SuperAdmin

I bought this car on eBay for $275 and restored it. It’s still probably worth $275. See my comments unders the Green Commutacar.

This was another Jimmy Carter-era car built here in Burnsville, MN. They guaranteed 100 mpg. It is a very dangerous one passenger car with a 14 HP Tecumseh Carden tractor motor, but it will travel at a very fast pace.

I bought these cars from Alan Eden here in Minneapolis and later decided I would never get around to restoring them, so I put them on eBay. They were purchased by the Subaru dealer in Sioux Falls, SD. I haven’t heard from them, but I know they intended to make one good restoration out of the two.

This is a Shay Model A Ford Kit car. It is mounted on a 1980 Ford Falcon frame, motor, drivetrain, etc…. So it rides and drives like a 1980 Ford Falcon, not a Model A. It was restored by Briggs Auto in Manhattan and I bought it at the K-State Ahern Scholarship Auction. I owned it for a couple of years then decided that this car belongs in Manhattan, KS, not Minneapolis, MN, so I donated it back to the auction in 2012.

This is an electric car built in Florida during the Jimmy Carter years. It is a golf cart motor and frame with a car body. Top speed is 35 mph and it will go 35-40 miles on a charge. It takes 4-6 hours to recharge, so it would take you 8 or 10 days to go from Minneapolis to Kansas City – pretty much a useless car. Needless to say the company went bankrupt.

I bought this car at Barrett-Jackson in Las Vegas in 2008 already in mint condition. I like this car a lot.

I bought this car at the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum Auction in Madison, GA, in February 2013. The Bond Bug was manufactured in Tamworth, England by the Reliant Car Corporation. Their most popular was the Reliant Robin which was an inexpensive car to own and operate. They built the Bond Bug to attract the younger sportier crowd. It is very fast and, in my opinion, dangerous. The auction was quite an event. It cost $150.00 to attend and you had to have a letter of credit from your bank for $50,000.00. They sold everything. Over 200 microcars and tons of automobile memorabilia. Most of the cars were purchased by buyers from Europe and South America. A buyer from Russia bought 33 cars. The total sales for the cars was over 8 million and the memorabilia total was over 13 million.

The Subaru 360s were imported by an individual, not the Subaru company. They were sold by independent dealers and had a very bad reputation because service and parts weren’t available. Rumors are that Consumer Report rated it as unacceptable, Wall Street Journal rated it as the worst car ever made and an auto magazine rated it as the most dangerous car ever made. It is a two-cycle motor and very cute to see driving along smoking with the bum..bum..bum.. sound.

This car is completely restored and we painted it purple. I donated this car to the Ahern Scholarship Auction. Russ Briggs, the Subaru dealer in Manhattan, bought it so it can stay near K-State and ready for the Homecoming Parades.

This was the first collector car I bought. It had to do with Elvis. It’s in great mechanical condition and could use some cosmetic updating, but at a distance it is handsome. As my Japanese friend Mr. Kobiashi says, “It is a great American road car.”