Just 12 months after locating to Silverstone Park in Northamptonshire, Lunaz Design has predicted that it will need to double its workforce to meet increasing demand for electric classic cars.
Its first 1950s Jaguar XK120 took just over nine months to convert and is now being used as a test and development vehicle.
At the same time, the company has started work on period models from other famous makes such as Bentley, Rolls-Royce and Mercedes; this has enabled it to plan for the future.
Managing director Jon Hilton (
www.lunaz.design) said: “We have made the jigs, fixtures and CAD drawings and done all the engineering work behind the scenes, so we can do repeat runs of those vehicles.
"We’re now moving from the prototyping phase to production.
"We are taking more orders for Jaguars and also for vehicles like the Bentley; it is similar under the skin to the Rolls-Royce, so the electric conversion is essentially the same.
"We have also built up a valuable network of suppliers and grown the workforce to 14 people — up from only four people last spring, when we started out.”
The workforce in Lunaz’s 11,000ft
2 premises could rise to 30 by the end of the year; the company is currently advertising for technicians and engineers to fill various roles.
It has taken full control of key components of its electric conversions, with its own battery assembly bay.
“We initially sub-contracted a few areas but have now have started to bring those in-house, including the battery packs and power distribution modules. We are also now writing all of our own software.
“By 2025, we are looking to produce more than 100 cars per year here at Silverstone.
“That might seem like a big number in this sort of space, but we are doing all the engineering to support it — re-engineering the process by which you restore old cars so as to turn them around in five months — and it will need that quick turn-around to achieve those figures.”