The Eclectic Electric Sparrow

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The Eclectic Electric Sparrow

As we close the books on the second decade of the twenty-first century, electricity’s role in personal transportation seems assured. The market share of electric vehicles in the industrialized world approaches 5% in some regions, and is expected only to rise from there. This was far from the case 20 years ago when the electric powered Corbin Sparrow made its debut. Then, EV sales were lucky to register in the hundreds annually. But this was also the height of the dot.com frenzy. Entrepreneurs everywhere were promoting their vision of what lies ahead. It seemed quite reasonable then, that this tiny one-seat electric pod might one day carry us toward a utopian future of personal transportation. Like countless other brainchildren of that age, the Sparrow’s flight was as brief as it was bright.

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Henney Kilowatt: Re-Sparking the Movement

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The drive to electrify the automobile is in the assent. The U.S. EV market in 2020 surpassed 5% of car sales in some regions. The Tesla Model 3 is currently the #12 selling car in the nation. If you are a fan of plugged in propulsion these are pretty exciting times. But if you look back, way back to the turn of the previous century, electricity was actually the number one power source for cars in 1900. But the buzz wouldn't last. In 1912, General Motor’s brilliant chief engineer, Charles Kettering, changed everything when he introduced on a Cadillac the first workable electric starter. It eliminated the need for the difficult and dangerous hand crank, and thus swept away electricity’s #1 selling point. Over the next half dozen years, electric car sales ground to a halt…or quietly stopped, since EVs don’t grind.

But about halfway between then and now we discovered air pollution. Soon its roots were traced to CO2 spewing automobiles, and we began to cast about for cleaner ways to get around. In 1959 Emerson Radio of all people thought they had found that way. They teamed up with the Henney Body Company to make the first serious attempt at an EV comeback. Well, maybe it wasn’t all that serious. The Henney Kilowatt was based on the Renault Dauphine (at that time the #2 selling imported car in America) The Dauphine’s clattering little 4-cylinder engine was replaced with a 36V motor that could propel it silently for 40 miles on a charge.

The Killowatt was about half the size of a typical American car but cost twice as much to buy. So maybe it isn’t surprising that only about 50 of them were sold - mostly to utility companies for research or promotional duties. By the close of 1961, the lights had been shut off on Henney Motors… and Renaults went back to being noisy.

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The Story of DeSoto

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The Story of DeSoto

The DeSoto automobile was launched in 1928 as part of a new and rapidly expanding Chrysler Corporation. Conceived to do battle in the fast growing mid-priced range, DeSoto‘s position in the price/prestige strata was between the budget-minded Plymouth and the luxurious Chrysler. Through a series of events, DeSoto was also wedged sometimes awkwardly alongside a newly acquired but well-established Dodge brand. With such a family dynamic is it any wonder that throughout its 33-year history DeSoto struggled for recognition. Ask any DeSoto devote’ and they will rattle off half a dozen delightful models. But to the average car buff, the name is but a blip on the screen of automobile awareness. DeSoto’s anonymity is especially true for those of us born after 1960, the marque’s final year. We know the stunning 1957 Adventurer, of course, with its graceful soaring lines and mighty Hemi engine, arguably the apex of 1950s American automotive design. After that, the marque is mostly remembered in B&W images of 1940s taxicabs from old movies on the late show. Such was the DeSoto lot in life; a middle child forever fighting for its rightful place within the Chrysler family of cars.

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Not Much of a Car: The Autoette

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Not Much of a Car: The Autoette

To call the Autoette a car is a bit optimistic. This tiny 3-wheel electric vehicle was developed just before the war by Robert Tafel, an electrical engineer from Long Beach, California. He meant it to be used mainly as a wheelchair for polio sufferers and retirees of which Long Beach had fair number. In wartime, they were used by the military to move materiel around local warehouses quickly without using any precious gasoline. After the war, an entrepreneur named Royce Seevers began making them for public consumption under the Autoette trade name.

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Take to the Air in an Airways

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Take to the Air in an Airways

Theodore Parsons Hall took a roundabout route to becoming a carmaker. After earning an engineering degree in 1931 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he went on to work for Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation (CONVAIR) out in San Diego. He eventually became chief development engineer on first the PBY Catalina maritime reconnaissance plane, and then the B-24 Liberator heavy bomber. If some of those names sound familiar, it is because Hall was working at the very same facility where John Leifeld spent his spare time developing the Bobbi-Kar - which, after flim-flam man S.A. Williams was shown the door, became the Keller (Chapter 3). It is possible that the Bobbi-Kar’s designer even worked for Hall at some point during the war years. But while Liefeld was an automotive engineer from Detroit drafted to build airplanes, T.P. Hall was an aeronautical engineer who would make cars fly.

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