The Rise Of 'Restomod': These Companies Are Bringing Vintage Cars Into The Future
© PR Classics cars fitted with electric engines, seat heaters, air conditioning and power steering. To some petrol heads it's hand-over-the-mouth sacrilege. To others, it's the ultimate in automotive luxury In the chequered history of portmanteaus,“restomod” has to be one of the less successful examples — it’s definitely no “brunch” — but the restored and modified car scene it describes has been going from strength to strength in recent years. The concept is pretty alluring: take a vintage car and all the great things that go with it— looks, backstory, rarity; and add the best of modern driving — comfort, eco-friendliness, not breaking down every time you drive it. There’s nothing intrinsically new in modernising old cars but there is in the scale and slickness of some of the operations involved, epitomised by the super high-end (and expensive) “re-imaginings” of Nineties Porsche 911s undertaken by Singer in California but now filtering down to almost any beloved classic you ca