While I wholeheartedly respect Rush Founder Craig Toone’s views in part one of our Restomod Debate, my usual gut reaction when I see a restomod is “Why not give us something new?” After all, I love new cars and the advancement of the motor car in terms of style, powertrain, and tech; I simply get more excited by a new shape than a familiar one. 

However, I can never help myself from falling in love with the modernisation of a classic silhouette; take the divisive Evoluto 355 as an example - my highlights of that car are to be found in the lighting, with the redesigned tail lights sitting below an enlarged ducktail spoiler and perfectly in line with the four exhaust tips. As an added bonus, Staff Writer Aaron Stokes is greatly offended by the car as a whole.

It doesn’t even need to be the shape that evolves, as powertrain modifications and updates are part and parcel of restomodding. Being RUSH’s resident EV sympathiser, I am not opposed to “electromodding” – where an existing piston engine is swapped out for an electric motor, and the fuel tank is replaced with a battery or two. Kia’s in-house electromod of the first car they brought to our market – the Pride – is a fantastic example of how to do it right; enhancing the performance and the cabin while retaining the fast-disappearing unpainted bumper style that offers not the faintest whiff of “sporting” pretence. 

But would it be right to give a car that is as renowned for its powertrain as its shape the electromod treatment? The jury is out; nobody bats an eyelid when a Leyland Mini loses its carbureted four-cylinder engine, but to make a Jaguar E-Type run silently is apparently sacrilege. When Electrogenic MX-5 conversions start hitting the road, I’ll be watching the reception with great intrigue.

In another paradoxical opinion of mine, I’m not usually a fan of retro-inspired designs but I have loved the current Alpine A110 and Land Rover Defender for modernising a shape that was too recognisable to leave in the past; they both look like they’re 7th generation versions of their nameplates on the outside, and under their skin they’re engineered like they’re 7th generation models. Herein lies my main concern with restomods - they can modernise the shape, the interior tech and the powertrain, bringing almost everything up to date, but they can’t update the chassis on which they’re built.

Everything else can be reworked, but the safety rating - or lack thereof - remains the same. Safety is something that we take for granted in modern cars, and when it comes to performance cars it’s something that is often criticised for getting in the way of the connection to the car or to the road. Yes, cars have grown in height, width, and weight. Door sills and A-pillars are much wider than they used to be, but your chances of walking away from a crash are much higher today than they ever were in the past.

I know that the obvious retort is to say “Don’t crash” - and I’ll admit that those two words have left my mouth on more than one occasion, but I think I’d have driven my test route for Attainable Performance: Part One in the Mark 5 Fiesta Zetec S that little bit more gently had I watched the crash test before getting behind the wheel. 

But to return to the point, the cars that are being brought up to - and judged by - modern standards are ultimately still from a different era, where traction control was science fiction, airbags belonged exclusively in Volvos, and ESP was a shortening of España rather than an acronym for Electronic Stability Control.

Perhaps I should join the masses in looking past the obvious safety concerns, forget about the prospects of something that wasn’t designed to hit a wall with an engine under the bonnet doing the same with a battery there, and appreciate restomods for what they are: modernisations of classics - perhaps the very definition of a modern classic, one of the pillars of this publication. 

Perhaps my era of cars just hasn’t reached the age where restomodding can begin; the first generation of Mercedes-Benz SLK only went out of production in 2004 so it’s still too early to fit one of them with the faster roof mechanism and 7-speed transmission from the second generation. If that day comes I will be at the front of the queue.

Having contradicted myself more times than we’ve covered restomods this year, it leaves me to say that I do indeed agree with Aaron - who’s argument is to come - that the market is becoming flooded with restomods. I like the modernisation of the shape of the Evoluto 355, I adore the attention to detail of the CNC Motorsport Ford Sierra Cosworth continuation track cars, and I am on board with electrifying classic cars in principal; if it makes these ever-rarified silhouettes more usable and more valuable, I am all for restomods. However, the one thing that they are not and can never claim to be is a brand-new car, and I simply prefer to look forward than in the rear-view mirror.