Car brands mostly treat their back catalog as a marketing device, a retro badge slapped on a modern platform. The five concepts below take the idea further. Working independently of any manufacturer, these designers picked a car people already recognize on sight and rebuilt it from the ground up as an EV, changing proportions, lighting, doors and interior packaging along the way while keeping just enough of the original silhouette to read as the same car.
1. Porsche 911 Design Concept, by Nicolas Vigier
Vigier set himself a direct brief: design a new Porsche 911 concept that is electric and modern yet still reads as a 911. He built a moodboard from the 911, 356 and 917 before sketching, then split the body into two halves, an organic, sculptural upper surface over a lower half that reads closer to product design than car design. The finished renders come in red and silver, with the same split-surface language carried through the front, side and rear views. Carscoops covered the project in January 2023 as an independent designer's take on a minimalist EV future for the 911, done in Vigier's own free time rather than for an employer.
2. Volkswagen ID.Beetle, by Emre Husmen
Toronto-based designer Emre Husmen turned the Beetle into a 5-door electric crossover with 3+3 seating, keeping the rounded, streamlined body language Ferdinand Porsche gave the original. The concept's twist is less about styling than product strategy. Husmen proposes keeping the exterior body panels and molds unchanged for 50 years or more, updating only color, trim, lighting modules, wheels, software and battery technology as they age, the opposite of a car brand's usual yearly refresh cycle. The gallery includes full digital sketch sheets from every angle alongside the finished exterior renders. Husmen tags the project as personal fan art, with no affiliation to Volkswagen AG.
3. MINI : : EV, by Glorin Tsiourea
Tsiourea's redesign makes the biggest proportional leap of the five. The Mini's short, upright hatchback stance stretches into a low, wide, two-seat electric sports coupe, while the round badge, grille and headlight cues stay put so the car still reads as a Mini at a glance. The Turin-based designer's gallery includes full-color exterior renders alongside pencil and marker development sketches and a storyboard sequence explaining the design reasoning. Published in 2018 as an independent portfolio project, not a BMW-Mini production concept.
4. Fiat 500 E Concept, by Maurizio Orlando
Milan-based automotive designer Maurizio Orlando built this Fiat 500 reinterpretation as a full CGI project in Rhino and Keyshot, rather than a photo edit. Custom double-ring LED headlamps replace the round sealed-beam units of the original, paired with a mesh performance grille, two-tone wheels and slim wraparound LED taillights, a lighting signature that has nothing in common with the actual production Fiat 500e. The gallery covers front three-quarter, full side profile, rear detail and a close-up on the door mirror. Independent personal CGI and retouching work, not an official Fiat render.
5. Citroen eCV Concept Car, by Martin Hajek
Hajek's take on the Citroen 2CV is the most inventive piece of packaging among the five. The bulbous, bug-eyed silhouette stays glossy orange, with exposed sculptural LED lighting elements standing in for the 2CV's round headlamp housings, and polycarbonate doors that slide outward before rotating open instead of swinging on hinges. The Utrecht-based designer's gallery includes front, side and rear renders, several extreme close-ups on the lighting and door mechanism, and an interactive 360-degree model with a tan interior. The project page carries an explicit disclaimer that Hajek has no affiliation with Citroen or Groupe PSA.
