Work is progressing nicely on FrogE number 2. This is the car received from a customer in Maryland, who was tired of looking at the inoperative car buried in his garage. Soon it will be a reliable electric-powered rocket, instead of the garage equivalent of home exercise equipment turned clothes hanger.
The car is now stripped of it’s worn 948 power plant and broken transmission, and ready to be loaded with enough lithium and phosphate to deliver 100 miles of Bugeye fun per charge.
We’ve gutted the interior and will dress it up without going too far. This particular car is pure driver, with older paint and a weathered dashboard. Our goal with this build is to make it nicer and more comfortable but not fully cosmetically restored.
The primary focus is the powertrain conversion. This car only had a driver seat for many years-the passenger seat was missing. We have recovered that seat with the original navy blue material with iris blue piping (just like the original), and built a passenger seat to match. Our navy blue carpet will serve as an attractive foundation. We’re confident people will now want to ride along!
Our approach to building these conversions is to keep as much of the original appearance as possible. Rather than throw away the interior and put in whatever new aftermarket bits we can find, we want these cars to look and feel exactly like an original Bugeye, even though the powertrain is radically different. So we will keep the dashboard shown, albeit with new electronic gauges we’ve made that mimic the original look.
The suspension and brakes have been upgraded with the same sway bar, new king pins and performance shocks we use in any fast gas powered Bugeye, and next the batteries and motor will be massaged into place. Each conversion we build gets us closer to electric kit availability, so that home restorers will also be able to add electric power to their Sprites.
