Published: July 19, 2008 07:47 pm            

Man goes green with retro ride

PRINCETON — The last time the United States mobilized to combat price and dependency on foreign oil, engineers at General Motors developed a Cadillac motor that could run on eight, six or four cylinders to maximize fuel efficiency ... the nation’s coal industry experienced a resurgence ... and Sebring Vanguard Co., introduced an all-electric passenger car — the CitiCar.

“I saw something about the CitiCars and wanted to get one that I could restore,” Wayne Arrington of Princeton said. “I had been searching the Internet to see if anyone had one for sale, and about two years ago, I started negotiating with a fellow in Florida who had one.

“We hadn’t made and decision when a friend of mine came up and asked my if I had found an electric car yet,” Arrington said. “When I told him I hadn’t, he told me he knew of a fellow over in Matoaka who had one stored away in an old barn. When I saw it, I bought it right there on the spot.”

The CitiCar was the brain child of automobile visionary, Robert “Bob” Beaumont, who came up with the idea for the electric car in response to the oil crisis of the early 1970s. Beaumont borrowed the basic concept for his electric car from golf carts, and kept the vehicle free of air-conditioners, power windows or even locking mechanisms for doors in order to keep the vehicle light. Arrington says his 1977 CitiCar weighs about 850 pounds, but that climbs to 1,350 pounds with all nine batteries, the eight 6-volt deep-cycle lead acid batteries to run the six-horsepower motor, and the one 12-volt battery to operate the lights, signals, radio and windshield wiper ... singular.

“It doesn’t like hills,” Arrington said. “It will climb them, but you can see the drain it puts on the batteries. Under normal circumstances on flat roads, I can get about 30 miles on one charging. I just plug it in overnight, and to tell you the truth, I don’t notice any difference at all in my electric bills when I charge it.”

Sebring Vanguard was located in Sebring, Fla. Beaumont founded the company in response to the 1973 oil crisis and was incorporated in May of 1973. The first vehicles (the 1975 models) rolled off the assembly line late in 1974 and production continued through 1976 — the 1977 model year. Arrington was able to buy a 1975 model from the same person who sold him the ‘77. “I bought it for parts, but none of the parts are interchangeable,” he said. “They made improvements every year as they went along and changed each model.”

Sebring Vanguard produced 2,600 Citicars, and still holds the record for number of electric production line cars manufactured in the U.S. Arrington knows part of the pedigree of his car. Comer Electric Co., of Beckley bought it in 1977 when the cars listed for $3,500 each, and later Shaffer Equipment in Minden held the title on the car. Arrington doesn’t know how it wound up at a barn in Matoaka. He worked on restoring it for two years, and took it to its first car show in November of 2007.

“I found out it wasn’t ready at that time,” he said. “I spent the winter working on it, and started taking it to shows this spring. I have won 12 trophies with it this year, including the Bluefield Daily Telegraph Choice Trophy” at the Bluestone Region Antique Auto Club of America at their show last week in Princeton.”

Bob Bageant, past president of the club helped select the Telegraph Choice Award this year. “I thought it was a natural fit with the newspaper’s efforts to promote environmentally-friendly concepts through its ‘Going Green’ features,” Bageant said. “Wayne’s car didn’t win the best of show, but it drew a lot of attention.” Bageant said there were 62 competitors in this year’s car show.

“When it’s raining, I don’t go out, but not because it isn’t safe,” Arrington said. “I just don’t want to get it dirty. There is no noise when its running except a little ‘click-click, click-click’ from the colloids when it shifts gears. I talked to a man they called ‘The Electric Man,’ who had 21 of them. He told me the company slogan was: ‘Buy electric and kiss your gas good-bye.’ It will go about 35 miles per hour, even though the speedometer is registered up to 50.

“I use it to drive around town to pay bills and go out to eat at the local restaurants,” he said. The CitiCar has an aluminum frame and roll cage, and a Cycolac ABS plastic body. It has two seats, with enough additional storage space to carry a few grocery bags. One of Arrington’s friends made him a set of stainless steel bumpers for the front and rear to replace the stock rubber bumpers, and he located some 12-inch wheels as well as baby moon hubcaps to replace the stock hubcaps that were missing.

“There are still quite a few of them in use,” Arrington said. “I heard a story about two guys who worked at the same place and both had CitiCars,” he said. “Their boss set it up so they could park together and charge up their batteries when they were at work. That’s a pretty nice boss for you.” The cars have a built-in 110 volt charging system and can be recharged from standard residential electrical outlets.

While he enjoys the renewed attention his CitiCar is receiving, especially with the price of gasoline above $4 per gallon, he said he doesn’t save a lot when he shows his car. “I take it to the car shows on a trailer that I pull with my Sports Tracker,” he said. “I only get about five miles-per-gallon when I’m towing the car and trailer, so I’m not really saving gas.” Still, he enjoys talking about the car that once captured a lot of interest during another oil crisis more than 30 years ago.

— Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com

        

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