Between the release of Who Killed the Electric Car and the availability of real-world-capable full-electric vehicles for reasonable prices, golf-cart-esque electric LSVs (Low Speed Vehicles) sold in sufficient quantities that you might spot one humming down your street on a short journey.
Now that electric cars have become, you know, cars, machines like the ZENN Electric seem like amusing relics of a distant past. Here’s an ’07 ZENN, spotted in a Northern California pull-it-yourself yard last month.
The ZENN was a French-built Microcar MC-2, fitted in Canada with a 30-horse electric motor and a brace of heavy, short-range lead-acid batteries.
Check out the gigantic blobs of adhesive use to stick on the door trim, one of many indicators that this car was never intended for the long haul. Believe it or not, today’s Junkyard Find isn’t the first ZENN I have photographed in a California wrecking yard; I found this blue ’07 about a year ago.
This ZENN’s final owner had something of a sense of humor, as demonstrated by the Ford badging. You’d need a sense of humor to drive a ZENN.
If a clever junkyard shopper can convince the cashier that this big-torque electric motor is not a complete vehicle engine, the price might be down to starter-motor bargain levels. Imagine 30 horsepower in a pink-cell-phone-equipped Barbie Lamborghini!
