'Electric before electric was cool, engineers flock to this thing'
http://www.standard.net/stories/2013/09/02/1970s-layton-electric-car-cross-between-golf-cart-and-doorstop 1970s Layton electric car a cross between golf cart and a doorstop By Mark Saal 09/02/2013 [images / MARK SAAL/Standard-Examiner http://cdn3.standard.net/sites/default/files/imagecache/max_800/2013/09/02/story-02-electric-car-01-217716.jpg A 1977 electric CitiCar sits for sale in the front yard of Brent Stevenson’s Layton home on Friday. http://cdn3.standard.net/sites/default/files/imagecache/max_800/2013/09/02/story-02-electric-car-04-jump-217717.jpg A three-wheeled electric car from China sits in the driveway of a Layton home. Brent Stevenson is putting his old electric cars for sale. ] This thing was electric before electric was cool. Forget the current pack of entrants in the latest electric-vehicle revolution — the Toyota Priuses and the Nissan Leafs and the Chevy Sparks. Back in the 1970s, it was the Sebring-Vanguard CitiCar that was thumbing its pointy little nose at the pumps. A 1976 CitiCar was turning heads recently as it sat in the front yard of Brent Stevenson’s [Layton, UT] home, with a “for sale” sign on it. The model, produced between 1974 and 1977 by the Sebring, Fla.-based company Sebring-Vanguard, Inc., looks like a cross between a golf cart and one of those wedge-shaped doorstops. Stevenson, who has a passion for electric vehicles (he also owns a 2008 Xebra, a three-wheeled electric vehicle made by the Chinese company Zap), said he has owned the CitiCar for about five years. He drove it for about a year, then parked it. The two-passenger vehicle runs on eight six-volt deep-cycle batteries that take about eight hours to fully charge; it has a range of about 35 miles and a top speed somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 mph. “It costs about a penny a mile to drive,” Stevenson said. About 2,300 CitiCars were produced between 1974 and 1977. It was the most-produced American electric car until surpassed by the sleek Tesla Roadster in 2011. Another company purchased the design and renamed it the Comuta-Car, which it produced between 1979 and 1982. The CitiCar has the distinction of making Carbuzz.com’s list of “Horrible Small Cars.” The review states: “The old Vanguard CitiCar was nothing more than a wedge-shaped golf cart that people were expected to embrace due to the oil crisis. Their self-respect told them otherwise.” Despite such criticism, this CitiCar has attracted a lot of attention locally. “There probably aren’t two of these in Utah,” Stevenson said. Offered at $1,000, Stevenson was careful to tell potential purchasers that the vehicle is what it is. “Basically, all they’re buying is a toy,” he said. Still, in the first two days Stevenson had the vehicle up for sale, he got 30 calls. And after it sold, two more callers said if the sale fell through, they’d buy it. Stevenson sold the CitiCar to Shane O’Hearn, of Syracuse. O’Hearn works at General Atomics Systems Integration in Kaysville; he and some fellow engineers were on their way to lunch one day when the odd-looking vehicle caught his eye. “Every Thursday, we eat at Little Orient around the corner,” O’Hearn said. “As we were driving by, we saw this funky car for sale in front of a house. I called the owner that night.” In the interest of full disclosure, Stevenson explained to O’Hearn that the vehicle had a wiring problem. “I go, ‘Pffffft,’ ” O’Hearn recalls. “I’m an electrical guy.” Good thing, too. Once he got the CitiCar in his garage, up on jack stands, O’Hearn pulled the motor. One of the “big, meaty” electrical leads had shorted, and the relay that controls forward and reverse had actually melted. O’Hearn purchased another relay from a CitiCar enthusiast in New York, along with a spare motor. “I don’t know, it may be a money pit,” he said. “We’ll see.” What on earth possessed O’Hearn to purchase an electric car from the disco era? Well, he has a 5-mile commute, each way, and drives a Ford F-150 pickup truck, which gets 19 miles per gallon. “If the guy had had a beater Honda Civic, I’d have probably bought it,” O’Hearn said. “Getting better than 19 miles to the gallon would be nice.” And there is the out-of-the-ordinary factor. “I work with a building full of engineers,” O’Hearn said. “They flock to this thing.” Indeed, his co-workers are already calling it “The Dorito Car.” “Because it’s the color of a Dorito, and it’s shaped like a Dorito,” O’Hearn explains. The vehicle features trailer tires, and a Plexiglas windshield. And although the brakes are hydraulic, they’re supposedly from a Toro Groundsmaster riding mower, according to O’Hearn. “At its heart it’s a golf cart with a body,” he said. “And a lot of the parts for it are from golf carts or golf-course maintenance vehicles. This thing is pretty low-tech. It’s basically ’70s golf-cart technology.” O’Hearn says not only did his wife approve the purchase, she even looks forward to driving it. “She and my daughter, they’re excited,” he said. “My wife works at Lifetime, so she’s just 3 miles to work. She told me we might be duking it out over this thing.” O’Hearn hopes to have his 1976 Sebring-Vanguard CitiCar ready for the mean side streets of Syracuse by the end of September. “It only has to pass the safety inspection,” he said. “I know it’ll pass emissions.” [© 2011 Standard-Examiner] For all EVLN posts use: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=search_page&node=413529&query=evln&sort=date Here are today's archive-only EV posts: EVLN: City CarShare brings EV rentals to Pleasanton, CA EVent: Cannonball Run Canadian Gone Electric ... EVLN: Charge an EV on student energy using PaveGen kinetic-tiles? EVLN: Tesla service center coming to Sunnyvale, CA + EVLN: Gladstone teacher & students convert pickup to electric (video) {brucedp.150m.com} -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/EVLN-Dorito-shaped-CitiCars-were-the-most-produced-U-S-EV-before-Tesla-tp4665056.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
