MotorTrend And Chevrolet Performance 1957 Project X 1957 400 Volt Electric

MotorTrend have taken the HOT ROD 1957 Chevy and with the help of Chevrolet Performance turned it electric. For the first time the Chevy has gone without gasoline power and is 400 Volt instead of a V8.

Making its first appearance at SEMA in Las Vegas, the collaboration between MotorTrend, Chevrolet Performance and Cagnazzi Racing who built the car was available to see.

The old Chevy is a well known Hot Rod feature having been bought as a used car in 1965 for $200 and has seen five different decades as a rolling testbench for new products, trends and technologies.

In this time it has had an inline six, V8s, Carburetors, fuel injection and supercharging. The reimagining of the Chevy has been so frequent that the car gained the nickname the million Dollar Chevy.

“Project X has always served the car community by pushing the envelope with ground breaking technologies,” said Douglas Glad, group content director, MotorTrend Group. “As the auto industry shifts rapidly toward electric vehicles, this Project X build is just the latest in its celebrated legacy of adapting hot rodding to the powerful technology of tomorrow.”

For the build Cagnazzi Racing replaced the supercharged LSX V8 with an electric motor which delivers around 340 horsepower and 330 LF/ft of torque. The battery is new and being tested here to see how well it performs and could be a next generation Chevrolet Performance product.

The build has been based around a modular concept that customers can scale the pack based on the desired range, size, weight and of course price.

In Project X the 400 volt lithium ion battery stores 30 kilowatt hours of electricity. It’s coupled to a quick change differential to allow the drivetrain to be tuned to provide quicker acceleration with shorter gearing and taller gearing for street use which extends the range.

“The reinvention of Project X is a reminder that our vision for a world with zero emissions includes classics like the Tri-Five Chevys,” said Prashant Ahire, eCrate regional chief engineer. “As General Motors rolls out its trailblazing EV technology, Chevrolet Performance plans to offer EV propulsion solutions for enthusiasts looking to modernize their project cars.”

Based in Mooresville, North Carolina, Cagnazzi Racing completed the drivetrain swap and included an electric brake booster and an electrohydraulic power steering pump.

The car still has the sixth gen Corvette front suspension from 2007, but with there has been a few changes. Removing the exhaust system allows the car to sit lower by 2 inches and due to the reduced weight under the hood the suspension now runs softer springs. More weight is at the rear above the rear axle as batteries weigh more than fuel.

“We are racers and hot rodders, with deep roots in internal-combustion racing engines,” said Vic Cagnazzi, owner of Cagnazzi Racing. “But we see this next leap into EV performance propulsion as a natural evolution for hot rodding. Our goal with this conversion was to maintain the look and integrity of the classic hot rod, while modernizing the propulsion technology.”

To that end, Project X still has the same classic look that it’s worn for decades. The biggest aesthetic change is found inside the car: Project X now uses the same push-button gear selector as the 2021 Chevrolet Corvette. It’s a subtle clue that this timeless project car is once again doing things differently.

MotorTrend is the world’s largest automotive media company in the world having Discovery’s MotorTrend TV, HOT ROD, ROADKILL, AUTOMOBILE and over 20 more brands. The audience of 26 million spread across the web, print, social media and video.

Cagnazzi Racing was formed in 1999 and have won 84 NHRA races, two NHRA Pro Stock Championships and one NHRA Stock Eliminator championship. Ecrate is the subsidiary which takes the company’s engineering and design and brings electric vehicle technology to the community as a certified installer of Chevrolet Performance eCrate Electric Connect and Cruise packages.