5 minute read
The Classic Drive
Irish serial entrepreneur, Norman Crowley, the CEO of Crowley Carbon is on a mission to bring car manufacturing back to Ireland, but his business concept is on track to surpass anything the beloved DeLorean factory produced, he tells Ambition Magazine.
Raised in a West Cork village, Norman Crowley says cars were always a “complete obsession” in his life, so it’s perhaps not surprising that he is using his green credentials to transform the automotive industry and his home country is the main location for this investment.
As the CEO of Cool Planet Group – which includes Crowley Carbon, an energy efficiency company dedicated to helping corporations lower their energy consumption – Norman has founded many ground-breaking tech firms, including The Cloud, Europe’s largest Wi-Fi operator.
Whatever he touches turns to gold and the same pattern is ringing true at his AVA car production firm.
“Where I came from was the home village of Henry Ford’s grandfather,” he begins. “So we were always told about his history and I was kind of always steeped in it.”
Norman founded Electrifi in 2013, which was his first real foray into the conversion of cars, transforming them from diesel and petrol guzzling art pieces to zero carbon entities still boasting the same look and even better performance.
This business develops a range of high-performance electric cars in Co Wicklow. These cars, known as hypercars, will be taken by Electrifi and will include some of the world’s most iconic classic car brands such as Ferrari, Lamborghini and Aston Martin. They will be rebuilt and optimised with the latest technology and powered by a Tesla engine.
The company has two sites; one in Wicklow and another in Wales.
Norman says the business was founded for those who have classic cars and want to convert them.
“When we convert a classic car we take it from 2,000 fairly unreliable components to about 90. We make these beautiful cars reliable,” he explains.
And he admits; “Market research said it wouldn’t work but we’re sold out for the next few years.”
Norman says performance levels after conversion are “phenomenal”, adding: “We took a 1981 Ferrari 308, which was made famous by Magnum PI and increased its speed. Before conversion it went from zero to 60 in seven seconds, now it can go from zero to 60 in 2.8 seconds.” And that’s just his own personal vehicle.
Norman’s latest vehicle venture AVA teams up with motoring design legends Peter Brock and Ian Callum to bring car-making back to Ireland on a bigger scale. Its niche is transforming the world’s most desirable classic cars to electric.
The initial concept was to convert other people’s personal vehicles but the firm has evolved to buy and sell its own classics after converting to a “very high standard”.
Norman says in excess of £7m worth of AVA cars were sold at a recent car exhibition.
“The goal for the wider group is to do good,” he adds, informing Ambition that some of his productions boast he lowest carbon footprint in the history of vehicles.
He talks of one of AVA’s most iconic creations, that of an AC Cobra, “painted in psychedelic colours” by one member of the BEV group of artists, who were hailed as the Beatles of the art world in the 1960s.
They were the creatives behind the elaborately painted AC Cobra owned by Guinness heir Tara Browne, for whom the Beatles penned A Day in the Life following his tragic death.
Norman says: “He was an icon of the 60s and the psychedelic colours are him. We became obsessed with the vehicle after hearing the story and we built a brand new vehicle.”
He says having ex McLaren workers on board at AVA help realise new vehicle creations no matter how ambitious, while the craft and skillset of one of the original BEV artists, Dudley Edwards, became part of the AVA story.
“The plan was to auction the car and donate some of the proceeds to charity but we got an offer from the Middle East in excess of £1m for it,” Norman reveals.
AVA Hyper Classics recreates and reimagines “but we do want to build a car from scratch in the Irish market,” says Norman.
“The last car that was built here from scratch was the DeLorean so we’re now developing a real range of vehicles that look like they’re classics but have the performance of a hyper car.”
The latter concept has been made possible with the help of former design director at Jaguar and Aston Martin, Ian Callum, whose work
has redefined the world of motion and Peter Brock, one of the most influential designers in American history, and the last remaining member of the original team that put together the Corvette Stingray.
Images of the first AVA Hyper Classic, a modern take on the Daytona, will be released early 2022 with the first vehicle unveiled later in the year.
While the AVA portfolio is the elite of car manufacturing, Norman says practical application is the end goal, with mainstream vehicles and massive job creation on the agenda.
“The idea was to do high end first as it brings revenue into the business and as we build that allows us to lower the cost of the vehicle. “We’ve been working with Toyota and other partners to allow for a system of conversion with volumes of around 30-40,000 per year.” He continues: “What’s interesting is, our energy business isn’t the most exciting, but it’s exciting from a financial point of view, so it’s quite fun to have the cars. They’re eye-catching “We’ve been working and once you have people’s attention with Toyota and other partners to allow for a you can then start to talk to them about energy efficiency.” Looking ahead, he adds: “If you’ve been system of conversion to Germany and seen the sale of the BMW with volumes of around factory, you will see that they have double decker trains full of cars and that’s because 30-40,000 per year.” they have this history around engineering. “But if you think of the transition into electric, that vehicle has a lot more in common with a laptop and what we’re learning is our skills in Ireland, in software and pharma etc, mixed with the massive engineering history in Northern Ireland which still exists – that combination is huge and you’re talking the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs. “We’ve already grown out of our factory and we’re waiting on planning permission for another one. The opportunity out there is insane and we want to expand and create investment and employment here.”
