I went to visit the MGB workshop on Monday as I had to drop my sons car off with him at a nearby workshop. My car was still at the trimmers and we didn't go to have a look but I had a look at a couple of other MGB's in progress and asked some questions I had

We also had a bit of a talk about electric cars. He is visiting Frontline in the UK in April and will be driving an Electric Mini, Frontline has also built an electric MGB he is going to try. He said they told him they have used the 6 speed MX5 gearbox with a Hyper 9 motor connected to it so you can change gears. He said that talking to the guys they have got great performance and driving experience but not a lot of range so he in looking forward to trying it.

But he feels that for the UK electric cars are fine but the distances here are too big to make it practical. To get to where you want to tour is often 1000km away, where from Frontline the Cotswolds are maybe 15miles away.

For example today I am leaving for 10 days to tour the Great Ocean Road with the Canberra MG car club, there are 10 cars, a MGA, MGTF and mainly MGB's. We are driving 500km the first day and 400km the next day but then about 100km each day for 5 days followed by 400km each day for 3 days on the way back. I was hoping to take my car but as it has taken longer than expected I will be driving my Skoda (with some tools and water for the other cars as it is rather hot and they could overheat.

Say the Great Ocean road trip was being done by 10 electric converted MGB’s instead of petrol cars. Most classic car conversions seem to have about a 160 to 200km range. Certainly enough for the Great Ocean road once there as we are only doing fairly short distances sightseeing each day, however to get there means fully charging 4 to 5 times. Maybe going on your own would not be too bad as hopefully you can find some chargers along the way but if 10 electric MGB’s turn up then it could take a long time for them all to be charged up to go to the next location.

Anyway he feels he will end up doing electric conversions in the future as the market will want it and he expects Mazda will stop building engines at some stage fairly soon. So if Frontline and companies here are looking at alternatives because they can't get engines I feel it is engines not fuel that is the issue. Yes anyone can build an engine but Frontline, Morgan etc. rely on buying a new engine and getting the benefit of a lower price from mass production.

He is also converting his demo car to a Haltech computer to see how it goes. Frontline use OMEX and being local are fine, he uses cars that Frontline ships here after tuning and has had no issues, but he wants to make sure he has a local option in case he needs to source engines elsewhere.

Apart from the price I feel an electric original mini would be very cool for driving around Canberra.