If you produce H2 by cracking water through electrolysis, the whole process ends up being pretty much like a battery. You put energy in, and get it out on the other end (with losses, of course.) Then you run it in an IC engine, which gets maybe 30% efficiency.
Now with a fuel cell, you can get much more efficiency when you couple that with an electric motor than you can through an IC engine. So the whole system, beginning to end, might end up being more efficient than a gasoline IC engine. That would be a Good Thing(tm.)
Now if your idea of using biochemical means to produce H2 becomes viable, that would be even better - but I disagree that we should not be doing research on fuel cells, because reducing total energy use can't help but make life easier for all involved.
Ditto for the 300C -- not a literal imitation of any particular classic, but with a lot of the design language from the early-mid 50s.
Interestingly, although a sizeable car by today's standards, it is several inches narrower and a couple of feet shorter than its namesake. Of course, modern design and construction practices let you get more useable interior space out of a given footprint and silhouette, but still, luxury cars of that era were BIG!!! (almost by definition) and improved aerodynamics can only do so much to compensate for that huge cross section. Basically, once you got out of the Ford/Chevy everyman's-car class, you had something pretty comparable in size and weight to a lot of today's SUVs.
The other thing that classics-made-modern vendors might do well to keep in mind -- and I think this is something Ford goofed with the new-retro T-bird, is to bring the bling a little. Chromium comes from the Lost Dutchman Mine or something there, guys? Dechroming is a school of thought in the rod-and-custom world, not the way those cars were originally. Something about many of the colors seemed slightly "off" to me as well -- the original two-seater Bird palette captured its time and place perfectly and should've just been brought back as best they could.
Oh, yeah, and a really hot engine option coupled to a good manual tranny -- although the Bird always was more a boulevard cruiser than a raceable sports car, there needed to be a modern answer to the 430 CID and supercharger options of the original. Things might've been different for that reintroduction if at least a limited edition had been available with a Cobraesque treatment from SVT...
My wish-list revisitation is the slightly postwar Jeepster, only with more engine (always an aspect in which Willys was found wanting) and a modern driveline and running gear. The Liberty chassis ought to do nicely as a platform, or maybe the Dodge Dakota pickup. They had a concept Jeepster at the shows several years ago, but I think it missed the mark -- they went for a sort of Hot Wheels meets Tonka Toy look, whereas the original is all about "well-off older alumni heading up to the lake."
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