If you’ve ever spent hours browsing Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace like me, you’ve probably come across a CitiCar. The triangular prism-shaped electric micro cars seem to pop up every now and again alongside other offbeat brands like Peugeot or Sunbeam, but in the case of my searches, I’ve never actually seen a running, driving example up for grabs. Until now.
Introduced right at the height of the ’70s energy crisis, the CitiCar quickly became a quirky alternative to the fuel-sipping Japanese imports of the day, offering an unmistakable design and up to 35 miles of range from its six 6-volt batteries and 3.5-horsepower motor.
The original manufacturer, Sebring-Vanguard, allegedly went bankrupt in 1977, before selling most of its assets to a New Jersey mobile home builder named Frank Flowers. Flowers continued production, albeit with a ghastly set of impact bumpers to pass new federal regulations and a new name: ComutaCar.
Declared the “most popular electric car ever produced” in 1993 by the Electric Car Owners Club, about 4,400- 7,500 examples were built from 1974 to 1982, depending on who you ask. We’re not sure the club looked far back enough, however, as Detroit Electric built around 13,000 cars before World War II started, according to the company’s website. Still, there are enough CitiCars out there that they tend to show up on search results in various states of disrepair.
In a quick nationwide scope of Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, I managed to locate four CitiCars for sale. The first two, located in Ohio, come as a pair, with one mostly complete example and one much rougher parts car. The third one, located in Indiana, looks fairly complete but equally janky, without any interior or batteries. And the fourth? Well, it’s actually just a bare frame.
That’s why this one, listed for sale on Craigslist and highlighted by Barn Finds, is so special. Unlike every other CitiCar for sale right now, this 1976 model is fully road-worthy and ready to cause chaos throughout your local HOA-policed, gated neighborhood.
According to the listing, the original design and interior have been preserved, but the inefficient lead-acid batteries have been replaced with a set of modern lithium-ion units from a 2018 Nissan Leaf. The seller estimates around 9 kWh of capacity, resulting in 50 miles of estimated range. The restoration is more extensive than it looks; the seller has an entire forum thread dedicated to the car’s resurrection.
The car can only travel about four to five miles before the (still original) motor overheats, though. So, unless you live close to your job, forget about commuting in this thing. And like any old car, it’s littered with other small issues, like a non-functional parking brake and an inoperable radio. Still, for just $5,500, it’s about the most rare and interesting thing you can have in your driveway. And if you’re the type who loves to show up with weird stuff at car shows, the sale even comes with a fitted trailer. Mighty tempting.
Top: Craigslist
I rode in one once.
Eerily silent when you stopped.
“Fully road worthy” contrasts sharply with “The car can only travel about four to five miles before the motor overheats”. Sounds like it’s not very road worthy to me. Add in the lack of parking brake and other issues, this one sounds like just as much of a shitbox as the others. I would love to drive this thing, but it’s certainly not ready for much.
Welcome Brian, good to see you here.
A friend of mine and I drag raced one of these in 1980 at a stop light. My friend had a Plymouth Arrow pick-up (Mitsubishi) with a 2.0 I4 and a stick and he was revving the engine pretty hard, and I was laughing uncontrollably. The nearly bald and humorless community college professor in the CitiCar was completely stoic and deliberately ignoring us, sitting there with his single digit horsepower and his 36 to 48V lead acid power train. But the joke was on us because as the light turned green, the CitiCar suddenly vanished and leapt forward as if time stood still and in the space of zero seconds it had teleported exactly 8 feet into the future and was now in front of us. My friend was so stunned he forgot to let out the clutch. I’m convinced an 8 foot long worm hole appeared in front of the CitiCar at the exact moment the light changed, just by coincidence, as that seemed the only logical explanation. We did manage to catch up after that and dusted him pretty good, but for a moment there he had us.
I walked by this Citicar in Portland the other day! It was street parked in the East End. It had a little handwritten for sale sign and actually looked pretty ragged in person. I was not tempted, although it was fun to see.
We had one of the earliest models, before they went into production. I think it was 1975 or 76. It had Pennsylvania “experimental” license plates and always drew a crowd at the A&P. And it was tiny next to the land yachts of the time. How we got 4 people plus groceries in there is a mystery of memory.
Had one. Redid the motor so it would not burn out. (It did at night during rush hour on a hill in winter in Bangor, Maine) Then it ran but was just scary at any speed over 30mph. Never regretted selling it and never will. A current golf cart is 10x better than this ever was.
How about a better motor and 6 12-volt, 60AH lithium batteries? That should move things along.
Then the controller will overheat.
I have the same batteries and BMS for energy storage. Not sure if they are less scary in a metal building or sitting on top of. They love to swell but are functional. It basically a hot rodded electric. If you think about it not all that much different from someone in the 60s taking a model a and shoving a small block in it. Just with a lot more silicon and copper.
Now That looks like a terrific local parade vehicle
Not impressed. I have a used golf cart I bought for $1000 that does the same thing. It goes a GPS verifed 22 mph with one person on it.
Is this the Cybertruck we have at home or is the opposite true?
It should be relatively easy to get one of these cars going again. There isn’t much to them. It has the sort of simplicity and ease of reparability that modern EVs could and absolutely should have: all you should need is a basic toolset. If EVs were built more like this, the damned things could last “forever”, at least on the scale of a human lifetime.
The Commutacar was not well built, but you could let it sit for decades and there is a good chance it will still run after not having been driven once that entire time.
As for the motor overheating, that is because it was sized for the original lead acid battery pack. There used to be insufficient on-board energy to run the motor above its continuous output rating for long enough to overheat it.
I have seen more than 1 sitting with somebody planning to modernize it with modern batteries or motors, Nobody ever seems to get that done though.
The Changli called?
It will require a new battery pack and charger, at minimum. Components made for modern golf carts could do it. Modern li-ion batteries are so inexpensive that they’d be cheaper than a lead acid pack. Using stock motor/controller, it makes so little power an inexpensive $30 BMS that would suit the power requirements of a fast ebike would be more than adequate.
If you increase the voltage, you will need a new controller as well. The cheapest 72V golf cart controllers made for series-DC motors will do the trick, for a few hundred dollars.
If you want to make a performance machine out of it, you’re going to spend some money…
Seems pointless when you could get a near dead first gen Leaf with similar range but also modern amenities like radio, ac, a modicum of safety….
It’s not pointless, it’s just making an entirely different point.
It’s like hot air ballooning, ocean rowing, barefoot climbing and all that other stuff.
Is there a more perfect car to roll up to one of those Fast & Furious Civic/Challenger/Skyline get togethers Saturday night at the unsanctioned car wash and park right in the middle?
Only if you modify it with a Tesla drive system swap, larger wheels, new suspension, and other changes needed to make it competent enough to race them. Because it would be hilarious to blow their doors off in one.
Stock, it’s not stable above its top speed.
Really bad idea: use reaction wheels for stability, like on a rocket.
It was an even Gremlin-y Gremlin.
Somehow I just don’t see an army of Rich White Women getting pulled over for driving these on public roads with their kids strapped to the top, then yelling at the cop for having the gall to not be out there solving other imporant issues, like why there are sometimes dead children littering the roadways. Someone should fix that!
Advantage: Golf cart.