And actually this is the later generation. The first generation to me look exactly the same as the second generations apart from the lights at the back. Let’s have a look at that. So on the earlier models of the O2s, they had a round tail light here. A little bit like the um Cortas. Remember the earlier? Oh, the CND ones on the M1 Cina. TNT. So, they had an early round one there. The later O2 models had this, you know, well, whatever shape that is, but it had a reverse light. I don’t think the round ones had a reverse light. As I say, it’s a badge for the 16002. Uh, right there. The body shape of the O2. Everybody thinks this is the, you know, iconic body shape, but I really like the touring version. Have you seen the Touring version? No. Version. It comes down there. And talking about different roofs as well, there was also a target roof. I think it was called a a bower top or something. BMW afficionados down in the comments. Help me out. I probably got loads of things wrong here. But yeah, there was a really cool uh target top. I’m pretty sure it was called a Bower Top as well. So, that’s the history that I can remember of the O2 model. It was um around about the same era as the BMW E9. We’ve done a couple of BMW E9s. Click on the link above if you want to see an episode on one of those. But before we even got into the electric conversion, the customer, really cool chap called Jerry down in London, wanted a very specific look for this car. So, let’s have a chat about that. Now, I love it when a customer comes to me with a specific look in mind, especially if it’s one that I really agree with. And Jerry has a real eye for what I think is a cool car. He came to me and said, “Right, I want it to look like this.” He had the color in mind, which is my favorite color, VW Oak Green, which was on what Volkswagens? Mark 2 Golfs. Mark 2 Golfs. He’s right. And also, it was an option on 911s at the time as well. Bet you didn’t know. I don’t remember many of those. It was an option on 911s as well, but yep, you’re right. It was a Volkswagen Golf GTI Mark 2, was it? Yeah, MK2. But they also had that iconic BBS wheel, didn’t they? Yeah. It actually looks a little bit looks to me just looks like the the Golf GTI I wanted. Right. There’s another reason why it looks a little bit Golf GTI because these arches are not standard arches. These are actually off a Golf GTI. Wow. There we go. There was a there was a certain look Jerry wanted and you know to get to that we’ve gone with these arches here. Now, on the 20 22 Turbo, they had some bubble arches, a little bit like Mark 1 Escort bubble arches, very round, and I just didn’t think it looked right. So, we found that Golf GTI Oh, I think it’s Mark One arches, I might be wrong, might be Mark 2, fitted on here with a little bit of alteration and cut and shut around the finish uh down the bottoms here, but it just looks factory. But you didn’t even know that wasn’t factory, did you? I didn’t. I was shocked then when you said that. I mean, I’ve been There’s a lot of subtle customizations on this car. Not only the arches, but also that then ran us into another problem, which was the bumpers. So, the bumpers are actually cut a little bit short uh on the rear and the front because they actually went further along here, but the arches get in the way now. So, we had to cut and shut those, then recchrome it all. But not only that, we had to do quite a few little tricks on the bumpers. So, let’s go around to the front and have a chat about that. Now, round at the front here, I can show you some of the work that we had to put into the bumper alone. Um, so, as I mentioned before, we had to um cut it a little bit short here because otherwise it was going to run into the wider wing extensions here. But, at the same time, these bumpers normally have a black plastic trim piece or rubber trim piece that goes all the way around and also some big ugly overriders on here, probably for the American market. So, we had to weld all those up, like uh linish it all back and just get a perfectly lovely smooth chrome bumper that went all the way around as well as bringing it a little bit closer in as well cuz we felt the bumper sat far too far out as well. So, there’s a lot of just work just in the bumper alone. But, while I’m at the front as well, you probably noticed the chin spoiler. So, we put this chin spoiler on as well because otherwise I think it looks a little bit goofy, you know? It’s It’s like, you know, like that. And it looks a bit little like a chipmunk uh without a decent chin spoiler on. So that chin spoiler is off a I think it’s an E21 Alpena. And we have to again cut and shut it just to fit the uh narrower format of the O2. And then we have to blend it in with the rest of the car. So you can see this line here just perfectly blends in with the wing. There’s a lot of work we have to do there as well. All right. All right. Now, Tim, if you follow me down the uh car, I’m going to cover off a number of just other customizations we’ve done. So, we got the BBS alloys on it. Um there used to be a trim here. We’ve got rid of that trim, a black plasticky sort of rubbery trim. That’s gone. Uh we’ve got a BMW E9 badge on there, which is a bit controversial at the time. We were thinking, should we put on should we put it? I don’t know. Comments below. What do you think? Do you like it there? and obviously the fuel filler cap now which is repurposed as the charge socket. Right. So, so far we’ve been talking about the exterior of the car and this car had to go through quite a substantial restoration. It came from Ireland. It had a lot of rust on it. So, we had to save it basically. But the interior is very special. So, have a look at that. I think red on uh red leather with a green exterior car works really nice. Some people don’t like the red interior. You like it too? I love it. I think like you say, sometimes red don’t work, but on some colors it absolutely pops and I think it really suits it. And also the choice of seats. So these are the Ricaros and we managed to get the BMW adjusters and stuff on it. But the whole interior for me just works. We got awesome trims. We’ll put a link in the description for our trimmer. They did a fantastic job with the interior and at the same time we’ve updated it with some decent infotainment system as well. And the customizations don’t stop at the outside either. We’ve customized the interior a little bit, not just leather seats, Ricaros, etc. But you got heated seats, uh, front and rear. Uh, we’ve got a full uh, infotainment system here, sat nav and stuff. also Moto Leto um uh steering wheel and to match that we’ve also uh polished uh you know aluminum here on the heater um controls but also on the um dial binnacle surround if you like. So all this is a little bit custom and at the same time we’ve kept the gearbox. So we’re going to go for a spin in a minute. I’ll explain how that works. Uh the only additional gauge we’ve actually put in is this one down here, which is a state of charge gauge. So uh before we go for a spin, one thing I’ve not actually covered at all yet is the electric conversion. So better have a chat about that. Battery pack wise, we’ve got a 40 kWh battery pack in here split 50% in the front and 50% in the boot. And underneath the front battery pack is also the motor. What we’ve done there is we’ve chosen a net gain hyper 9 motor which gives it around about 120 horsepower similar to the TI which is a 2002 TI model. I does not stand for injection. It stands for well I’m not sure what it stands for because it’s a carbureted version which is quite odd. The injection version was the TI. I no idea. And another little fact, it was the injection version of the TI they also used on the turbo version of the uh 2002. Anyway, back to the conversion. The reason why we chose the Hyper Hyper 9 motors cuz it had the same power as the TI engine and also a similar rev range, which meant that we could keep the gearbox because Jerry wanted a you a good manual feel to the car. Didn’t want to take or detract too much away from the classic car feel. and having that gearbox and changing gears with a rev range similar to the engine was how we managed it. The other half of the battery bank was in the boot, but I don’t think it detracts too much away from the boot space. I mean, the boot space was quite big in the O2, but you know, there it is there. And um underneath here, we’ve still got quite a bit of luggage space in that area as well. So, it’s a decent size boot still in this car, which is important because Jerry only has one car. This is it. and he uses it on a regular basis down in London. So, it needs to be practical. Now, people quite often accuse us um when we’ve converted a classic car to electric that you’ve taken away the connection, the engagement if you like, of that classic car drive. You know, you haven’t got the gears anymore. There’s no clutch balance and putting it into the corner and getting it down into the right gear and stuff. But that’s exactly what we’ve kept with this. We’ve got the same rev range if you like um as the original engine. We’ve got the gearbox. We’ve got the clutch. We’ve upgraded the suspension and the brakes. The handling is 50/50. This is a beautifully poised BMW just with a different noise engine at the front and obviously no pollution coming out the back. But I think the proof is in the pudding. It’s time for me to Tim to put away the camera, get the GoPros on and go for a spin. We better get going. It’s sunny. I know last 10 minutes. I’ve got my ski jacket on. What’s going on? Really rare BMW. This indicator. This is actually quite an old build. I mean, we when this came to us, it was 2018. Was it 2018? Yeah, 2018. By the time it was restored and went out the door, it’s about 2019. So, this is six years old. It’s And Jerry used it a lot. I mean, as I say, it’s his only car then. So, so if if this came to you today, what how different would it be today with like the the latest technology? How’s it how’s the technology moved on in those six years? I mean, as far as the look of the of the car and the upgrades we did, suspension and stuff like that, that would be the same. Um the EV powertrain we would probably move to a 400vt system rather than 120 volt system for a number of reasons. That would then allow us to have CCS rapid charging on which we didn’t have back then and also a slightly different motor. Um but we still run it through the gearbox cuz that was what Jerry wanted. So yeah, apart from rapid charging, um energy density, the batteries improved. Um so where we would have a 40 kWh battery now, we’d probably have a 50 kWh battery with the latest battery technology we use. So the 40 that’s in here now, what range does that give you? About 140 driving normally like this on a road. So if you were building it today, you’d got an extra what 20 m out of it, something like that. Yeah. I mean, this is kind of the same size battery in Oliver’s, my son’s um Rena Zoey. Yeah. And a Niss Leaf or early generation Nissan Leaf for instance. So, as well as the gears, it’s also kept the manual steering. So, there’s no power steering at all in this. And that’s a good thing cuz you can really feel the suspension getting loaded up as I’m going around those like S’s there. It handles really well, doesn’t it? It’s like it’s on rails like like most BMWs, but this is just a joy to drive. Yeah. And it’s a comfortable ride. It’s not jarring, is it? Yeah. Yeah. Suspension spot. I forgot what the upgrades were that we did on the suspension, but we put a lot of um thought into making sure that the springs and dampers were tuned correctly for the weight, new weight distribution, cuz the weight distribution had changed. But you can definitely feel it going around these corners now. And if I go into this here again, as we got the top up to a little bit of even when it goes up and over like that, it doesn’t get loose. Right. So, let’s cover off firstly the elephant in the room, which is how gears and a gearbox works with an electric motor. Cuz it’s a bit of an odd concept. I mean, most EVs out there just have one gear. Um, like a Tesla has a 9.73 to one gear reduction on a Model S. just, you know, no gears whatsoever. Direct drive. The TYAN instrument, interestingly enough, has two gears. Did you know that? No, I didn’t. Yeah. So, as that has a two gear um gearbox. Um you wouldn’t know it. You hardly even notice when it changes gear. But what we’ve done on this is we’ve attached the Net Gain Hyper 9 motor onto the original gearbox, which still has a clutch. And because we’ve chosen a motor which has a similar sort of like rev range, after about 6,000 RPM, the torque really drops off a cliff, which is fairly similar to an engine. It means that, you know, once the motor gets up to about 6,000 RPM in say second gear, you’re naturally wanting to change to third gear to keep the momentum going. And that’s the trick when you’re matching uh a motor to a gearbox is make sure the motor if you’re going to have a manual uh on it. The motor has the same rev range as the original engine. So now we are sitting static and you’re still going to use the clutch. So you got still got three pedals. You’re going to use the clutch exactly the same as you would when you are going. The only difference is when you’re static like we are now um you don’t have to ride the clutch to start. Correct. Cuz the motor’s not spinning. Whereas an an engine would be spinning now RPM of like I don’t know 1,800 RPM whatever tick over is. So now I could actually put it in gear if I wanted to because the motor’s not spinning. Yeah. But just a force of habit. I’m going to put dip the clutch put it in first and then clutch control and just off you go in first. There we go. Just run out of revs. Into second. Away you go. Run out of revs. Into third. Oh, away you go. So, it it’s actually really similar feel to an engine. Exactly the same. It it pretty much Yeah. I mean, you got a lot more low down torque and the the noise is still there, but it’s different. So, because you’ve got a lot more torque, you’d get away with leaving it in a higher gear than you would in a petrol car. Yes. But the gearbox would be shouting at you saying, “Hang on a minute. I’m revving at, you know, whatever revs. I’m not liking this in third place.” No, I meant low lower like you wouldn’t start it wouldn’t start juttering. No. So if I if I stop here now now I can’t stall an electric motor. If I was in third as I’m in third gear now I’m coming to a stop it would stall and jud and just stall the engine. That doesn’t happen electric motor. Now I haven’t dipped the clutch. If I start off in third rather than first before I’ll put my foot down here now in third. Wow. Now, you couldn’t do that in a petrol car. Start off in third. But if you notice, it’s a lot more sluggish taking off. Yeah. So, that’s why it’s still a good idea to change through the gears when you want to be sporty. But if you want to be lazy, you can certainly leave it in third gear if you like. But that’s not what this car was designed for. I mean, this this was designed to drop it down into second, go around the corner like this, back up to third. And away you go. Right. This hair pin here is a good very tight hair pin on our pill. It’s a good example of when you need to change down. So we’re in third gear now. Coming in a little bit too hot down to second. Full on 180° hairpin up the way. Inside wheel was spinning a bit there. Slippy road. Well, it’s got no limited slip diff on the back. But tell you what, it’s got quite a bit. Pulls up this hill quite well, doesn’t it? It’s not bad, is it? That’s quite a steep hill up into third. Hey, I tell you what, we can’t get better views than this, can we? These are the cracking, isn’t it? This is where Top Gear and people like that come to film. And this is on our doorstep. Unbelievable. But it’s the ideal roads and settings for a manual, good handling electric car as well. That’s what I think. I think this is pretty much nailed it as far as having something that is practical. And talking about practical, Tim said before, the best thing about this car, what did he say? I can get in and out of it. It’s it’s easy to get in and out. But it is it’s practical. You got a big boot, you got back seats, you got really comfortable front seats and easy to get in and out as old man Tim has already pointed out. But it for me, we haven’t lost the engagement that an old classic BMW gives you when you’re driving it. It’s still got the same rev range. You still got the, you know, four gears. There’s no five gears in this one, by the way. Um, handling is great. Brakes are good. I mean, it’s just still a BMW. The only difference is the engine noise is different. There’s still still noise. It’s just not the What What does a four-cylinder engine make? Brum broom. Is that your best effort? That’s right. Yeah. It’s just replaced with more of a 21st century like whizzing, worring noise. So, you still get to feel where you are in the rev range. So, I think we’ve nailed it as far as And it looks like that. And it looks like that. Exactly. It’s such a pretty car, isn’t it? It is. But I love cars that look good, but also handle good so that you can enjoy them and have them as a practical car. And that’s what Jerry’s been doing with this car for the past six or seven years. He’s been using this as his only vehicle in London. It’s a shame he doesn’t live in areas like this, but he’s coming up on Friday to pick it up. So, he’s going to really enjoy that drive back. But question to you down there in the comments. What do you think? Should there be more electric manual cars out there? Um, should we do more manual EV conversions? Down in the comments. Look forward to reading them. On that note, I hope you enjoyed this episode and we’ll see you on the next one.
People say that EVs aren’t engaging to drive. Well we’ve proved that wrong with this electric BMW 1602, not to be confused with it’s bigger brother the BMW 2002. BMWs are famous for their handling and the connection the driver has with the car and the road. We aimed to keep that with this BMW build by keeping the manual gearbox and using an electric motor that simulates the rev range of the original engine. In addition we kept a careful eye on weight distribution and upgraded the suspension and brakes. All in all the end package is just that perfect combination of classic style with modern underpinnings.
What do you think?
Our trimmers mentioned in the episode are Awesome Classic and Custom based out of Cambridgeshire, England.
