EVER wondered what happens when you put an electric motorcycle motor into a rat rod? Well, one car fanatic has the answer. Rich Benoit, a YouTuber from Gloucester, Massachusetts, has created something that he says has never been done before. Rich told R.Rides: “No one has ever taken an electric motorcycle motor and put it in a car - it’s beautiful.” Rich spent six weeks building his “work of art”, weighing between 12 and 1300 lbs and measuring 11ft long. At the heart of the 1930s Ford Model A is an electric motor from a wrecked motorcycle, complete with a custom made transmission adapter and a multi gear transmission from an old Chevy. Rich grafted the electronics on the bike and then put them on the rat rod, completing the interior with third row seats from an old dodge caravan. The acceleration enables the car to go up to 80mph, something Rich isn’t sure is the best idea. Part of the thrill for Rich is never knowing what will happen when taking the rat rod out for a spin: “Is something going to fall off or blow up? I really have no idea!” Rich enjoys proving the naysayers wrong who believe a small engine wouldn’t be able to pull the car. “My favourite thing about this is definitely the look you get from people who expect a big honking engine to be in front,” he said. “I feel like it really captures the spirit of hot rodding.”
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MotorTranscript
00:00 (rock music)
00:02 No one's ever taken an electric motorcycle motor
00:07 and put it in a car before.
00:09 This thing will do 80 no problem all day long.
00:11 But do you really wanna do 80 in this?
00:14 Am I scared driving it?
00:15 Yeah, you just never know what's gonna happen.
00:17 (upbeat music)
00:22 My name's Rich and I run a YouTube channel
00:24 called Rich Rebuilds.
00:25 And this is my 1930s rat rod Ford Model A.
00:29 If I could describe it in three words,
00:31 I'd say it's a work of art.
00:32 I mean, just look at it.
00:34 It's just beautiful.
00:36 It's about 11 feet long and about five feet wide.
00:39 It weighs about, I would say,
00:40 between 12 and like 1300 pounds or so.
00:43 And what powers this thing,
00:45 the heart of it is a electric motor
00:48 out of an electric motorcycle that got wrecked.
00:50 And I figured as much, you know what?
00:52 Why not throw in a rat rod and see what it can do?
00:53 So right here we have the motor itself.
00:56 I had a custom made transmission adapter.
00:59 This is actually battery pack itself.
01:01 It looks like a computer case.
01:02 Everyone gets super confused over it.
01:04 This is actually a transmission out of an old '60s Chevy.
01:08 It's a three-speed manual.
01:09 That's how it gets up to speed so fast.
01:12 Because it's a multi-gear transmission,
01:14 it accelerates pretty quickly for that small baby motor.
01:16 These seats are actually the third row seats
01:19 from an old Dodge Caravan minivan.
01:21 I have the gauge cluster from the motorcycle.
01:24 And right here I have the turn signals.
01:26 I have the high beams, speedometer.
01:29 So everything that I could,
01:30 all the electronics were grafted from the bike
01:33 and it went onto the rat rod.
01:34 It took about six weeks to build from start to finish.
01:39 Woo!
01:42 That's why we have the shield.
01:44 Figuring out how to mate the electric motor
01:48 to the transmission, that was one challenging part.
01:51 And the second challenging part
01:53 was figuring out the accelerator pedal.
01:56 A motorcycle does actually a twist throttle.
01:58 So I had to figure out how to mount it up front
02:00 and turn that twist pedal into the stepping motion
02:03 that you're normally used to in a car.
02:06 I actually attached a manual cable.
02:08 So whenever I step on the foot pedal,
02:10 it turns it that way.
02:11 The first test ride was interesting
02:14 because there were a lot of naysayers saying
02:16 that the small electric motor
02:18 wouldn't be able to actually move the car.
02:19 I was like, is it gonna go anywhere?
02:21 Can it even accelerate?
02:22 And it sure did.
02:25 (laughing)
02:27 The acceleration is surprisingly good.
02:38 What I do is I put it in first gear
02:40 and I just jam the accelerator pedal
02:42 and it actually goes really, really well.
02:44 The transmission allows me to work
02:48 with a much smaller motor.
02:50 So the torque hit is pretty instant.
02:54 (upbeat music)
02:56 Am I scared driving it?
03:04 Yeah, you just never know what's gonna happen.
03:06 Is something gonna fall off?
03:07 Is it gonna blow up?
03:08 I really have no idea.
03:10 Yeah, see there you go, it ran right there.
03:12 So you can see why you could do 80.
03:16 But do you really wanna do 80 in this?
03:18 (laughing)
03:22 My favorite thing about this is definitely
03:24 the look that you get from people
03:25 that expect a big honking engine to be in the front.
03:29 It looks like it's not supposed to move at all.
03:33 There's like nothing up front.
03:35 It just looks like a bunch of
03:36 computer equipment slapped together.
03:37 Why electric hot rod?
03:42 I wanna do it.
03:43 It just had to get done at some point.
03:45 I feel like it really captures the spirit of hot rodding.
03:48 (upbeat music)
03:51 (engine revving)
03:53 (engine revving)
03:56 [BLANK_AUDIO]