First Drive – World’s First LS Swapped Tesla Hits the Road

Ever since Tesla has come on the scene strong with its electric vehicle presence, many of the high octane degenerates like myself have been wondering when somebody was going to LS swap one.

With the prevalence of the LS swap finding its way and everything from Ford Mustangs to boats and airplanes, we figured that it was only a matter of time before somebody put something like this together.

However, when taking one look at Tesla architecture, it’s certainly a job that is easier said than done. While it only takes some different mounting brackets and maybe a custom exhaust to fit an LS engine into something like a Ford Mustang, finding a way to shoehorn one into a Tesla Model S is a little bit bigger of a project.

You see, without having as much as an engine bay or transmission tunnel, there would be a ton of custom fabrication necessary in order to make a project like this come to life.

This is where Rich Rebuilds stepped in, ready to take on what would soon become a massive undertaking. After starting with a Tesla that needed pretty much everything because it was the victim of a flood, Rich and the company got to work, completely repurposing the machine into something far different than what it was originally intended to be.

The car would make its way to the SEMA show early in November as it was debuted to the world. However, this would leave many of us curious as to how exactly the machine drives on the streets.

This time, we get to find out exactly that as we check in with the maiden voyage of the V8-powered Tesla as it makes its first-ever drive. In addition, we get the quick and dirty story about how exactly something like this comes together and why it’s such a special creation.