This is a car I’ve been hoping to find in Eugene, since there have been EVs running around here since the first energy crisis. There was one in a driveway, along with three other dead old vintage EVs, a Renault R10 and Cadillac conversions, but they were finally hauled off before I started CCing. The CitiCar was of course a product of the first energy crisis, arriving in 1974 as essentially a street-able golf cart, with 2.5 hp and six 6-volt batteries.
Technically, this is actually a later version, called the Commuta-Car, built between 1977 and 1982, and used the 6 hp motor and 48 volt battery pack of the later CitiCar. It had a top speed of 35-38 mph, and a maximum range of 40 miles. And its most visible addition was a set of bumpers the likes of which have never quite been seen again. And its contrast to the gas-swilling chrome-bedecked dinosaur behind it makes for a great shot, although ideally it would have shown the ’57 Oldsmobile in its full length. Shot and posted at the Cohort by Sam Perkinson.
My grandma took a picture of one of those that she spotted in Florida years ago because she thought I would be interested in it. It was orange. I still have the picture somewhere. (Actual pic, not digital)
OK, it’s cool, but I’m more interested in that ’57 Olds behind it.
A local insurance agent has had one of these CitiCars parked in front of his office as a mobile sign for years. It might still be there.
I agree, Tom, never mind this silly little Go-Kart, that Super 88 is much more intriguing. I’ve never even heard of these CitiCars.
I’ve seen one on a rooftop of a garage in NYC (possibly Queens?).
There was one of these for sale in the Register Guard (Eugene newspaper) classifieds years ago. I researched it, having just gotten my own access to the internets, and the result of the research prevented me from even calling about it. It was 3 or 4 grand, and whatever I read about the repair costs scared me away.
There used to be a Citicar on the University of Washington campus. It was always parked next to the Applied Physics Lab, and maybe it’s still there. I can’t recall every seeing it in motion, but I assume it was more than just an ornament. I’ll have to admit that the Olds behind this one has a touch more style.
I saw a Citicar in a museum once much prefer the Oldsmobile behind it
I remember reading about the CitiCar in Popular Science when I was 5 or 6 years old, and seeing one on the street a few years later. When people whine to me about why we aren’t all driving zero-carbon no-blood-for-oil electric cars yet, I google “CitiCar” and use it to illustrate why there is a good reason that we do not all drive electric cars yet.
I think that I have the Popular Science article (a comparison of the CitiCar and its competitor the Elcar) in a stack of old magazines, but not being home right now, I can’t check to make sure. I will be happy to post the article later. IIRC, it gave a good overview of the technical details and limitations of these vehicles.
This really reminds me of the microcars driven by disabled and elderly people.
No driver’s license needed, (legal) max. top speed 28 mph. (45 km/h)
Like this Aixam City with a Kubota diesel engine.
(Photo: Waaijenberg Den Haag)
I saw lots of these microcars in Rome last week. Some have plenty of style, unlike the CitiCar. I’ll write them up when I get back home.
Well, you won’t believe it, but this is actually called an Aixam MEGA truck.
Now you’re bringing back the memories.
Back in the early ’70’s, during the bike boom, I took a leave of absence from my job at the Erie, PA Schwinn/Raleigh dealer to help a buddy of mine open his own bicycle shop. Sold Fuji, Atala, and (supposedly) Lambert (a wretched story unto itself). John D’Angelo was a typical rich kid (son of a doctor, still lived at home in an apartment over the carriage house) and ’70’s eco freak. His car was a Honda Z600 with a rooftop bicycle rack, late replaced because it used gasoline, horrors, by a Sebring Vanguard CitiCar.
Visualize a golf cart frame with an incredibly overbuilt roll cage. Then take that roll cage and pop rivet on a body of 1/16″ sheet plastic of some kind. Yes, top speed was 35mph. On the flat. Even in Erie, which is just off of Lake Erie, which means the terrain is flat for the first 19 blocks south before you CLIMB!!!!! Going up Peach Street to the southern (hilly) suburbs of town immediately dropped your speed a good 10mph. In fact, performance was not unlike the Chinese 50cc scooters you see running around today.
Big weakness in the car was the brakes. I’ve read lots of reports of sheared brake lines from anything even slightly over normal braking. Fortunately, it never happened to either of us while driving it. The fun part of the car was the range anxiety. As your battery level dropped, likewise did the performance, and once you were at the last 10-15% of effective battery range you were traveling at 15mph or less as you crawled back to the charger.
The car was incredibly simple. I seem to remember a speedometer and battery charging meter. Don’t think there was a radio, although if there had been one we wouldn’t have used it just to extend effective range. It had a heater bolted to the firewall on the passenger side. You screwed a propane bottle like you’d use for a torch to it, and lit a match to start it. The battery charger was built in to the battery area under the seat.
For what sounds like a horrible, panning, review; the car was actually quite effective given the technology of the day. Within its limitations – like being an errand runner around town. Of course, like all rich kids with toys, John wasn’t actually the maintenance type so the life of the car was only a couple of years. Plus, the family lived out in the country so he was using the car completely out of its element, something like a 15 mile each way commute to his bike shop. Which meant we were running extension cords out the front door of the shop and he had to grab the closest parking space to the front door on a daily basis.
After about six months I went back to my regular bike shop gig. John’s shop failed pretty quickly after the bike boom dropped out in ’74. By ’77 I’d left Erie and have no idea what happened to the car.
I’d love to find one of those and get it back on the road. It’d work great for local runs from my house into my home town (five miles), and it’d be fun to have as a playtoy.
Wow, only on CC would we find someone who actually spent time in one of these. I particularly love the propane bottle heater. Only a zero carbon car in a warm climate, I guess.
From what you say, this would have been a much better solution in flat country and a 2 or 3 mile commute.
Addendum to the above: What was really surprising about the car was the absolute lack of high tech in the battery box under the seat. You would expect some kind of high-tech electronic black box full of IC’s and printed circuits. Anything but. Four (if my memory is good) lead acid six volt batteries, and a few relays to kick in as your speed increased, a lot of spindly wiring and not much more.
Rather that looking anything like the internals of the newly-invented PC, the electronics in the CitiCar reminded one more of H. G. Wells or, at best, Colin Clive’s 1931 laboratory in Frankenstein. As you drove it, you heard a constant clicking under the seats as relays switched on and off while bringing individual batteries on line.
Makes me wonder how much of an improvement could be done to the vehicle just by replacing the batteries with something more modern (NiCads or NiMHs) and a controller off of one of the current glorified golf carts.
Correction: Six batteries. And doing a quick look at a couple of research entries, it was mentioned that the electrical system had some Lucas components in it.
You’re exactly right, Syke. Until power transistors got stout enough and cheap enough for car power, about twenty years ago, electric cars were stuck at a Popular Workbench level of technology. Lead-acid batteries, a simple chopper-type controller, and a dumb hot battery charger.
Nowadays CitiCar owners often upgrade the motor controller and battery charger, and sometimes even go to lithium batteries.
I STILL have my 1975 Atala 10 speed!! 🙂
I remember the big deal over these when they came out. They really seemed like the wave of the future back then. It seems to me that I saw one or two in Fort Wayne back when they were new. Cannot tell you when I saw one last. Truthfully, I had forgotten all about these. Great find.
Your caption would have been better if the CitiCar had been parked next to a Country Squire. 🙂
It’s so ugly and awfull, I would have guessed it to be Norwegian og Danish…
My apologies to all for not getting more pictures of the Olds behind it, and not getting the full contrast of the two like Paul suggested (noted for the future). I shot this with my phone last Friday at the annual Hershey event (where it was positively pouring, so I was holding my phone in one hand and my umbrella in the other). Hershey is far and away the biggest show I get to each year, with thousands of vehicles, it’s a multi day event if you’re doing it right, and there are so very many great examples of 50’s/60’s/70s that I don’t take pictures of any of the frequently shown other than my personal favorites (soft spot for Cadillacs and Lincoln’s of the 60’s/70’s). On Saturday each year they show Brass cars too, which are really remarkable to see in the quality of restoration. But other than my personal favorites I just look for things that are not only rare but rare at the show itself, older stuff like Packards, some marques I’ve never heard of (Riley) and such as this citicar. I also shot an International Harvester truck/van specifically thinking of uploading to CC as I figured Paul would actually know something about it. I hadn’t seen one of these citi cars since I saw it at a new car show in 1978 in New York at the NY Coliseum when I was a kid. That one was blue like this too (maybe they all were?).
No apologies needed. It was a good find!
How were these things registered? Is it a motorcycle or “motor driven cycle” or something?
In Pennsylvania, they were a full-fledged automobiles, regular license plate, state inspection, etc. Back then, the sub-categories of low speed vehicles, etc. didn’t exist yet. A vehicle was either a automobile, motorcycle, or unlicensed moped.
I see. Does that mean it had to pass a crash test? Bumpers or not, it doesn’t seem up to the task.
They weren’t crash tested, although I’m not sure why not. The whole deal about that roll cage (the tubing was a good 25-50% bigger in diameter than what you’re used to seeing in a competition sports car) was on the safety aspect. Plus, the safety aspect was pushed very heavily in advertising.
There’s a good change that it passed the bumper standards at the time because the car would effectively bounce due to its small size and light weight, rather than having to have the bumpers telescope in. Keep in mind that what passed for safety standards back in ’73 was more in line of the bumpers actually doing something at low speed rather than worrying about the entire car crumpling up in a controlled fashion.
With four wheels, it’s registered as a car. When they were new there were few if any crash standards. Later they sprouted huge 5 mph bumpers, which look even worse than they do on normal cars.
Such a car today would be licensed as a neighborhood car (NEV), not allowed on US streets with over 35 mph speed limit if I remember correctly.
I was in Hershey too! Not many people were checking out the electric car. I tried to buy a 52 Studebaker Champion there, but the seller was not motivated.
Me three. If I recall correctly, that car (or an exact duplicate, down to color) has been in the swap meet or car corral the past few years. I might have taken pictures of it the first time it was there but this year I just walked past with a “meh.”
I have underestimated the CC commentariat.
You see I found and snapped a one-owner CitiCar on the street last winter, interviewed the owner and everything, and chickened out on the CC. I figured this basement-project of a car would draw major hoots of derision, and justifiably so. The CitiCar is the quintessential stereotypical silly electric car. I hate to give it more visibility. It is light years away from a Tesla S in every way.
But in fact you’ve given the CitiCar fair respect here. Kudos. I may reconsider.
Please do!
Definitely do. The CitiCar was important, not in amount of vehicles sold, but in bringing the electric car back to consciousness and as a psychological boost in the early environmental years. Most people don’t realize that until the Tesla S hit its stride, the CitiCar was the most sold electric vehicle in history. Yep, more of them than the GM EV-1.
Besides, it’s better than a brougham (yeah, I just had to get the dig in).
I dunno, I think it’s pretty cool, especially next to the Oldsmobile. It has no curves, whilst the Oldsmobile has no corners.
I love the Cold War, utilitarian look of it. What’s also interesting is that it weighs over 1400 pounds. Seems heavy for such a small vehicle, but I suppose all those batteries aren’t light.
Judging by the title of the article, someone’s been reading some Tim Dorsey!
(Xtra Intranetz points to those who get it – and Dorsey writes about some great Curbside Classics in his books, too. They’re all Highly Recommended and funny as hell)
You could use this as a Bobcat tractor!
Great find… A middle school teacher drove one of these – brought back some memories! If I recall right, she only kept it about a year.
Consumer Reports road tested the original Sebring Vanguard Citicar in the 70s.
I just happen to come across this video. An electric Kewet Buddy microcar with a very big mouth.
http://www.autojunk.nl/2013/10/ylvis-heeft-lol-met-luchthoorn-ev