It’s pretty rare when we show a car this new here at Barn Finds, but a reader sent in this tip and being a lover of unusual cars, and EVs, I couldn’t resist. This is a 1999 Porsche Boxster EV, as in powered by batteries, as in no sweet Porsche sound, as in.. unusual. This silent P-car can be found here on eBay with a buy it now price of $4,995 or you can make an offer. Five-grand for a Boxster?! Oh yeah, it’s battery-powered. It’s located in Pearisburg, Virginia and I’m not sure about driving it home. Thanks to Dean for sending in the tip for this unusual car!
It’s hard to believe that this car is basically two decades old already, isn’t it? 1999 doesn’t seem like it was that long ago but I guess it was. The Boxster, or 986, was a mid-engine, two-seat roadster. I don’t know how it could possibly get any better than those two things, but it does. They used Porsche’s famous flat-six boxer engine and it sat behind the seats rather than in the back. They were and still are incredible to drive and you can pick one up for the price of a used Corolla pretty easily. Sure, you’ll be in the dealership service department once a week, but come on! (kidding) (sort of)
They had two small trunks, one fore and one aft due to the engine being in the middle of the car. This looks like a nice example but the EV conversion is no doubt holding down the price quite a bit. Hagerty is at $9,100 for a #3 good condition 1999 Boxster and the seller has this car listed for basically half of that.
There are no photos with the top down, maybe it uses up too much battery power or it doesn’t work, who knows. I’m assuming that this car still uses the sweet Porsche 5-speed manual transmission, one of the best, even though this car is powered by charging the batteries every xx miles. The seller doesn’t list a range, other than it runs but with a limited range, but they do say that it’s a project car that has reached 60 mph.
Here’s the “engine”, or motor, or actually the DC converter and a few of the “10 new batteries”. We don’t know what the motor is, unfortunately. If we do the math, for those of you who are sharpening up your pitchforks and lighting your torches in regards to adding the weight of 10 batteries to a Boxster, we find that 10 batteries weigh around 410 pounds. “Adding 410 pounds, that’s crazy!!” Yeah, but remember to subtract the weight of that 6-cylinder boxer engine, which is, believe it or not, about 406 pounds. So, no harm no foul on weight gains from the EV conversion. Of course, 60 mph isn’t exactly high-speed travel and with the range being a wildcard, this would really be an around-town car for folks looking for something interesting or different to commute with. Are you one of those people?
Too many questions … why, why ,why???
why was it converted? why did they keep the transmission?
I’m sure there’s many more questions, some may not agree but why so cheap?
My bucket list does include building an EV this would be a good start : )
I wonder what the freight cost would be to here?
Oh … and electric motors is what I do : )
Thanks for the comment, MotorWinder! It’s good to know that there are others out there in the Barn Finds family who are interested in these things, especially experts. I did see a few other Boxster EV conversions online and at least one of them had spent $50,000+ on the conversion! This car sure does seem like a steal for someone with lots of knowledge about them.
Well Scotty, I did call the shipper in the eBay ad, without getting into the conversation, I’ll surmise they weren’t too interested in shipping to the Great White North.
With the suggestion that 60mph is peaking it’s speed, my though is it’s running a standard DC motor, possibly undersized. As it is, my guess this thing probably only has about 35-50 mile range in-town stop & go … maybe 80-100 highway …
With only the few photos to go by, I’ll guess one would have to put at least $4500 in Li-ion batteries & controller to get this thing running along semi efficiently. I would look into BLDC motor{s} for performance-max efficiency and expect to get at least 250-300 cruising highway miles.
What a great project car this would make!! Give me a $50,000 budget and see what I could do with this!!!
Oh, and for all those nae-Sayers out there just Youtube Datsun B210 white zombie … John Wayland was one of the first to promote electric EVs at the track!!!
Cheers, Mark
Gone, gone,gone…
Someone has a new project in their garage…
Ok … so what I was told was true … it sold, just hadn’t had the ad taken down.
That was a great deal, wouldn’t surprise me if someone put an engine back in er’
Hey Kenneth, you buy it? Right up your alley buddy!
Guessing they EVed the car because the IMS bearing grenaded the original motor.
The Boxster is a great car to convert, not surprised someone did it, just surprised they sold it so cheap. The motor, controller, and 10 new batteries alone are close to that unless it was an older used DC forklift motor, but a newish Warp 9 will set you back 2400 alone (unless @MotorWinder can get you a steal of a deal for less :)
Congrats to the buyer. That being said…it reads/looks like first-gen electrification. You’ll have to decide if it’s worth ripping all that junk out to get it running peak. It is if you want range and performance.BTW…the future of most of auto restoration is gonna be about EV conversion. A good thing.(imo)
D L Y, Your opinion is more than valid but a reality.
Scotty, maybe it’s time to add a Category to the Directory … Electric
And rod444, I’m pleased to see the cost of quality products stay up where they belong, it keeps the repair cost in line when folks bring things in for repair!! and friends of mine DO know where to find deals!! ; )