 |
| 1981 Comuta-car at LeMay-America's Car Museum in Tacoma, Washington |
Until 2011, this tin can surprisingly held the record for the most road-legal electric cars sold in post-war U.S. with 4,444 units shifted. Known as the CitiCar, and later the Comuta-Car when the design was purchased by Commuter Vehicles in 1979, this trapezoidal hatchback was powered by a measly electric motor that had a decent range of 40 miles. This alternative powertrain was provoked by the 1973 oil crisis, when gas prices surged and many stations experienced fuel droughts due to an embargo by the member countries of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries. While the Comuta-Car's historical significance is intriguing, its design, especially those of the early 1980's models seen here, is overwhelmingly repulsive.
 |
| 1981 Comuta-car at LeMay-America's Car Museum in Tacoma, Washington |
|
The poor exterior begins simply with the basic shape, which appears to have been designed with a ruler. The hood and windshield angle backwards away from the protruding bumper at a straight incline, before meeting the flat near-square roof. This almost vertically extends downwards out the back and sides, essentially creating a metal box. However, there have been attractive box design before like the spunky, and relatively popular, first generation Scion xB (R.I.P. 2003-2016) and the Nissan Cube. Yet the Comuta-Car's few exterior doodads just make it an even more hideous beast.
The most glaring offenders are the oversized bumpers. These massive plastic appendages hang off either end of the car and were added to meet more stringent safety regulations. (Further safety requirements would prove to be the demise of the small company.) While all U.S. market cars between 1973 and 1982 suffered from these bulbous bumpers, they look significantly larger, and therefore worse, on the Comuta-Car because it is so short to begin with.
Moving back, the hood features one of the other prominent design flaws. Rising out of the flat bonnet is a rectangular bulge, which does not appear to be functional. This protrusion is a pointless, odd-looking, and not very aerodynamic addition, disrupting what would have otherwise been a smooth hood. The roof, which appears to be vinyl, is also unattractive, making the car look cheaper. Vinyl roofs are also very prone to sun damage and tend to fade, crack, and peel.
 |
| 1980 Comuta-car at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan |
The bumpers, hood bulge, and vinyl roof all make the Comuta-car look insanely cheap, but what puts the bolt in the coffin are the visible bolts holding the car together. If you look along the sides of the hood and down the rear of the car, you can see where the different metal sheets were fastened together, which makes the car look unsafe, as if it's all about to fall apart into hundreds of little pieces. The car's one saving grace is the wacky paintjob, while consists of very '70s stripes and the lowercase word "electric." Other than these laughable but cool decals, the Comuta-car is a truly ugly car, even when compared to the myriad of unattractive cars from the design dark ages that were the late 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
Grade
Front: F
Rear: F
Overall: F
