Neil Young’s project of modifying a 1959 Lincoln Continental to run on electrical energy has hit a standstill after a fault in the car’s charging system started a massive fire in the singer’s San Francisco warehouse.
The car was plugged into a charging socket and left unattended, but the wall charging system was not properly tested and an electrical fire ensued.
“We are rebuilding,” Young said in a statement. “The reason we started this project has not changed. As a nation we are still excessively burning fossil fuels, doing damage to our planet that will hurt our children's lives and future generations as well. Our project is to demonstrate alternative energies for transportation that are clean. We're still in a race against time. On a project like this, setbacks happen for a reason and we can see that very well from here. "Barn's burnt down. Now I can see the moon”.”
The warehouse was owned by Young’s company LincVolt, which is solely dedicated to developing the technology in this car and is estimated to have sustained $US1million in damages.
The car will be rebuilt from a parts car given to Young by his wife Pegi for his 65th birthday. The car, which they have named Miss Pegi, is a 1958 version of the Continental, but has the same metal parts in the areas that need replacing.
The car will be built to run off a combination of battery power and a biodiesel powered generator.
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