David Beckham, probably one of the most famous (and richest) soccer players ever, has a well-known affinity for cars. While I wouldn’t call his collections over the years impressive, he has had a few cars that show he has taste, like an old Aston V8 Vantage and a Jaguar Project 7. Now it looks as though he wants to get his hands in the business, as MarketWatch reports. The athlete has bought a stake in the British EV conversion company Lunaz.
If you aren’t familiar with the company, its premise is simple: It takes classic cars and convert them into EVs. We saw its work in the gorgeous Jaguar XK120 conversion it did, with batteries and motors replacing the intricate, beautiful, historic, and not-exactly maintenance-free twin-cam straight-six that defined Jaguar for generations.
While I said convert, it’s really more extensive than that. The company describes its process as re-engineering, not only converting the cars but also restoring them as well. All the way down to the frames. And of course, they’re not cheap. A classic converted Range Rover will run you nearly $350,000 while a Phantom V is over $600,000. The company started in 2019 and is based in Silverstone, England.
While it isn’t known how much of a stake Beckham purchased, it couldn’t come at a better time for the company. Lunaz is looking to expand its operations. The company now wants to electrify and convert industrial, commercial and fleet vehicles for municipalities. The companies founder, David Lorenz, thinks that doing this can “save fleet operators capital while dramatically reducing waste in the global drive towards de-carbonization”.
Beckham admits that he was attracted to the company because of its business model, per Marketwatch:
“I was drawn to the company through their work restoring some of the most beautiful classic cars through upcycling and electrification. Lunaz represents the very best of British ingenuity in both technology and design.”
Some may not agree with what the company is doing. It’s effectively gutting classic vehicles and adding 21st-Century technology to them. That’s not the problem, though. If I were Beckham or any other investor, I’d be slightly worried about getting a return on a company that suddenly wants to convert industrial and commercial vehicles to use clean energy, when it’s cheaper at this point to buy one from a company that already builds them.
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