Lunaz, the electric vehicle engineering company and creator of classic electric cars will grow its global manufacturing headquarters by 500 percent in the spring of 2021. The company will increase from its current 743m2 (8,000ft2) facility to a 3716m2 (40,000ft2) high-tech engineering, design and manufacturing centre adjacent to its current home.
This will be the largest occupied manufacturing space within the Silverstone Technology Cluster in Britain’s advanced engineering heartland. A significantly expanded UK manufacturing footprint forms a key pillar of a multi-phased growth strategy that will see Lunaz become a global leader in the conversion of passenger and industrial vehicles.
In the immediate term, expanded production capacity is required to meet rapidly growing global demand for zero-emissions, up-cycled expressions of the most admired classic cars in history. Lunaz enjoyed significant success in 2020 despite challenging market conditions. This growth follows the highly successful market introduction of the world’s first electric classic Rolls-Royce, Range Rover and Jaguar sportscars.
This success is underpinned by the rapidly expanding global demand for truly sustainable luxury goods. Governments in many major markets are also engaged in creating legislation that will ban the sale of new petrol, diesel and hybrid powertrains in the coming two decades. This includes Lunaz’ home market of Britain where Boris Johnson announced a ban on the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines will be brought forward to 2030.
In establishing the Lunaz Design brand as the leading conversion specialist for pinnacle classic cars, the company has developed a modular and proprietary electric powertrain. This has been led by former double F1 World Championship winning Technical Director, Jon Hitlon. He has drawn an engineering team from names including McLaren, Prodrive, F1, Aston Martin, Rolls-Royce, Ferrari and Bentley.
Jon Hilton, technical lead and managing director at Lunaz, said: “We designed inherent flexibility within our approach to upcycling the world’s most celebrated cars. The commencement of production of the first electric classic Range Rovers demonstrates the scope of vehicles that can be re-engineered and given an entirely new life through conversion to our proprietary electric powertrain.”
The Lunaz powertrain will scale to uses far beyond the conversion of classic cars. Legislation is already in place that is driving government and private entities towards replacing existing internal combustion engine fleets with electric vehicles.
Conversion and up-cycling of these vehicles represent a far more cost-effective and sustainable proposition than commissioning entirely new assets. Lunaz is poised to serve this demand in line with the principles of the circular economy.
Lunaz’s growth will result in the company doubling the size of its workforce. This once again proves the move to clean electric cars is creating new jobs and helping the UK economy.
David Lorenz, Lunaz founder, said: “Restoration, re-engineering and electrification responds to the global requirement for a clean-air future. The Lunaz proprietary powertrain has been proven by furthering the legacies of the most significant cars in history.
“The time is now right to establish a significantly expanded presence to answer the global need for much wider conversion applications. Our commitment to the UK as a global centre of technical excellence in EV engineering is signalled with the commissioning of a permanent home for our rapidly growing business.”
