Well, what would YOU have thought while faced with this front staring at you? How cool would it be if Jeep introduced an electric city car (not really that cool)?
Not surprisingly, this front belongs to an electric city car, which was revealed to me firstly from the back, as I turned the corner to stop for morning coffee at my regular cafe yesterday before work:
At first I mistook it for a G-Wiz, that similar Indian-made electric car so popular in the UK (mostly London, its natural breading ground). But that never made it to Israel and besides, this one is way too new to be one. Notice the number plate- starting from 2018, Israel moved to eight digit plates, having finished with almost all combinations of seven digits, as these were running from 1980 (some seven digit plates will remain reserved for various government vehicles).
Rounding the tiny car it was clear this was no G-Wiz. It had a better (?) looking fascia and clearly, some sense of styling was intended here. Having reached the office I googled the text under the license plate to find a bona-fida Israeli website, which you can see here. How shocking it was to discover a Hummer version:
Naturally, this isn’t an Israeli car but (surprise surprise) is a Chinese City car made by Jiayuan and called City Spirits Eidola. At least that’s what I could come up with, surfing the web and ending up here, at one of their European websites.
Electric City Jeep, anyone?
A Smart now makes sense.
Not really that suprising, as they have been doing similar with golf carts (at least here in the states) for some time. You can find tri-five Chevys, Broncos, F150s, 1950 Studebakers, first gen Mustangs, you name it, they make it. Somehow, if it makes the electric vehicle seem more appealing, then more power to them. And really, there are just 2 groups that seem to want these kinds of cars: Eco-warriors who want to wear theirs as a badge of honor as non-polluting cars (because they are totally powered by renewable energy, right?) driving ones that look like blobs or people driving the rebodied ones for attention, as is probably the case with the dry cleaner pictured or the hummer version. Either way, it is always nice to have choices.
I had one of those made by fisher price 20 years ago
I wonder how many pieces to clean they can pick up and deliver with that rig…
Good thing that car only has 5 slots in the grill. Sticks in my mind that Chrysler sued GM for trademark infringement because the HUMMER had 7 slots in the grill, just like a Jeep.
Yes they did however Ma Mopar lost the case as the courts stated that nobody would confuse the 2
http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2002/11/19/Appeals-court-rules-in-favor-of-GM-in-Hummer-grille-fight.html
My son had one of these- they’re a perennial best seller, yellow and red and it’s called a Cozy Coupe. Couldn’t get him out of it!
Best selling car in the US for a long time. We had the pickup version.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cozy_Coupe
We even did a featurette on it and its compatriots a few years ago…
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/uncategorized/preschool-classics-introducing-young-minds-to-the-joy-of-cars/
Yes, these do look like toddler’s cars.