Do you ever wonder what it must feel like to start a significant project – like converting a gasoline car to batteries – and then abandon it in the woods? I have a difficult enough time finishing long-term projects that if I did bring one across the finish line, I’d sure as heck not let it rot. Then again, if said project wasn’t an enjoyable experience, maybe I’d chuck the thing outdoors to forget about it. There’s a pair of intriguing electric vehicles up for grabs from the same seller, including a 1983 Mazda RX7 here on eBay and an unusual Subaru 600 van, also here on eBay. Both appear to be long-idled projects in need of lots of love.

The Mazda up top was apparently running and driving up to speeds of 70 m.p.h. before a controller failed, rendering it useless. Unlike a hybrid, these early conversions apparently can’t fall back onto their conventional fuel-burning systems to gain momentum, so they can quickly become paperweights. The seller includes an invoice with the conversion parts needed for the undertaking, and it appears quite lengthy and expensive. The Subaru 600 pictured here apparently drove off the car transporter to its current location before becoming inop and needing new batteries.

What a mess of wires and mice damage. To begin this project, you are either a bored electrical engineer or determined to drive an electric sports car. Whatever your motivations, the RX7’s electric air-cooled motor will need rejuvenation, and it might be an even bigger challenge due to being somewhat of a custom conversion by a previous owner. Where do you begin to figure this out? The seller offers up that design notes and component logs will be included, but it still seems like a long way back to road worthiness to me.

Wow – just how does this little van even accelerate with an entire floor of batteries to cart around? I can’t even imagine how to begin you’d get started on this project without a blueprint to work from of its original design. This Subaru is clearly from the pioneering days of electric cars with that many batteries crammed into a tiny, low-powered vehicle. According to the seller, these vans were used by the government and the U.S. Postal Service, which definitely adds to its novelty and perhaps even worthiness of being rescued and restored as an artifact of electric car construction. Which of these two oddballs would you take on as a project?