![]() ![]() That track has two Tesla Superchargers in the paddock, enough to keep 50 Teslas racing all weekend. The last one was at Buttonwillow, a couple hours’ north of L.A. Indeed, there are race weekends for Tesla owners that Lee attends regularly. “I think what Unplugged Performance is trying to do is to give more of a racing edge, something that is still roadworthy but you can definitely feel the road a little bit more. “The Tesla stock suspension is very smooth and meant to give you a very comfortable, enjoyable and quiet ride,” said Lee. Lee cranked the ride height up to clear a big rain gutter, then lowered it down and off we went, up into the two-lane twisty mountain road everybody with a sport bike in L.A. Mark VaughnĪnd with that we pulled out of the gas station parking lot. Tesla Model S at rest, with bodywork and suspension mods by Unplugged Performance. Altogether the wheel and brake mods shave half the unsprung weight off the car. Superlight carbon ceramic brakes stop the car. There are even ultra-lightweight titanium lugnuts. Lee's car leapfrogged Unplugged's 19-inch carbon wheels and he went instead for UP-03 Super Lightweight forged 21-inch two-piece wheels wrapped in Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires, 265/30 front and 325/25 rear. In all there are 30 carbon fiber pieces integrated into the exterior, all designed with CFD to maximize performance. Air foils just downwind of the front wheel arches not only add further styling badness, but direct air out and away from the front wheels, increasing cooling. Then your brain says, "Hey, check that out!" New front and rear clips and a rear wing are likewise absorbed into the overall look. The exterior starts with Unplugged Performance’s S-APEX wide body kit, a package so fully integrated into the body, so seamlessly “hand-sculpted,” that you barely notice the car is 3.2 inches wider. “A lot of people come up to me and they're like, ‘Oh, is that the Performance model?’ And I'm like, ‘Yeah, it's the Performance, but it's not your stereotypical, normal Performance,” he said. Now, seven years later, I am in the parking lot at the Shell station at the base of Angeles Crest Highway and I’m meeting Kevin Lee and his beautiful white Tesla Model S that is so seamlessly modified that it looks not like it has been tuned by a tuner, but more like it’s been working out and eating kale. I saw Tesla from my point of view, which is that, as a car tuner, I instantly felt the entire car industry was suddenly antiquated.” So forget all of the eco stuff and all the other reasons people were buying Teslas. You can't have better center gravity than all of it on the bottom with the battery. “You can't have more torque than instant. “You can't shift faster than never,” he said. Tesla did, indeed, have performance chops right from the beginning and Schaffer recognized them. “That was because our role model was the Prius, which was deeply uncool to me just because it's the antithesis of excitement, whereas Tesla, unlike all the other electric car companies, it had performance as part of the very makeup of it.” “At that time, in 2013, it was deeply unpopular to be a car enthusiast and like electric cars,” he said. He started Unplugged Performance in 2013 and has been perfecting that trade since. “I think if you make the car lighter, make it handle better and brake better and go faster and have no downside, that to me is good taste.” I think function equals good taste,” he said. “Good taste is subjective but I think what is not subjective is function. Who Wins: Ford Mustang GT500 or a Tesla Model S?. ![]()
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