This man restored an electric car designed in the 1970s and came across a shocking discovery.
Some have described the CitiCar as coming from the ‘Crap Era’ of electric vehicles.
With that period seemingly stretching from 1920 to 1995, that’s quite a long period of time.
But one look at this car confirms that it’s technology is indeed ancient, certainly when compared to Tesla.
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Taking a closer look at a car from the electric car stone age
Before Elon Musk and Tesla became household names, the CitiCar was the best selling American electric car.
It was noted for its odd looks, which has since gained it something of a cult following.
The car’s manufacturer Sebring Vanguard was formed in the midst of crisis – the fuel crisis of the 1970s.
You may recall seeing vintage photos of cars queuing outside of gas stations.
At any rate, a factory was set up in Florida and roughly 2,500 cars were made between 1974 and 1976.
They weren’t cheap by any stretch, going for $4,500 in 1975.
By 1977, the company had gone bust and was bought at auction.
Frank Flowers, a mobile home manufacturer from New Jersey, picked it up and went on to rebuild the car in 1978.
Without having the Citicar name copyrighted, he called it the Comuta-Car.
Clever name aside, the car proved to be a success, with more than 4,000 cars being sold.
However, trouble came in 1980 when the National Transportation Safety Board increased the requirements for vehicle certification.
As reported by The Autopian, the Comuta-Car would have passed but the cost for testing and certifying the cars would prove too much.
Ron Green is the man who discovered today’s specimen, which came in robin’s-egg blue.
He shared the story of the restoration to DIYauto.com.
Going into the project, Green assumed it’d be a piece of cake as he’d worked on plenty of cars before.
He was sorely mistaken.
What were the issues with this Citicar?
Green wrote: “[I’m] currently at a little over 1,000 hours plus way too [much money].
“It had to be painted twice as for strange reason it fish-eyed real bad from the last coat of clear.”
Fish eyes is a term used to describe a defect that occurs when something gets trapped underneath a car’s paint, causing bubbles or spots to appear.
This wasn’t the car’s only issue – the front wheel was rusted and the wires are what you’d expect from a 1970s car.
Things were looking a little gnarly behind the dashboard.
As Green put it: “One wire hook up, two wire screw ups, three wire **** ups, four wire drag ups.”
That’s a new take on the 12 Days Of Christmas if we’ve ever seen one.
Despite this, the car’s tech could definitely be seen as being ahead of its time.
The Citicar made use of potentiometers, which worked in the same way as a dimmer switch.
It allowed for the driver to control the car in a way that didn’t factor in the driver’s foot on the clutch.
Once done up, this will be a smooth ride, even if it does look like a cheese wedge.
But perhaps the oddest thing about this car was its previous role.
A car like this would probably be seen as a gag, but it was actually used by security at Bucknell College back in the day.
How intimidating this would look for any campus troublemakers is debatable.
If you want something to make miscreants nervous, the Cybertrucks popping up in police departments all over the world will do the trick.
Just take a look at what was unveiled by Irvine Police Department in California.
