Ben's Citicar

[bennelson]

I just put a down-payment on a 1977 Citicar!!!

Must be insane! This will be my third EV! (The first one I didn't just build from junk though!)

The good news is that it's cheap! The bad news is that it's 2000 miles away!
Yeah, I know, insane. My brother lives 20 minutes from where this was for sale. He took a look at it and is taking care of the deal for me.

Seriously though, how do I get it home?
Will it fit in a PODS? PODS - Reinventing Moving and Storage > Home I mean, it IS a small car!

[greenitup]

damn ev hoarder.
how much did it cost?

[bennelson]

My brother went to go see the seller of the car last night.

He put down a down payment, and will pay the rest when he picks it up on Saturday.

The car costs $800.
It does NOT include batteries. It does have a PWM controller in it, and aftermarket radial (not trailer!) tires. The battery charger doesn't work, although that MIGHT be some sort of simple problem. The car did work last time it was used, but has been sitting for a few years.

Looks pretty good overall, but has a few cracks in the body and a little work to do on the interior, all to be expected on any 1977 model car. It does need the brakes worked on as well.

Now the fun part - getting it from Los Angeles to Wisconsin....

Here's some photos:









See more photos of the car here:
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy#100336

PS: I will try not to corner the market on EV's. I still need an EV-1 and a Tesla Roadster for my collection. Seriously though, I don't know exactly how I will use the electric cars since the Geo isn't finished yet. We could have his and hers electric cars, or I might just fix the Citicar up and sell to some other EV enthusiast.

[Daox]

Haha, the fun never stops for you. Nice purchase.

[TomEV]

Looks like you got a deal there! If you want to sell 'the lost cord' I'd like to have it...

Most of the fixes that need to be done are relatively simple, even the crack in the plastic body. Get some PlastiFix - works wonders.

[bennelson]

Well, I just got a quote from PODS, and quickly ruled out shoving the CititCar in a PODS box and having it shipped cross country.

Over $3000 for one of their containers and shipping!

[Johnny Mullet]

Wow Ben! Nice find!

[Ryland]

The ad for that car has been floating around for almost a week, I'm glad that the guy still decided to sell it instead of junking it at that low price seeing as it is worth almost that much just in the aluminum that it's made out of...
so this is a prime example of why people shouldn't be wining about not being able to find an electric car, they are out there, and the people who are buying them are people who are wondering where they are going to put it.
another option for Ben would be to re-list it on Ebay and just dubble your money, selling it om where it is.

[SuperTrooper]

Google professional car haulers. Since your car is very small and is being transported between major metropolitan areas it might be cheaper than you think. Even better that you have no time constraints and could ship on a "space available" basis.

My F-I-l used to ship classic cars he bought in Florida to Maine for about a grand.

[Ryland]

if you do go out there to pick it up, I've hauled mine on a trailer for hauling ATV's, very light weight and easy to tow, also if yu toss a pair of 12v ca batteries in under the seat you should be able to test drive it, did that with my citi car and was able to hit 20mph on the road.

[dremd]

Man I'm jealous.

Either a moving company, or a car moving company, or get this; a freight company.

I ship stuff with freightquote.com all the time and feel as though I get good prices; I'd give them a call and see what they can do for you. Price will be much less if you can get someone in LA to load it up; would it fit on a pallet?

[Tony Raine]

your s-10 + cheap harbor freight trailer = ROADTRIP

drive to the car, buy the trailer there, sell it when you get home. plus you get to visit family as well.

[bennelson]

Originally Posted by Tony Raine

your s-10 + cheap harbor freight trailer = ROADTRIP.

I was totally thinking that too, but it's a LOT of hours on the road.

Maybe I could use our Frappr Map to find where ecomodders are on the way for sofa's to crash on!

[dremd]

I can vouch for the Harbor Freight trailer. Works well for the $

I haul 800~1000 lbs of WVO in a 400 + Lbs tank with no issues, just a few simple mods.


Mods I've done to the HArbor Freight trailer.
1) Use Bearing grease in wheel bearings. Amazingly the manual tells you to remove factory packing grease and replace with moly. Trust me you need to, the factory grease is crap. even has grease zerk factory.
2) Bolt the front and back to gether. It comes pre-drilled, but no bolts; 4 bolts at the hardware store later and you have a much stronger trailer.
3) Buy a spare tire.

You could actually do one of two things to help out the procedure.

1) Fold it up and put it in the bed of your S-10

2) Just buy it in LA; takes about 2~3 hours to assemble and needs a sheet of plywood (+ self tapping screws) which you could get at home Depot. If you do this, don't bother cutting the plywood to fold the trailer; it will be stronger, and you can cut it when you get home.

Oh, and don't forget to check if it doesn't just fit in the bed of your s-10.

[Ryland]

the citi car whee base is 48" wide, 68'' long, body is 54" wide 94" bumper to bumper, 60" tall, I don't have the weight spec in front of me, but i believe it's 1,200lbs including the 510 pounds of batteries, I often lift the front and rear of my citi car to move it around the garage and to put it on jack stands to work under it with the two 12v car batteries that I have in it for testing.

[bennelson]

Hey Ryland,

I just re-read that you said the WHEELBASE is 48 inches wide.

Would this car fit on a four foot wide trailer or NOT?

4-foot trailers are much more common (cheaper!) than 5 footers.


I have called around to a couple of freight and moving places. The freight place said they would recommend AGAINST moving the Citicar as Less-Than-Truckload freight unless it was custom crated.

When I called a big residential moving company they immediately recommended a car carrier company. They said moving it in one of their vans would be much more expensive.

I am starting to think the roadtrip is the way to go...


EDIT:
I just got back an e-mail from my wife from me talking about driving to California this weekend to get the CitiCar.

Here is the actual quote from her:

"You will owe me BIG TIME!!"

OH, and in another e-mail, she said:
YES - YOU ARE INSANE!"



Want to see something really crazy? This map!

[SuperTrooper]

I made a few phone calls to pro car haulers and the estimates range from $925 - 1100.

[bennelson]

$1100 was the price that I got a couple times. Most of them charge you extra if they can't just drive the car up the ramp too.

[Geebee]

I wish they sold them in Australia, I love minimalistic cars and electric to boot.
One question though how are they on 20~25% grades?

[toyobug]

some guys have all the luck!
Still...I will be anxiously reading along... Congrats Ben.

p.s. I would do the road trip. You never know what you might find along the way!!