CitiCar

Robert Gerald Beaumont was born in Teaneck, New Jersey, in 1932, served two years in the US Air Force and left business studies at Hartwick College for a job at a Chrysler dealership in Kingston, New York, which he later bought and ran for about twenty years.source 1 By his obituary’s account the lunar rover inspired him and America’s appetite for oil appalled him, and he sold the dealership to build cars.source 1 Small Cars Club tells of a moment of realisation at a petrol pump; MTDM says he first worked with small firms converting petrol cars to electricity; and Lancaster Insurance says that he had worked with Henney on its Kilowatt electric car in 1959–⁠60.source 2source 3source 4 In Sebring, Florida, an investor gave him land for a factory.source 2

Sebring-Vanguard, founded in 1973, began with the Vanguard Coupe, a golf-cart-like car closely copied from a Club Car runabout and built on Club Car frames and drives.source 5source 2 It was no immediate success, and Beaumont and the Florida designer Jim Muir refined it into the CitiCar.source 5source 4

A wedge on golf-cart batteries

The CitiCar was launched in 1974, just as the Arab oil embargo was ending, for $2,700, about half the price of an average new car.source 1source 3source 4 Its two-seat wedge body was ABS plastic, which Beaumont’s obituary likens to a football helmet’s, on a frame of welded aluminium tube.source 5source 1 The first version, the SV-36, had six 6-volt batteries under the seat, 36 volts, and on most cars a 2.5 hp Baldor motor; it did 40–45 km/h (25–28 mph), and plastic side curtains served for doors.source 5source 3 Some cars had a propane heater of the kind used for camp stoves.source 6 On the early cars the defroster switch, fitted to meet the federal rules, was connected to nothing.source 5

From car 1501, in December 1974, the SV-48 carried eight batteries, 48 volts, and a 3.5 hp General Electric motor, and some SV-36s came back to be converted.source 5 With its top speed approaching 64 km/h (40 mph), sales took off.source 1

Everybody heard about what we were doing in Florida, and they came flocking to us like we were the salvation of the world.

The car changed by serial number. Car 1751, in March 1975, brought indicators that cancelled themselves and a defroster that worked; car 2011 replaced the front disc brakes with drums; and from car 2781, about December 1975, the “Transitional” or 1976½ CitiCar had a 6 hp motor, a Dana axle, heater vents and better doors, some with sliding windows.source 5 MTDM and Lancaster call it the Hatchback Coupe and give it 6.5 hp.source 3source 4 In 1976 Sebring-Vanguard was America’s sixth-largest car maker by output.source 5source 1source 4

NASA and the baseball bat

In 1976 NASA’s Lewis Research Center tested one of two CitiCars bought by the Energy Research and Development Administration. Fully laden, it managed 51 km/h (32 mph), and it went 85 km (52.8 miles) at a steady 29 km/h (18 mph) but only 40 km (24.8 miles) flat out.source 7 The accelerator worked a three-step switch, from 24 volts through a resistor to 24 volts and then 48, and there was nothing in between.source 7

If the operator wishes to hold an intermediate speed, he must move the accelerator pedal and continually switch between the controller positions which bracket the desired speed. This makes holding the speed constant somewhat difficult.

Hills, cold, wind or a heavy passenger cut its performance sharply.source 3source 4 Consumer Reports found it inordinately noisy and unreliable.source 1

foolhardy to drive

When Michigan officials wanted it banned from the roads, Beaumont took a baseball bat to the body and suggested they test an official’s Ford the same way.source 1 But with the safety questions and with oil cheap again, Sebring-Vanguard went bankrupt in 1977, or 1978 by MTDM’s date.source 1source 3 The car came back as the Comuta-Car and the Comuta-Van.

Beaumont moved to Maryland, ran a used-car business and lobbied Congress for electric cars; in the 1990s his Renaissance Cars built fewer than 25 Tropica electric sports cars, designed by Muir.source 3source 1source 4 He died at his home in Columbia, Maryland, in October 2011, aged 79.source 1 English Wikipedia says that no electric car built in North America after 1945 was made in greater numbers until the 2010s, and its shape lives on in the Danish Kewet and the Norwegian Buddy (see electric microcars).source 5

Commuter Vehicles, Inc., a New Jersey company whose parent, by Lancaster’s account, was the General Engines Company, bought the design at the bankruptcy sale and built it from 1979 as the Comuta-Car.source 5source 3source 4 MTDM says a cloud over some of Beaumont’s business dealings made the buyers change the name.source 3 It was the Transitional CitiCar with its batteries moved from under the seat into large impact bumpers, to meet the Department of Transportation’s rules, which made it about 410 mm (16 in) longer; extra frame members made a carpeted console between the seats, which now had belts.source 5source 4 The battery pack could be changed in about a minute.source 4 CVI quoted a range of 64 km (40 miles), 64–69 km/h (40–43 mph) and 35–40 cents for a night’s charge, and claimed that, since the average American commute was 36 km (22.5 miles) a day, the car met 70–75 per cent of driving needs.source 4 Some 1979 Comuta-Cars carry CitiCar serial numbers with an “A” added, probably dealers’ cars unsold at the bankruptcy and brought up to date.source 5 CVI stopped building them in 1982.source 5source 3source 4 A few may have been sold after January 1982 as kits, and in September 1984 a service bulletin replaced the stepped switch with a solid-state controller.source 5 English Wikipedia estimates about 2,144 Comuta-Cars and vans; MTDM says two thousand more after the CitiCars.source 5source 3 In 2018 the inventor Simone Giertz bought a Comuta-Car and named it Cheese Louise.source 4

The first van was Sebring-Vanguard’s CitiVan of 1977–⁠79, on a longer wheelbase and with its own serial numbers; English Wikipedia reports a rumour that only 11 were sold as CitiVans, and more as Comuta-Vans in 1979.source 5 CVI’s Comuta-Van had swing-out side doors and a rear window that opened as a hatch.source 5 For the US Postal Service it built a right-hand-drive Postal Comuta-Van, 3,607 mm (142 in) long, with a 12 hp motor, 72 volts, a three-speed gearbox, sliding side doors and a single seat, though some sold to the public had a second.source 5 MTDM says some of the last several hundred vehicles went to the Postal Service, and that the relationship ended badly.source 3 The last Comuta of all, built by the factory in 1986, was a 72-volt pick-up made to special order and sold without a serial number.source 5

Many still run, though no count has been found. The frame numbers known from survivors ran in 2013 from 1040 to 2998, and a CitiCar Roster is kept.source 5 Owners of every kind of C-Car, as they call the CitiCars and Comutas together, meet online.source 5source 4 In 2009 an owner, Peter Crisitello, led half a dozen CitiCars to Beaumont’s home.source 1 The Elliott Museum in Stuart, Florida, has a 1975 CitiCar that has covered about 9,700 km (6,000 miles), with its side curtains and propane heater.source 6 No sale at a major auction has been found. This page’s photographs include CitiCars and Comutas in museums at El Segundo, California, and Dearborn, Michigan, and in a parade in Seattle.