The Commuter Vehicles Comuta-Car

(not to be confused with the Ford Comuta concept electric car)

Last updated 2024.02.28

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.

The Comuta-Car was essentially a re-worked CitiCar, with the batteries moved out from under the 2-passenger bench seat and out into the front and rear bumpers and a more powerful electric motor. Hundreds of these cars were produced, and many are still in operation. Most used a 48-volt configuration (8 x 6-volt lead-acid golf-cart batteries), although some 60-volt vehicles were produced as a higher-performance model. In Canada, Comuta-Cars are known to have run in Nepean ON, Ottawa ON, Brampton ON, Toronto ON.

Some Comuta-Car links:
Nu-Kar/Assembled Products Home Page even includes an on-line catalog of parts for CitiCars, Comuta-Cars and vans.
[Yahoo killed groups: http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/C-Car/] Yahoo Groups C-Car Support Group
The Didik Home Page provides some CitiCar/Comuta-Car history and a listing of CitiCar/Comuta-Car parts for reference purposes.
[dead link: http://www.m-cad.com/dp/ev/comuta-0.htm] Scott's Comuta-Car page
[dead link: http://willthomas.net/Investigations/Articles/electric_cars.htm] William Thomas's Comuta-Car page
Albert Wright's Comuta-Car
Steve Clunn's Comuta-Car
[dead site: http://www.aboatbuildingjournal.com/sparky_comes_home.htm] Cliff Ruffner's Comuta-Car
[dead site: http://www.hightechscience.org/electric_car.htm] High-Tech Production's Comuta-Car (and no, Comuta-Cars were not the first production electric cars, nor are these the last in operation)
Before Tesla, There Was Comuta (Jalopnik)
Commutacar [sic] Electric (conceptcarz) Back to the Future in a 1980 ComutaCar EV (Wired)
electric 1980 comuta-car comes with a six-horsepower motor and multiple batteries (designboom)
1980 Comuta-Car at the Henry Ford Museum
Wedgee (bringatrailer.com)
[dead link: http://www.canev.com/Customers/Commute/CommuterCar.html] Canadian EVs Comuta-Car

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