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Comment by AngryData | Hacker News Reader

From the article it sounds like the inverse, they took a Tesla and stuck a classic car exterior shell on it, not transplant the electric car parts into a mustang frame. It is still kind of neat but is not the same thing to me. You don't normally upgrade a classic car by chopping out the entire frame and sticking the body panels onto a modern car.

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I'd love to see more of this as an option... Getting a modern electic car with a late 60's Camero styled shell would be a nice option IMO. Would need to take a few liberties with some dimensions in the designs as the originals won't 1:1 match up, but there's probably enough leeway to make such things work out.

I agree fully. Hyundai has a mockup that starts to get there (different era, but same concept) called the N vision 74[1], but I doubt we'll see it in market anytime soon. The unfortunate reality IIUC is that modern cars (electric vehicles) have certain aero restrictions (for mileage) that heavily limit design options.

[1] https://www.hyundai-n.com/en/models/rolling-lab/n-vision-74

Aero is driving a lot of EV design choices yes but it’s not as much of a limitation as you are implying - see the Ioniq 5, Cybertruck, F150 lightning or any of Rivian’s vehicles for examples where they’ve traded a bit of range for a boxier, less aero shape (admittedly often with _some_ rounded corners still).

It’s a trade off most manufacturers are not making because the US market is _so_ range conscious but I think it is fairly small margins we’re talking.

The dimensional differences of modern cars are striking. You'd need to make a 6:5 larger scale model of the original car in many cases. Or worse, if you've ever seen a classic Mini next to a modern Mini.

(yes, I will admit that a lot of that is for crash safety, but not all of it)

I get that... but to a large extent, you should be able to capture a lot of the style of classic designs without necessarily the specific dimensions. I think the modern Scout remake is a decent example of this... another would be the Challenger, which is not original dimensions at all, but absolutely can recognize the inspiration of the more modern incarnation.

With maybe 3-4 base boards, you could do many dozens of different frames and shells. It could be an interesting opportunity for one company to mfg and sell a lot of boards, where smaller coach builders can do the bodies... akin to luxury cars a bit over a century ago.

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