Crate News! Ford teases electric crate motor so you can EV swap your classic

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The onslaught of electric propulsion isn’t going to abate any time soon, meaning we’re likely to see innovation in areas other than factory-built new vehicles. Once such space? Car restoration.

It used to be that hot rodders would install the largest engine they could fit under the hood of their ride and call it a day. Or, at least, use it as a stepping stone for jumbo turbos and superchargers. These days, all-electric options are starting to sprout like kudzu, with Ford jumping into the game with its oddly named Eluminator.

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Crate News! Ford teases electric crate motor so you can EV swap your classic Back to video

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Previewed on Twitter and set to be fully revealed at this year’s SEMA show in Las Vegas later this autumn, it’s billed as an electric crate motor. Details about power and capacity are scarce for now, but we’ll note the base trim Mach-E is good for 266 horsepower. The one Eluminator spec revealed is its total length, listed at just 570 mm.

[UPDATE 2021/08/26: Renowned Twitter car geek Bozi Tatarevic traced the part number of the Eluminator down and has found it’s rated for 281 hp and 317 lb-ft of torque. The unit apparently weighs 93 kg (205 lbs) and will retail for US$3,900.]

That dimension will make it friendly for just about any application, and certainly small enough to fit in even the most compact of engine bays. For comparison, Ford’s old-school 302-cubic-inch V8 has a block measuring about 700 mm long — and that engine is sufficiently compact to be stuffed between the fenders of a wide variety of vehicles.

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Chevy has shown something similar in recent years, called the eCrate or ‘Connect and Cruise,’ depending on who’s mouthing the marketing. That setup utilizes an electric motor making about 200 horses, paired with a 60-kWh battery pack out of the Bolt.

Your author does not mind the intrusion of electric ‘crate motors’ into the resto biz, since EV power is generally quite robust right off the line. Rocking up to a collector car show in a totally silent 1965 Galaxie would be a tremendous novelty. As for the Eluminator, we’ll learn more at SEMA, an event scheduled for early November barring any pandemic-related delays.