Classic 1980 Comuta-car For Sale On Phelp's NY Facebook Market

Do you remember the Comuta-Car of the 1980s? They were some of the first electric cars designed for limited use in cities across America. You could own a piece of American history by buying one from Phelps New York.

So what was the Comuta-Car? It was a two passenger car, with an opening hatch glass to access the behind seat storage area.

According to Hemmings.com, the body was made of ABS plastic and had an aluminum frame. Some of the complaints about the car were the sliding plexiglass door windows. They offered little ventilation in hot weather.

They were also known as CitiCars, or part of the same family:

Inspired by Club Car's golf cart design and partly in response to the 1970s fuel crisis, a company called Sebring-Vanguard produced its first electric vehicle, the Vanguard Coupe (sometimes referred to as the EV Coupe), in 1974. Company founder and President Robert G. Beaumont,[2] working with designer Jim Muir, came up with the CitiCar after this earlier EV Coupe was not an immediate success. This second attempt was still based on a lot of the Club Car's mechanical features, though."

The Comuta-Car retained all of the CitiCar changes including the larger 6 HP motor and drive train arrangement, but moved the batteries from under the seat to battery boxes behind the bumpers. This made the vehicle about 16 inches longer than the 8-foot long CitiCar. ComutaCars also incorporated additional frame supports to meet the new DOT standards of the time.