When Freddie Mercury‘s 1974 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow sold at auction for £286,250 in November 2022 anybody with knowledge of such cars believed they’d just seen the pinnacle price just as Shadows were becoming super-cool, although more usually at a tenth of the price.
But Guildford-based Evice – 11 guys, average age 27, two of them former Mercedes-Benz AMG F1 and Honda Racing F1 engineers – will soon be providing a compelling case for splashing £390,000 for reborn and evolved Silver Shadows and a Rolls-Royce Spectre-matching price tag of £500,000 for Corniche versions.
Evice’s output will be battery-powered cars. But these won’t just be any EV-ed classics: with two former F1 engineers on the design and construction team, as well as others with elite racing series experience, and at McLaren and Rivian, the attention to detail – and secrecy – is almost palpable in its intensity.
And Spear’s was the first to get an exclusive in-the-driving-seat taste of quite possibly the ultimate ‘resto-mod’ EV-converted classic, or at least a sense of what it feels like once the right foot squeezes the accelerator pedal.
Top secret
Because this was the ‘mule’ car, complete with mainstream carmaker pre-production-style zig-zag wrap disguise, probably more to generate attention than hide the universally recognisable silhouette – but still the only frivolity.
‘I’m sorry, you can’t point a camera at that,’ said Matthew Pearson, Evice co-founder, a two-hour-repeated mantra, whether in the development car or the workshops.
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Because this isn’t just a Shadow plonked on top of scavenged mainstream production EV workings as can be the case for many electrified classics. Under development for the first finished cars, targeted for mid-2025, are steering, suspension and brakes specifically created and designed to make a 1977-80 Silver Shadow 2 look like an original, but drive and handle like a current-day luxury car. The updated components will replace that car’s notoriously unreliable 1960s-designed hydraulic suspension and brakes.
And luxury it will be. There’s as much focus on recreating Rolls-Royce-standard quality across not just the dynamics, but the driving and ownership environments.
But not at the moment. With an intensity of focus and eye for detail that befits the expectation of the target market – and the first buyers have committed – the interior of the development car has been completely stripped out bar the front seats and essentials. The team has identified and measured the source of any likely invasive noises and designed sound deadening to ensure the cabin remains as refined as the original, maybe even close to that of current Rolls-Royces.
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What was apparent, even in the restricted space of a large car park and private road, is that the development Silver Shadow felt like it had every bit of the 400bhp and 3400Nm of torque claimed by Evice readily and silently available. It’s a little complicated, but, in summary, that huge torque delivery – it’s not a misprint – is down to the carefully calibrated relationship between the power unit, gearbox and overall gearing.
‘Real world range will be around 200 miles, but our longer-range car, which will also have around 500bhp, will be 250 miles-plus,’ said Pearson.
A peep at the finished product
Hiding under a sheet in the corner of the workshop was what they didn’t want me to see – a customer’s Corniche in its final coat of paint, awaiting the Evice-exclusive drivetrain and underpinnings, and completion of its interior. Like the Shadows, only 1977-1980 cars will be converted for engineering reasons – reasons that remain carefully guarded.
Nevertheless, a few seconds with a corner of the cover lifted immediately suggested fit and finish will be up there. This is all very real, and with some discreet suggestion of the status of the four main investors – two from the UK, one from the Middle East and one based in the Mediterranean – that phrase ‘real’ gets the double-underline treatment in the notebook.
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What makes the drivetrain special, however, is that it’s an 800-volt system when few if any classic conversions are 800v; that BMW Group cars, including the Rolls-Royce Spectre, are 400-volt underpins the cautious deployment of putting the word ‘unique’ in the same sentence as ‘Evice’s cars’. 800v means more power, faster charging, but also smaller and lighter cables and generally unseen EV paraphernalia. It means the finished Evice cars (which will still be registered as Rolls-Royces) will weigh within whispering distance of the original’s mass, although still not inconsiderable.
And all this in the 18 months since the classic-car-passionate founding team – they all have master’s degrees in mechanical and automotive engineering from the University of Bath – progressed from debating the possibilities in a pub in Oxford to committing to the project, moving into their premises in autumn 2023.
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A rush job? By no means. The raw material of the iconic Rolls, is, as futurologist and car-nut Tom Cheesewright once said to me, probably the perfect platform for an EV conversion. And despite their relative youth, these digital generation re-creators exude the calm that is Rolls-Royce’s trademark.
Eighteen months? For these guys, for whom perfection is not an option, that’s an F1 minute.
