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Lunaz electrifying classic cars with coachbuilt, millimeter precision

One day last year, as David Lorenz waited by the side of the road for repair help with his classic car, he had an idea: Why not update all of that ancient mechanical "character" with a modern electric drivetrain? That would give an owner the beauty of the past, the mechanicals of the present, and the powertrain of the future. Jaguar does it with the E-Type Zero, and Aston Martin's in the game with the reversible EV powertrain swap for the DB6 Volante. And so Lorenz founded the British engineering firm Lunaz Design, named after his daughter Luna and headquartered at the Silverstone Technology Park. The company's first products are almost ready for order, starting with a 1953 Jaguar XK120 and a 1961 Rolls-Royce Phantom V. Lunaz conversions aren't a matter of pulling an engine and installing a battery pack; Lunaz reengineers classics. Managing Director Jon Hilton oversees a team bringing experience from carmakers such as Aston Martin, Ferrari, Jaguar, McLaren, and Rolls-Royce, with Hilton's resume including six years with Cosworth Engineering followed by eight years in Formula One. To develop the Lunaz offerings, a chosen car is stripped to the metal and weighed so that engineers understand the weight distribution at each corner, then the car is stripped to the chassis and 3D-scanned. This yields information allowing designers to create a powertrain that fits to the millimeter and stays true to the handling dynamics of the original vehicle. During the rebuild, the company says, any imperfections are remedied "using traditional coachbuilding techniques." The Jaguar and the Rolls-Royce get battery packs in two locations, one under the hood and one under the trunk floor. Lunaz says it can fit more battery for its in-house design into each car that way. The Jaguar's 80-kWh battery feeds two electric motors sending 375 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque to the rear wheels. The Phantom V uses a 120-kWh battery pack, but its output hasn't been released. While remaining true to the exterior and interior design of each car, Lunaz fits LED lights and modern tires, a modern suspension, better brakes with regenerative braking, power steering, an upgraded propshaft, and a fly-by-wire throttle. Safety and comfort additions include cruise control, traction control, and anti-lock brakes. Inside, the instrument cluster gets battery gauges, there's modern climate control, an infotainment screen with satellite navigation, and a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Watch Felipe Massa put the Jaguar C-X75 through its paces

Automakers who run their own racing teams enjoy the benefit of having top-flight professional racing drivers on call to help out with development work. Jaguar, unfortunately, has no such racing team, having sold its F1 operation to Red Bull back in 2004. So when it came time to put the C-X75 through its paces in this latest video, it turned to Felipe Massa. Why Massa, you ask? For one thing, having driven for so long for Ferrari, the Brazilian driver is used to applying his F1 skills in testing a supercar designed for the road. But since switching to Williams, he hasn't been called upon in that capacity. For another, it was Williams Advanced Engineering as much as Jaguar itself that spearheaded development of the C-X75. So Massa was the natural choice. The C-X75, for those who don't recall, represented Jaguar's plan to build a hybrid hypercar of its own. Having debuted way back in 2010 at the Paris Motor Show, the concept followed hot on the heels of the Porsche 918 concept unveiled earlier that year in Geneva – a predated by far the emergence of the McLaren P1 and LaFerrari. The original design called for a revolutionary powertrain combining a pair of micro-turbines and four individual electric motors in the wheels. When that proved unfeasible, Jaguar switched to a more conventional setup with a turbocharged hybrid powertrain. Unfortunately plans to put even that version into production were shelved. But the concept was revived for the filming of the latest James Bond movie Spectre. Check out the C-X75 being put through its paces by the eleven-time grand prix winner in the video above. Related Video:

Jaguar F-Pace prototype goes to work at the Nurburgring

Jaguar is hard at work again, testing its upcoming F-Pace crossover. And here's our latest look at the prototype testing at the Nurburgring. The tester spotted here appears the same as the one we recently saw undergoing cold-weather development, only this time it's wearing summer rubber on fullsize wheels instead of winter tires on smaller ones. It's also missing the old prototype's auxiliary lights, and a bit more camouflage covering the quarter panels. The fact that it was seen on the Nordschleife, however, bodes well for the F-Pace and speaks to its orientation: Jaguar's first crossover promises to be geared towards performance, a sort of on-road counterpart to the off-road prowess of the SUVs offered by its sister brand Land Rover. We're looking forward to seeing the finished product at the Frankfurt Motor Show in the fall, but in the meantime you can scope out the spy shots in the slideshow above.