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
00:00No one's ever taken an electric motorcycle motor and put it in a car before.
00:05This thing will do 80 no problem all day long.
00:08But do you really want to do 80 in this?
00:10Am I scared driving it? Yeah, you just never know what's going to happen.
00:20My name is Rich and I run a YouTube channel called Rich Rebuilds
00:23and this is my 1930s rat rod Ford Model A.
00:27If I can describe it in three words, I'd say it's a work of art.
00:30I mean, just look at it. It's just beautiful.
00:33It's about 11 feet long and about 5 feet wide.
00:36It weighs about, I would say, between 12 and like 1300 pounds or so.
00:40And what powers this thing, the heart of it is an electric motor
00:45out of an electric motorcycle that got wrecked and I figured as much,
00:48you know what, why not throw in a rat rod and see what it can do.
00:51So right here we have the motor itself.
00:53I had a custom made transmission adapter.
00:56This is actually the battery pack itself.
00:58It looks like a computer case. Everyone gets super confused over it.
01:01This is actually a transmission out of an old 60s Chevy.
01:05It's a three-speed manual. That's how it gets up to speed so fast.
01:08Because it's a multi-gear transmission,
01:11it accelerates pretty quickly for that small baby motor.
01:13These seats are actually the third row seats from an old Dodge Caravan minivan.
01:18I have the gauge cluster from an old Dodge Caravan.
01:21And right here I have the turn signals.
01:24I have the high beams, speedometer.
01:27So everything that I could, all the electronics were grafted from the bike
01:30and it went onto the rat rod.
01:34It took about six weeks to build from start to finish.
01:40That's why we have the shield.
01:44Figuring out how to mate the electric motor to the transmission,
01:47that was one challenging part.
01:49And the second challenging part was figuring out the accelerator pedal.
01:53On a motorcycle, there's actually a twist throttle.
01:55So I had to figure out how to mount it up front
01:57and turn that twist pedal into the stepping motion that you're normally used to in a car.
02:03I actually attached a manual cable.
02:05So whenever I step on the foot pedal, it turns it that way.
02:10The first test ride was interesting because there were a lot of naysayers
02:13saying that the small electric motor wouldn't be able to actually move forward.
02:16I was like, is it going to go anywhere? Can it even accelerate?
02:19And it sure did.
02:32The acceleration is surprisingly good.
02:34What I do is I put it in first gear and I just jam the accelerator pedal
02:37and it actually goes really, really well.
02:40The transmission allows me to work with a much smaller motor.
02:43So the torque hit is pretty instant.
02:56Am I scared driving it? Yeah. You just never know what's going to happen.
02:59Is something going to fall off? Is it going to blow up?
03:01I really have no idea.
03:03So you can see why you could do 80.
03:06But do you really want to do 80 in this?
03:12My favorite thing about this is definitely the look that you get from people
03:15that expect a big honking engine to be in the front.
03:21It looks like it's not supposed to move at all,
03:23but it's not going to move at all.
03:25It's not going to move at all.
03:27It's not going to move at all.
03:29It's not going to move at all.
03:31It looks like it's not supposed to move at all.
03:33There's nothing up front.
03:35It just looks like a bunch of computer equipment slapped together.
03:41Why the electric hot rod? I wanted to do it.
03:43It just had to get done at some point.
03:45I feel like it really captures the spirit of hot rodding.