Jason Momoa just took a torch to one of the oldest arguments in car culture, and he did it with five machines most collectors would be terrified to touch. The actor pulled the original engines out of two classic Land Rovers and three vintage Harley-Davidsons, then handed them over to be rebuilt around electric power. For a corner of the enthusiast world that treats original drivetrains as sacred, that alone is enough to start a fight.
This is the second time Momoa has gone down this road on camera. The work shows up in season two of his docuseries On the Roam, and it follows the 1929 Rolls-Royce Phantom II he electrified for the first season back in 2024. He is not dipping a toe into the trend anymore. He is committing to it, one irreplaceable classic at a time.
Who built them and what they did
Momoa worked again with Electrogenic, the British shop that has built a name converting old cars into electric drivers and selling drop-in conversion kits for people who want to do it themselves. The company has put its hands on a Porsche 911 and a DeLorean, among others. According to the company, Momoa walks in with the wildest ideas he can think of, mostly to make the engineering team’s life harder. That is part of the appeal of the show.
The two Land Rovers got the most serious mechanical surgery. The first is a 1949 Series 1 80-inch, and the original 1.6-liter four-cylinder is gone. In its place sits a 48 kWh battery pack tucked into a custom box styled to look period-correct, feeding a 150kW motor that has been dialed back to roughly a third of its available torque. Here is the part that matters to die-hards. The team kept the original transmission and the entire four-wheel-drive system, including every lever, by bolting a proprietary 2:1 fixed-reduction gearbox straight onto the existing transfer box.
That decision is the whole argument in miniature. Electrogenic’s leadership has said the real challenge was adding electric power without killing the off-road hardware that made these trucks legends in the first place. The result, by their account, is a Series 1 that now clears more than 150 miles of range and no longer pumps exhaust fumes back into the cabin, which was a genuine flaw of the originals. Effortless torque on an old Land Rover sounds great. Whether it should still wear the badge is where opinions split.
The rare one and the bikes
The second Land Rover is harder to shrug off. It is a 1961 Series IIA 109 Dormobile, one of only 150 camper conversions ever made. Electrogenic fitted it with a 62kWh battery, a 120 kW motor, and the same bolt-on gearbox approach. They also electrified the living space, swapping the original gas stove for a modern induction hob. Momoa has described quiet drives through the forest with his daughter as a completely different experience, and that is the selling point the whole project leans on.
The three Harleys are a bigger leap, because they are the first two-wheeled builds Electrogenic has ever attempted. Each bike runs an 11 kW Maeving hub motor built into the rear wheel, with 2.7 kWh battery packs and control units hidden inside custom panniers made to look the part. The 1924 Model JD and the 1927 Model JD, both originally running twin-cylinder 74-cubic-inch engines, became plug-in hybrids that keep the old motors in play. Riders can run more than 50 miles on electricity alone, or flip back to gas when they want the sound. The 1921 Model FD went all the way to full electric.
That hybrid setup is the clever middle ground. It lets a rider keep the bark of a hundred-year-old V-twin when they want it and switch to silence when they do not. Momoa has talked about cruising through the mountains holding a conversation on a 1920s bike, which is not something the original owners could have imagined.
Why this hits a nerve
Electrogenic did not stop at the vehicles. It also built integrated battery storage into Momoa’s Schutt Industries Xventure XV-2 trailer for off-grid camping, which fits the whole self-sufficient, outdoor-living theme the show is selling. The full teardown and rebuild of all five machines runs in the fourth episode of season two, titled “Off the Grid,” which premiered June 4 on HBO Max and Discovery+.
Strip away the celebrity name and you are left with the question that has been dividing enthusiasts for years. Is electrifying a rare classic preservation or destruction? Momoa clearly lands on one side, and he is spending real money and real metal to prove it. The machines still look the part. What is under them will never be the same, and that is exactly the trade some people will never accept.
Source
Images Via: Electrogenic
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