Junkyard Find: 1988 Chevrolet Sprint Electric Sport

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

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
Murilee Martin

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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  • Kinsha Kinsha on Apr 10, 2014

    Looks like your long gone instrument cluster near the battery tray.

  • Otmar Ebenhoech Otmar Ebenhoech on Nov 07, 2022

    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!

  • SCE to AUX I've never been teased by a bumper like that one before.
  • 3SpeedAutomatic R&T could have killed the story before it was released.Now, by pulling it after the fact, they look like idiots!! What's new??
  • Master Baiter "That said, the Inflation Reduction Act apparently does run afoul of WTO rules..."Pfft. The Biden administration doesn't care about rules. The Supreme Court said they couldn't forgive student load debt; they did it anyway. Decorum and tradition says you don't prosecute former presidents; they are doing it anyway. They made the CDC suspend evictions though they had no constitutional authority to do so.
  • 1995 SC Good. To misquote Sheryl Crow "If it makes them unhappy, it can't be that bad"
  • 1995 SC The letters on the hatch aren't big enough. hard pass
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