Fossil Free Friday: Leapin Lectric Leopards, Batman!

[Blame it on Ebay - again!]

You know me and the quest for funky vintage electric vehicles. (One day I will stumble across an Auranthetic Charger or a Citicar, snagit!) A while back a guy a few blocks away from me replaced his fence. And there it was, a boxy little French two-door hatchback. I saw it and my heart leapt! Could it be? Is there really a Lectric Leopard just a few blocks from my house? No. Upon closer inspection, it was just a Le Car.

How many of you remember the Renault Le Car?

I never really wanted one.

How many of you speed freaks remember the Renault R5 Turbo?

Oh, how I wanted one in 1986!

Okay, how many of you remember the Lectric Leopard?

Nope, that's a cheetah and a panther

Here it is!

 

Yep, it would be the second car at the Mesquite Hugger corporate office.

 

This one is for sale on Ebay...

 

...and it is practically in my state. Actually, it's in Sunland Park, New Mexico which is practically a part of El Paso, Texas and right on the border with Chihuahua, Mexico. It's a Franco-American with a heavy Tex-Mexican accent! This little sapphire is only $3500 (so far) and nobody is bidding yet.

Yep, I want one.

Loving the light switch!

 

The Lectric Leopard was built (or re-fitted) as an electric vehicle by U.S. Electricar, a company known for selling new, electrified versions of gas-powered vehicles. (I would love to have one of their Chevrolet S-10s, one of the most legitimate electric trucks ever sold in the states.) They produced electric vehicles until the mid-nineties.

 

Want to learn more? Check out this French site for a good start. Or check out these EVAlbum pages: http://www.evalbum.com/4342 http://www.evalbum.com/4679 http://www.evalbum.com/4150 http://www.evalbum.com/4142

(This is just a sampling - there are several others.)

 

In your quest for a carbon-neutral vehicle, may the car behind the fence be your dream come true. 

Vintage Electric Car Dorks Rejoice! (Another Ebay Elcar)

Not all Ebay ads are created equal.

I am normally disappointed with Ebay ads for vintage electric cars - it's hard for the regular joe/jo to put together a great ebay ad, but once in a while you find an Ebay seller who transcends from seller to historian. Today, I have to give it up for 008hoopty!

I hopped over to Ebay this morning to tempt myself with the forbidden fruit of "electric car" and it appeared:

You never know what Tennessee is going to have to offer.

 

As I scrolled down, I found an online museum exhibit of everything Zagato Elcar. If you are interested in this "penalty box" on wheels, you owe it to yourself to get over to Ebay (before it sells) to read all the info presented there. Me, I am lazy, so I am just going to share some of the images from the posting.

 

 

Link to the Ebay ad

A Mandarin Orange on wheels

An Elcar for the unhinged?

Revised indeed

I have not seen this one with text

Poolside parking

Nice Coke machine!

Woohoo! the cutaway

Love that windshield wiper

Implied stripe?

You said it, Pops!

 

May you be delighted with knowledge and mirth today, and may you find your electric dream.

 

Bonus links: two previous Zagato Elcar posts

 

Vintage Electric Car Profile: Zagato Elcar

 

Vintage Electric Car: Double the Zagato Elcar Fun!

Vintage + Electric Conversion = Droolworthy e-Truck

I like old stuff.

I like environmentally friendly stuff.

I like recycled stuff.

So I really like to see when somebody takes an old gas-powered thing and turns it into a revitalized electric thing. VW's, Corvairs, Minis, minibikes, scooters, motorcycles, lawnmowers - all of these have inspired Mesquite Hugger posts. I have even converted a minibike and a scooter, and I have two more scooters that I hope to convert some time in the next decade. The idea of vintage cool combined with modern efficiency - just wow!

And I really like to see old trucks being converted. They are plentiful, light, easy to access, reasonable to restore, and snagit, they are cool.

Photo from the build blog

A 1935 Chevrolet truck showed up on EVAlbum today, and it fits the bill on all counts. It even looks bone stock - until you look under the hood. It has a lithium-iron-phosphate battery pack and maintains a great deal of the original running gear, including the original transmission. Here is the build blog so that you can learn more about it.

My 1935 Chevy Pickup Restoration and EV Conversion Project

May you be inspired to go green and to do so in retro style!

If you like this post, here are a few similar posts:

Stealthified Vintage Ram!

It's been a while since MH posted an Electric VW...

Some of MH's favorite scooter - moped - minibike e-conversions

Another Modern Vintage Electric Scooter Is Born - Cezeta!!!

My favorite way to get around, bar none, is to ride a vintage scooter. For me, a scooter combines the joy of riding a motorcycle with the aesthetics of cruising in an old car. And there is a dash of humor that brings it all together.

My favorite album cover of all time!

The obsession: If you want the opportunity to hear me talk for hours with hardly a breath taken, ask me about some old scooter or other - consider yourself warned. I purchased my first Vespa about twenty-five years ago, and it has been an obsession since. One my first conversations with my wife happened when she asked about my Vespa t-shirt. Our wedding invitation featured us on a Vespa, and some of our best times together are still spent riding a scooter...

The conflict: I ran into an ethical problem a while back. I started realizing just how badly we fans of internal combustion engines have been damaging our chances (as a planet) of continuing to live and breathe. And most vintage scooters are surprisingly heavy polluters. Since most of them get great gas mileage, you would think they would have a light footprint, but the old two-stroke motor design creates vastly worse emissions than most modern vehicles. For example, my 1980 Vespa emits much more greenhouse gas per mile than a modern Cadillac Escalade or even the old Plymouth Road Runner I drove to high school. Old scooters are extremely bad for the environment.

A solution: Several years back, I came up with the (ahem) perfect solution. I put an electric motor into a vintage Vespa. And it came out great. Reliable, quick, reasonable range, and a blast to ride. But I did miscalculate a bit. It will run 28mph. And 28mph is not a realistic speed for getting around town where I live. It's too fast on a bicycle and way too slow for something that mixes with SUVs and such. (Also, my design work on the scooter left me without a place to park my size 12 feet while riding.)

So, I have two great Vespas in the garage, neither of which gets ridden much.

A dream solution: I mentioned Vespas, but I love most vintage scooters. For years I have kept my eye out for a good deal on a motorless Silver Pigeon or an Allstate Jetsweep/Cushman Road King because they both look like great electric conversion candidates - and so I could be cool like Bo Diddley. (See photo above.) Both of these scooters would provide more room for batteries and for access. And your second draft is usually a little better than your first, right?

A Silver Pigeon - so cool!

A Euro Turn-key Solution: Why am I telling you all of this? Because there was a thread on Endless-Sphere.com this morning that got me all excited. Yet another oddball Vintage Euro Scooter has been re-born as an electric. And, of course, I want one. I present to you the Cezeta 506 Electric! (Follow all of the links - cool stuff!)

Check out the Cezeta!

Another Euro Turn-key Solution: And, in case you want to see another modern electric vintage scooter that has been around a few years now, here is the e-Schwalbe: (You may want to translate this page.)

May the electric wind scooterize your hair!

Vintage Electric Cars Small and Smaller OR Why I Should Be Banned from Ebay

Once in a while, I take a dangerous little trip over to Ebay and type "electric car" into the search box. The dangerous part for me is never the new and shiny, it's the old and quirky. This week's search was filled with temptation.

To start with, a car that I wanted really badly in the past re-appeared this week. (I am thankful to report that its auction has successfully ended.) Last year it was for sale in the Eureka area and was still hippied out. It was a very desirable early Beetle on a more desirable later Beetle chassis, and it was a running and driving electric vehicle. And it was cheap. Actually less than I would end up paying a few months later for an electric motorcycle with similar capabilities and no roof. But, oh, temptation was there.

(This photo is before they scraped off all the cool hippy stuff, snagit!)

Sigh, it has sold again.

Next up, a real factory prototype, a piece of electric vehicle history. Yes, it needs work and you would have to find your way around the unavailable parts issue, but dang that thing is cool.

1977 Ford Endura Prototype

I have written about Citicars before. Imagine the peace and quiet of being in a silent car compounded by the fact that none of my family would get in that ugly beast (for a lot of very sound reasons).

Yellow Citicar

Wanting something a little more British and a lot sportier?

1978 MG Midget

Or how about a nicer Beetle that looks good AND is still available?

1967 Beetle

It's time to click the little "X" in the top right-hand corner of the Ebay screen. Maybe the weather will warm up soon and I can finish up the electric bicycle. Then maybe I can find more time to ride and less time to drool over this lovely collection of headaches that others are trying to get rid of.

May you have a warm day and not buy yourself a headache.