Before you plop down a small fortune to buy a new Tesla, why not scoop up this pair of 1980 Dodge Omni Electrica 007s and build your own? We’re kidding, of course. These two cars are from the days when the U.S. Department of Energy was providing seed money to jumpstart the electric car ecosystem. Chrysler, in trouble itself in that period, was approached and an unknown number of 1980 Dodge Omni’s were converted to electric power by a third party. These two low-mileage examples have been rusting away in the forest in upstate New York and need to be saved (or scrapped). The pair is available here on Facebook Marketplace for $5,000.
Electric cars are all the rage these days, although most will agree the infrastructure needed to support them on a grand scale is still evolving. Flash back nearly 50 years and the DOE thought the time had come then after the first OPEC oil embargo, but early efforts mostly fizzled because the technology just wasn’t there. We’re not sure how the Electrica 007 (shades of James Bond!) came about, but Dodge seemingly collaborated with Jet Industries and – no doubt using some Federal money – took some number of Dodge Omni 024 sport coupes and swapped gas propulsion for electric. And in the process converted a $4,000 car into a $14,000 one. We don’t know how many were built, but we know at least two were.
At the heart of the Electrica 007 was a 23-hp electric which required 20 batteries. How far or long it could go on a charge isn’t known, but apparently, these two gave up the ghost early on as neither of the beat-up, sad-looking autos has reached 400 miles on their respective odometers. The seller is trying to liquidate this pair for his/her uncle and little is known about the duo. If another year or two were to go by, the forest would be done swallowing them up. The question becomes is it viable to attempt to restore either of these cars? And if you tried to, where would you find the non-Chrysler parts? I’m sure some of our readers would suggest just leaving them where they are.
A short note about another electric program that fizzled when started-most folks were resistant to them in the first phase, and I’d be shocked to see these on a alternate circuit of any kind, especially grounded as they are.
Very clever.
Yeah, I got a charge out of it. ;)
Meant to say “…especially grounded as they are *currently”
You forgot to say, “no pun intended”
Yblocker,
“No pun intended.”
I love puns, so much that when the Washington Post ran a contest for the best puns about 40 years ago, I decided to submit 10 of my best puns. I waited more than a month to find out just how many of my puns would be published. You know how many made it?
No pun in 10 did. [Groan]
Ohm my goodness! Laughed so hard my side hertz.
I’m sure the EV warriors who want to “electrify” everything from VW busses to Corvettes, will step right up and save these two beauties from the crusher.
Looks like the wrecked one, with the interior open to the weather is in a truly negative state of charge! :-)
Comes with AC/DC High Voltage cassette.
Who would pay $5000 for an Omni 024 if it was in perfect condition?
I would, 5K? In a heartbeat. They were great cars, stylish to. This was at the time when gas had just doubled again for the second time, people were not sure if it would rise again. People were willing to try alternatives, but unfortunately the battery tech was still too primitive to make these useable. Beyond that, what killed them was the sudden dramatic drop in price of petrol. The oil cartels and oil companies have been in cahoots the past 50 years. They bring the world economy to near strangulation, then back off for a while to keep the public addicted to oil. Jimmy Carter back in the 70s wanted to break us of this addiction, I wish people would have listened to him then, but the oil people know what they are doing.
When you are a dealer selling these as used cars you learn to stay away from them. Too many parts just fall off and they usually needed a lot of mechanical work.
Omni’s were great cars? Omni’s were junk lol. But I’ll leave that upper comment alone, as it was fast becoming political.
Classic cars run on gasoline. These two derelicts need to be recycled into something, not sure what, but certainly not left there to contaminate.
What killed the OmniRizon’s was the Chrysler Kwality Kontrol. .
Those big evil greedy oil companies. And electricity utilities are just choir boys looking out for everyone’s well being. Not evil or greedy at all. LOL Oh and their investors are just doing it out of their concern for the planet too.
At the very least should have brushed the leaves off!!!:( My own pet peeve what are they hiding??)
At the very least should have brushed the leaves off!!!:( My own pet peeve what are they hiding??)
I don’t know what it says on the title, but the nose and taillights are Plymouth Horizon TC3 items, for what it’s worth.
“These two low-mileage examples have been rusting away in the forest in upstate New York” From here, it looks like they are in Leland, North Carolina.
According to the ad on FB they are in New York.
For someone with a few bucks to spare and a place to keep them, they may have some value some time in the future. Eventually as we go all electric, there will be a museum somewhere displaying electric technology from the beginning, and one of these would be a part of that history.
If it wasn’t so far and so expensive WatchJRGo would be a buyer. he is looking for these old electric cars for his channel.
$5,000 for these? Good One!!!
It looks like just good part’s,car’s to me,l’m,not for sure, but,l believe, a 80’s-ish,Charger, and or Challenger, shared,l similar body, type, and or style 🤔, but good luck to the person, and or people that, buy these.
Reid Hall, the Challenger was a Mitsubishi built car at that time and was very different from this.
These were Omni and Horizon cars.
As a kid, I had a next door neighbor that bought a Horizon 024 new in 1980-ish. He drove that car for years and years. It started every morning like clock work, even on the coldest of days and ‘charged’ up our unplowed road like a hot knife through butter in the snow. It always amazed me.
Just another reason why electric is not in my future with any automobile. Junk when new, junk now.
Leve them where they are. Turn away. Run.
I’m going to guess that with lead acid batteries they had a range of maybe 25 miles and it might take a day or so to recharge via 110 volts.
I think you could replace the lead acid batteries with something newer and maybe extend the range but at least shorten the charging time.
You could probably Fix one and use the other as a parts car.
At one time I used to do a bike ride that started about 25 miles to the south. There were kits that would convert a rabbit into an EV with a range of 25 miles. There even used to be a community college in CA with a class on how to do it. I thought I could plug in at the bike shop and ride for 2 hours and it would be back to 25miles. Ha! and I doubt it would make it.
About this time, my father worked closely with a prolific inventor and created a Pinto that ran on batteries and had a fan to help charge them. We have no pics as it was a very secret operation stored under a tarp or in our garage. It was great speed and mileage on a charge. I want to say 40/50 miles and about the same speed. Only a few batteries, as well. I often wonder what would have been had they saw that project through
I’d just buy a used Chevy Volt for 12K or so they are dang reliable and sturdy
I”ve had a soft spot for electric cars for years. My stepdad was one of the
engineers who worked on the Henney
Kilowatt in the late ’50s. These were
based on the Renault Deauphine 4-door sedan. They were sent to the
Eureka Williams plant in my hometown of Bloomington, Illinois,
minus the gas engine and I think the
tranny too. It was my step dad’s job to oversee the installation of the
electric motors, the batteries, and
some kind direct drive gearbox that
did away with shifting the gears. He
told me that they built 200 of them before the company pulled the plug
on the project. It was said that it had
a range of 25 miles and could be fully
charged overnight. I believe that
someday someone will get it right and electric cars will be the norm and
not a novelty. For now though, they’re
overpriced and impractical. My neice
goes gaga every time she sees a Tesla. We looked at one and OMG
they’re expensive! 49K for a 5 year old used model. Hmmm, maybe you
could put some Tesla parts in one of
these and my neice would be happy.
There is a team that races one of these in lemons. They have been racing it for a couple of years and haven’t given up yet. Maybe some one could make a hooptie race car out of the two of these and have slow and silent fun with them.