1962 monza coupe that was converted to Electric in the 70’s
I am posting this to help find the car a good home. For someone who can deal with the rust and paint it is a decent donor vehicle. Even if this more of project than you can tackle it is an interesting EV from the past.
Questions should go to John Baer baermelrose@windstream.net
David Kerzel
John sent me some prints of the car and I took photos of them and am posting them here.
Here are some Monza/Corvair facts http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4SNYF_enUS306US306&q=1962+monza+specs.
The car as a base weight of about 2400 Lbs.
The owner is posting only to the Corvair groups so far, so I thought I'd help him get the word out a little.
IF you read this carefully about a dozen times, you'll figure out that it's not a hybrid with a gas turbine. It just uses a turbine's (*read turboprop, probably not a jet engine)starter-generator for a motor. I'd be worried
about continuous duty on it, but I bet it's built really strong. Every
turboprop I've flown has a starter that turns into a generator once the engine is at speed- no jet engines that I know of do this, as we use high pressure air to start a jet engine (I'm sure that there are exceptions to this rule).
Rob
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it was nice talking to you this morning. the car i have is a 1962 monza coupe. it was converted to electric propulsion as a research project by the university of florida in mid 1970"s, before the first oil embargo. it is a plug in with no underway charging capibility other than regenerative braking.it has a gas turbine starter/generator direct coupled to the input shaft of the 4speed manual trans.I have been told that articles about it appeared in engineering and corvair enthustist pubs of that time.The top speed was 60mph with a range of 100 miles before charging .this was the best performance and was accomplished using regular heavy duty lead acid marine batteries of the time.As I told you ,I rescued it from under an oak tree and it remaines unrestored.It has rusted out floor pans ,plenty of rust in the trunk/firewall areas accelerated ,i am sure, by all the handling and off gassing of the many batteries.I plan to put an ad in the July edition of the Communique so any attendee of the International convention in Jacksonville that might be interested in buying it can see it while in the area.It would be a shame for this piece of history to be lost.I can be contacted by Email -address is baermelrose @ windstream.net ;telephone 352-475-5767 ;mail P.O.Box 656,Melrose,Fl.-32666.Thanks,John Baer
david,I do have digital photos of the corvair, but I don’t have a clue as to how to put them on the computer.I would be glad to send you some prints if you would provide me a mailing address.It's interesting that you are working on a controller for electric propupulsion because this car used relays and a quadrant type switch to controll the motor speed. I would like to see this car live on . John