Trending
LEWISTOWN – The “world headquarters” for one of the country’s first electric cars has been relocated to Lewistown.
Max Corkins and his friend, Peter Crisitello, a New Jersey native, have been tinkering with CitiCars, an electric car that was popular in certain circles in the 1970s, particularly during the oil crisis.
Corkins and Crisitello met through a mutual appreciation of cars, Studebakers in particular. Every year there is a Studebaker Swap Meet at the Mifflin County Youth Park in Reedsville in conjunction with an open house at Corkins Restorations at 233 E. Third Street, Lewistown.
“We get vendors from just about every state,” Corkins said.
Crisitello got interested in CitiCars after winning a bid for one on eBay, and he became fascinated with the history of the car and Bob Beaumont, the man who would bring them to life at his Sebring-Vanguard company in Florida.
“The Vanguard Coupe was the first model Bob Beaumont came out with, sometime in 1973. However, shortly thereafter the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) deleted their under 1,000 pound exemption that this first attempt had been built under,” Crisitello said.
Crisitello said the first model was like a go-kart and there were a lot of misconceptions about the car.
“They started out with the wedge design, it was very minimalist the top speed of the 48-volt model was 35 miles-per-hour,” he added. “In 1975 Vanguard was the sixth largest automobile producer in the country.”
As Crisitello’s interest in the car grew, he reached out to other enthusiasts, including Beaumont.
Crisitello and others first held a gathering of CitiCars in October 2009, near Beaumont’s home in Maryland.
“We had about seven or eight cars and drove about three quarters of mile from our hotel to Bob’s house,” he said.
Crisitello said the company changed names when Frank Flower bought a major portion of the assets and started production of the Comuta-Car, which scored a huge contract in 1980 with the U.S. Postal Service.
“The postal service had a contract to build 500, but 365 were delivered and the contract was canceled,” Crisitello said.
Crisitello has several of these cars stored at Corkins’ garage, including some that were postal vehicles. He believes one of these particular vehicles may have been the last one ever made.
Crisitello managed to track down someone in Massachusetts who had a lot of spare parts for these electric cars and bought all he could.
“I would love to restore them all, I picked them up to save them,” he said.
Corkins offered to help him store the vehicles and the parts.
“I needed a place to put them – that’s where Max came in,” Crisitello said.
“Lucky me,” Corkins replied with a chuckle.
“We jokingly say we are the world headquarters for CitiCar,” Corkins added.