Sebring-Vanguard CitiCar

Last updated 2010.03.03

2009 International Gathering of All C-Car Owners

May 15-17, 2009 in Columbia, Maryland

From the material for the event:
Do you know who was the fifth largest automobile producer in the United States in 1975?! Would you believe it was a company that built only EV's!? The answer is Vanguard / CitiCar. For the last few months, I have been piecing together this first ever gathering of all CitiCar, Commuta-Car, & Van Owners. The weekend of May 15 to 17, 2009 at the Columbia, MD Hilton is the date and place for this extraordinary event. For the first time in many years the man who built not one but two of the most notable Electric Vehicles of the last century will be our keynote speaker; Bob Beaumont not only started building CitiCar EV's from scratch in the 1970, he was also the man behind the Tropica venture just before the close of the 1990's.

I hope to have online registration and a complete schedule of events finalized by the end of this month. Under the heading of C-Car's any CitiCar, Commuta-Car, & Van owner as well as Tropica/Xebra owners are welcomed to participate. On the off chance that anyone has one of the pre CitiCar Vanguard/CubCar EV's I would love to have you in attendance, too. I am hoping to have as many C-Car's as has ever been in one place ever on display for this event and they don't even have to be running, just to get them together is my hope. I am also opening this up to any other production or home built EV's and their owners who would like to come as well. Any EV and parts Vendors are welcomed, also. Since I am sure all will have to be trailer, the hotel has plenty of room for trailer parking.

My preliminary schedule calls for a welcome get together and EV Cruse on Friday night. Saturday will be setup as a Display of all EV's in attendance with at least two seminars scheduled throughout the day. I am arranging for the hotel to put on an outdoor barbeque throughout this day as well. If I can find some sponsors, I would like to arrange for some popular choice judging as well. One of the seminars is tentatively scheduled to be on the discussion of body repair for our light plastic C-Car bodies. The other seminar is working out to be an open forum discussion of all C-Car owners with Bob, his daughter Dina, and some other knowledgeable experts filling in the gaps in our knowledge of these historic vehicles in attendance.

Saturday night I am leaving open for the people to take in the surrounding areas entertainment or they can drop by my suite for some further discussion on anything in particular; especially EV's. Sunday I have arranged for a farewell Brunch with Bob as the keynote speaker. An event like this has been talked about in the past but this is the first time it has gotten beyond the planning stages.

Poster for the event (colour, large 26 MB)
Contact Peter Crisitello for more information.

Approximately 2,200 of these small, wedge-fronted 2-seaters were built in Sebring FL in the mid-1970's by the Sebring-Vanguard Co., which makes this unquestionably the most successful electric car of the modern era. Powered by a 3.5 horsepower motor drawing power from eight 6-volt lead-acid golf-cart batteries and controlled by contactors, resistors and switching batteries from parallel to series connection, the vehicle weighed in at 980 pounds without batteries or about 1,400 pounds with the 8 batteries in it. The vehicle boasted a reliable range of 40 miles in warm weather and had a top speed in excess of 30 mph. The car made an appearance in the movie THX-1138. Built of ABS plastic, the bodies are not subject to rust or corrosion. Many are still in operation more than 20 years after they were built, in fact there are probably more of these electric cars on the road in the late 1990's in North America than GM's EV-1 a year after the introduction of GM's star EV of current times.

This car was the dream of Bob Beaumont, who worked tirelessly to bring it to fruition. That story is the base for the book "The Lost Cord", written by Barbara E. Taylor.

In Canada, CitiCars are known to have operated in Braeside ON, Nepean ON, Ottawa ON, London ON, Stratford ON, Bowmanville ON, and Victoria BC.

Photo of CitiCar (colour - 212k)

Some CitiCar links:
Dale Wendorff's CitiCar (now hosted on Econogics.com)
Nu-Kar/Assembled Products Home Page used to include an on-line catalog of parts for CitiCars, Comuta-Cars and vans. No sign of those anymore.
[dead link: http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/C-Car/links] due to Yahoo Yahoo C-Car Links
[dead link: http://www.auto-quest.com/articles/artalt.html] Auto Quest Investment Cars on the CitiCar (please note the photo with the article is a Comuta-Car, not a Citicar, and the prices quoted for the vehicle today are hopelessly optimistic)
[dead link: http://www.bjharding.com/citicar/] The Harding CitiCar page
[dead link: http://john.redmood.com/citicar.html] John Buckman's CitiCar page
[access forbidden: http://sloan.stanford.edu/EVonline/text/letton.htm] Andrew Letton's CitiCar experience
[dead link: http://www.m-cad.com/dp/ev/citicar-0.htm]Scott's CitiCar page
[dead link: http://www.m-cad.com/dp/ev/comuta-0.htm ] Scott's Comuta-car page
[dead link: http://www.geocities.com/commutacar/citidiag.htm due to Yahoo] Wiring Diagram, pre-1976 CitiCar (courtesy Mike Chancey)

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