Tesla Rebuilder Pursues Holy Grail of LS-swapped Model S
Rich ‘Rebuilds’ Benoit recycles Teslas like no other. Now, he plans to turn a Model S with a bad history into a badass with an LS V8!
You know the old saying: “On a long enough timeline, everything gets an LS swap.” Porsche 911s, Ford Mustangs, John Deere tractors, if it has a motor, it can have a better one. However, there’s a holy grail waiting to be unearthed: the LS-swapped Tesla. After all, wouldn’t it be cool to poke a few hundred holes in Elon Musk’s ego with a few hundred, gasoline-fueled horse hooves? Not to mention having absolute control over the car without waiting for commands from Space X.
Famed Tesla rebuilder Rich “Rebuilds” Benoit knows what it’ll take to pursue this holy grail. Benoit’s going to show the world how it’s done with a Model S with a dark past.
“People don’t realize that I’m gas guy that happens to like EVs,” said Benoit. “I own a fully built Z06 that I’ve owned years before any Tesla, a 700-horsepower RS7, a tuned BMW i8, and a diesel pickup truck that’s waiting on two big turbos because for some reason in my head, I want my 7,000-pound truck to be faster than my i8.”
As for Benoit’s Tesla history, he rebuilt a flood-damaged Model S with parts from a crashed Model S, which his daughter dailies today. A flooded Model X turned up next, and Benoit worked his magic there. He even rebuilt one flooded in sewage. Yet, his biggest critics are the Tesla cultists themselves. They’ve never bought a car before a Tesla, and they treat them like iPhones: use, dispose, upgrade, repeat. They just don’t get hot rodding, and they don’t want to. Throw in Tesla’s tight grip on their cars, and it’s no wonder Benoit wants to drop an LS into one.
“I can combine my love for V8s with the look of a Tesla sedan to make a car I can modify without having to tweet Elon in a Cockney accent, and have him charge me $2,000 for something I can do myself,” said Benoit. “I knew I wanted it to be LS-based. Why? I’m an LS snob, and I love LS cars. They’re also easy to find parts for when you modify it; nobody questions you.”
After getting ripped off $6,000 from a shady LS seller, Benoit turned to eBay to find the right LS from LeeC Parts in Stevensville, Maryland. This one’s a 6.2-liter V8 with six-speed manual from a fifth-gen Camaro SS, plus all the fixings. He even gets to see the donor Camaro go to its last stop in life: the scrapyard. There stacked upon a fourth-gen Camaro and a Corvette of recent age, the claw punches down upon the body, then tosses it aside.
“This car was a salvage car that had its battery removed,” said Benoit, “along with several other parts. It was passed around the auction for years, ripping several people off before we bought it. We did everyone a favor by taking a Tesla missing parts off the market, so it wouldn’t continue to scam people.”
After trashing the sketchy Model S with another YouTube channel, Benoit decided it and two other Teslas — including one that had been an AutoPilot prototype — would become the LS Model S. In short, he’s doing more for the environment with this holy grail build than the Tesla cultists will ever do themselves. Let’s hope it makes it to LS Fest XII!
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