The most produced American electric car...

"Bullitt Ride" (yesterdayknight) 09/26/2013 at 12:19 • Filed to: None

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...Until Tesla rolled in. According to wikipedia "The CitiCar and variants were the most produced American electric car until surpassed by the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 2011". To be honest I hadn't heard of this car maker (if you can call it a car) until today when I came across !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on kijiji (essentially a Canadian craigslist) so I had to look them up.

The top gear boys must have been on the design team, note the similarities... boxy, angular construction, fastened together with rivets...

The performance specs are appropriately just as awful as the looks...

Acceleration: 0 to 25 in 6.2 seconds

Speed: 38 mph (61 km/h)

Range: Approximately 40 mi (64 km)

And if you really wanted to use it as a commuter car but the range was a bit lacking, check out this very tastefully designed bumper extension option that allowed you to pile in some more batteries. The acceleration performance probably suffered a bit due to the extra weight, however on the plus side it provided the car with a really nice stanced look... check out that tire tuck going on...

Also, apparently the performance specifications were so sensitive to the set-up of the vehicle that Wikipedia also states:

NOTE: The top speed of any particular C-Car will vary somewhat depending on many factors, including: tire pressure, vehicle weight, alignment, brake drag , windows open/closed, transaxle oil viscosity , temperature, chemistry, age, and condition of the batteries, etc. These factors can make some C-Cars a bit faster or slower than others

A few things in that paragraph stood out at me. Brake drag. I suppose all cars have a little bit of brake drag, but never substantial enough to be listed as a caveat in the performance specs. Then again, if the car is so slow that it goes 0-60 in... never, then I guess every little bit counts. That ties in with the transaxle oil viscosity too I suppose. If I'm ever going to line up for a race against another CitiCar owner, I'll make sure I've got some fresh oil in the transaxle.

All that being said... I'd definitely buzz around town in one if I could just to see people's reaction to it.

pdthedeuce > Bullitt Ride 09/26/2013 at 12:22

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I've seen quite a few of these...they tended to be used by municipalities for parking enforcement and the like. also quite a few on college campuses back then .

Mr. Ontop, No Strokes, No Smokes...Goes Fast. > Bullitt Ride 09/26/2013 at 12:53

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A guy in my hometown had one. He used it as his DD for years, but in all honesty, he didn't live that far from work.

Hoccy > Bullitt Ride 09/28/2013 at 03:55

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That reminded me of this thing, the only "car" that's produced in Norway.