A goofy, Colorado-produced electric motor vehicle is acquiring a 2nd daily life with hobbyists

On leading of the weird styling, the vendor noted the automobile was an all-electric car designed in Englewood. Kavanaugh did not wait. He experienced observed his upcoming rotting in a Denver junkyard. 

“It has a experience only a mother could really like,” Kavanaugh claimed. “We just kind of resolved: we require to acquire just one.”

Kavanaugh would conclusion up getting a distinctive Exclusive Mobility Electrek that was in much better shape than the 1st automobile. The movie pupil rapidly fell in really like with the car’s many quirks, which includes a “defroster” that was absolutely nothing much more than a Gillette hairdryer connected beneath the dashboard. 



Given that then, the film university student has helped build a group devoted not only to putting the cars and trucks back again on Colorado roads but to creating their position in automotive background.

He set up a website and social media accounts to commemorate the car. Previous Special Mobility engineers even aided Kavanaugh place a pair of the automobile versions back again in performing get.

“They were Elon Musk before Elon Musk,” Kavanaugh reported. “Even if not a great deal of folks know about them, they’re a major reason electric cars are still on the street now.”

Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Outdated advertisements for Exceptional Mobility’s Electrek “panel van” that attributes the really design parked in Declan Kavanaugh’s loved ones garage in Monument. March 19, 2022.

A vehicle born from the 1973 electrical power disaster

Distinctive Mobility founder John Gould is now 84 a long time old and life in Lakewood. On a the latest afternoon, he sat down at his kitchen area table with binders whole of shots and news posts documenting the company’s heritage. If young grease monkeys have taken an fascination in the Electrek, he needs to make certain they get it right.

Gould integrated Exceptional Mobility in 1967 with hopes of building a modest sports vehicle. To support pay out for the venture, the business enterprise developed a specialty in fiberglass goods like kayaks and airplane parts.

Its main target grew to become dune buggies, which Gould said ended up normally offered to vacationer attractions, hobby kits or pizza shipping and delivery vehicles. 

The organization started discovering the possibility of an electric powered car soon after the 1973 strength disaster, which remaining U.S. drivers painfully mindful of their dependence on significant foreign oil producers. At the identical time, Gould commenced to recognize air pollution filling the skies above important cities about the entire world, which he understood was partially because of to the rising amount of automobiles. 

Picture courtesy of John Gould
An early image of a Special Mobility Electrek

“It just appears like the correct factor to do,” Gould reported. “If I’m going to be involved in generating automobiles, why really don’t I make one thing that’s kinder to the environment?”

Gould reported his business resolved to take a “devices tactic” to creating a practical battery-powered car or truck. Company engineers and mechanics hung diagrams and lists about their production facility in Englewood.

Their aim, he explained, was to fix troubles other car organizations confronted in changing classic internal combustion automobiles into electrical automobiles. 

In most conditions, people firms piled guide-acid batteries underneath the hood, which created a dangerous security hazard. If a driver crashed, Gould explained they risked remaining crushed in a “lead sandwich.”



Their proposed option was a very long educate of 16 golf cart batteries arranged in a fiberglass tunnel functioning down the middle of the car or truck. The corporation opted to use fiberglass for the car’s physique as perfectly, which an early press launch proclaimed was “resistant to corrosion and electric powered shock.” 

Following 5 decades of improvement, the first Electrek went on sale in 1979 for $25,000 — about $90,000 these days.

Even with the steep sticker price, advertisements promised customers a automobile able of highway speeds and a variety of up to 100 miles when pushed at a regular pace of 40 miles per hour. The corporation also claimed the vehicle only value 1 cent for each mile to sustain and run.

Amongst 1979 and 1982, Gould reported Special Mobility created much more than 50 Electreks.

Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Declan Kavanaugh drives his Distinctive Mobility Electrek “panel van” in the vicinity of his household residence in Monument. March 19, 2022.

The ‘Crap Era’

One of a kind Mobility was not the only corporation in a hurry to make feasible electric autos.

Soon after the oil disaster, President Jimmy Carter termed for new systems to soften future oil shocks. A broad range of businesses attempted to satisfy the second with electric autos like the CitiCar, a very small electrical coupe resembling a wedge-shaped Lego piece. 

Present day fanatics now refer to this period of electrical car or truck producing as the Crap Period — a time when automakers lacked the know-how or the structure feeling to make sensible solutions to interior combustion motor vehicles.

Kavanaugh said his encounter restoring Electreks has shown him the car experienced some severe deficiencies. Just after months of rebuilding the car along with previous Unique Mobility engineer Jim McCollough, he was in a position to consider it for an original spin in 2020. Elated, he recorded a profanity-loaded Snapchat for his buddies but quickly realized driving the automobile arrived with some drawbacks. 



One was the car’s real battery capability. The promised 100-mile variety is closer to 50, even with contemporary golfing cart batteries. Rocks and pebbles drum against the car’s all-fiberglass bottom.

Even on a speedy excursion out of his garage in Monument for the duration of the interview for this tale Kavanaugh effortlessly bought trapped on a slight slope with a layer of snow, evidence the 32-horsepower motor doesn’t pack considerably punch.

All these concerns apart, Kavanaugh thinks the Electrek could have been a serviceable motor vehicle for lots of environmentally-minded prospective buyers. What he definitely thinks doomed the car is its appears to be. 

“It is so silly. You probably saw how silly it appears to be driving,” Kavanaugh explained.

Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Declan Kavanaugh sits powering the wheel of his Exceptional Mobility Electrek “panel van” at his household house in Monument. March 19, 2022.

The Electrek was hardly ever manufactured to be aesthetic

Gould just isn’t offended by the consensus on his electric car’s aesthetics. In simple fact, he agrees the Electrek “is not a handsome vehicle.” 

Gould explained the car’s search was hardly ever a dilemma mainly because the Electrek was what the automotive field refers to as a “mule,” a limited-run generation auto developed to check the dependability and longevity of the design and style.

Lots of of its quirks — like the drooping guillotine windows and the hairdryer defroster — were being required to cut again on prices, Gould said. 

His last vision for an electrical motor vehicle was significantly much more refined. Just after retreating to a back again space at his residence, he returned with a sleek, dim figurine of a vehicle product he named the Mariah, named soon after the place vintage “They Identified as the Wind Mariah.

Sam Brasch/CPR News
John Gould with a product for the Mariah, an electrical vehicle idea developed by Special Mobility.

“Our precise choice was likely to be this auto,” he mentioned. 

Gould hoped to make the car or truck in Colorado, but he mentioned his company’s board of administrators resolved providing electric car or truck components and skills was a smarter business shift. 

After offering up on the Mariah, the business rebranded as UQM Technologies and centered on producing electric drivetrains. Gould explained it assisted BMW, Ford and Normal Motors with electric car research. The perform didn’t quickly guide to manufacturing vehicles, but he thinks the expertise is now becoming used in new types.

The company also worked with protection contractors and electric powered auto pioneer Chip Yates, who set the record for the quickest climb up Pikes Peak with a motorcycle powered by a UQM motor. 

Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
The end of a extensive, major practice of batteries from Declan Kavanaugh’s Exceptional Mobility Electrek

In 2019, UQM Systems bought to Dutch conglomerate Danfoss for about $100 million. Despite the good results, Gould however thinks about his previous desires of making electric autos in Colorado. 

“Specifically when I see some of the new electric car or truck corporations that are coming on board, they’re raising billions of bucks,” Gould explained. “If I was in my twenties, thirties, forties or what ever, I would most likely give it a swing.”

As for the young people reviving the old autos, he’s perplexed but flattered.

“I’d like to say thanks to them for reviving that aged auto,” Gould reported. 

He is happy quite a few automobile hobbyists now concur the Electrek was not a dud — it was just ahead of its time. 

Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Underneath the hoods of Declan Kavanaugh’s Unique Mobility Electrek vehicles.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Declan Kavanaugh drives his Distinctive Mobility Electrek “panel van” in close proximity to his loved ones residence in Monument. March 19, 2022.

By Tara