Tesla-Powered Shelby Cobra Replica to Hit the Race Tracks Later This Year

Traditionally, that's where you would find a 4.2-liter Ford V8 engine, but after the successful venture of AC Cars and Carol Shelby, lots of replicas of the legendary sports car appeared so keeping track of the power units in each of them became the work of Sisyphus.

As much as diehard petrolheads dreaded the moment, this was bound to happen at some point. A group of "friends" (of which we'll assume at least one is an engineer) from Vancouver, British Columbia, called E-Power Racing has started working on a Shelby Cobra that uses electric propulsion.

They built the chassis and frame from scratch, used the moldings of a 427 Shelby Cobra to create the fiberglass body panels and then slid in the serious stuff: the Tesla Model S P85 electric motor and a Kia Soul EV battery pack.

If the Tesla performance motor is no surprise (it's rated at 310 kW - 421 hp - and 600 Nm - 442 lb-ft), the choice for a battery pack might. There doesn't seem to be anything particularly remarkable about the Kia Soul EV, and yet its power reserve has a very important characteristic.

It turns out that at 400 pounds (181 kg), the 30 kWh pack is the most energy-dense in the in industry, thus becoming the best choice for keeping alive the true spirit of the vehicles that wore this body. It's too early for any performance figures, but since the car is built for racing, maximum range won't be a huge factor.

With more and more EVs showing up on the used-car market, obtaining a decent electric motor or battery pack is going to get easier and easier, and also cheaper. That being said, expect to see more vehicles like this EVCobra showing up in the future. Let's just hope they won't all come with that weird-looking roll cage.