Junkyard Find: 1988 Chevrolet Sprint Electric Sport
Now that it’s possible to buy electric cars that actually do what cars are supposed to do, we mustn’t forget the very lengthy era— say 1970 to just a few years ago— during which all manner of optimistic-yet-doomed companies converted various econoboxes into lead-acid-battery-based EVs. Every once in a while, I’ll spot the remains of such an EV at a junkyard; we saw a junked EVolve Electrics 1995 Geo Metro EV conversion last year, and now a different Denver yard has given us this ’88 Sprint “Electric Sport.”
The Sprint aka Cultus wasn’t a bad choice for an electric vehicle, being lightweight and cheap.
Electric motors are worth money, either as working motors or as sources of valuable scrap copper, so the one in this car is long gone.
The remnants of the battery tray may be seen in the rear cargo area.
Someone grabbed the no-doubt-modified instrument cluster, too.
Bonus points to anyone who can track down the company that built the Electric Sport Sprint!
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Looks like your long gone instrument cluster near the battery tray.
Surprising to see my old Electric Sprint here, a bit worse for wear.
I converted it for a man in the San Juan Islands in 1991, and later got it for my own daily driver. Underpowered at about 25 HP and only a 45 mile range with 12 Optima YellowTop lead acid batteries, but it sure was efficient and fun to drive!
The Brusa AC drive was smooth, no shifting required and the trans was locked in 2nd gear, plenty of torque off the line. Charging to full probably took about 5 hours from empty.
I think it was the kicking "Wayland" stereo that really put it over the top with two 8" microsubs.
I sold it in 2003.
Good times!