Topic: Q477 - solved - Kay Edgecumbe's coNZept

[Quiller]

Know what this car's called? Let us know!

[Quiller]

One for the experts

[Quiller]

Now for the pros....

[Paul Jaray]

A wild guess...a self-built electric car from New Zealand by..ehm..let's say Mr Edgecumbe in 1979?
Like this?

[Quiller]

All the information you state is correct, and well done for unearthing that pic (which I've not seen before). All you're missing is the car's name ..... 
Locked for you for 48 hours ...

[Paul Jaray]

The Natural Energy Electric Vehicles (NEEV) ?
The builder of this car in his website has the same pic as yours (but coloured) and there's written  'the gull winged commuter car'
In another page of this site, he write:
The 1976 Conzept car:

New  Zealand built electric car 1976


    A great deal of research is going on around the world as the threat of diminishing supply of oil looms in the near future.
  This car is a prototype car built to evaluate the best features of all this research
Some of the ideas on this car are new and untried while some are well tried and proven systems.
As yet electric cars are not able to compete directly with petrol cars due to the short rang of the present battery cars.
It is in this short range that the electric car petrol cars beaten for efficiency and convenience.
The energy contained in one gallon of petrol  could drive an electric car 900 miles or 1440 km if all this energy were to be converted to electricity  [900 mpg!]

The following are the features of this car

1 steering column folds out of the way to allow ease of entry and exit
2 steering column also acts as hand brake and power disconnect for the batteries.
3controlls and indicating lights are on the steering wheel.
4 steering wheel has rose colored mirror for the ladies
5 dash board is of soft alloy to adsorb energy in case of crash
6 when the gull wing door is open it acts as shelter in case of rain.
7 high and low speed control as well as an accelerator
8 regenerative braking that charges the battery  when slowing down.
9 two motors to eliminate the differential
10 belt and chain drive for efficiency and simplicity.
11 dual motors give the equivalent of 4 wheel drive in slippery conditions.
12 separate batteries for lights and motor.
13 swing arm rear suspension.
14 Single shock spring pendulum type of front suspension.
15 foam filled crash barrier in from cone
16 semi rigid seat belt supports to reduce de acceleration  of passenger in the event of a crash
17 all alloy construction
18 90% New Zealand raw materials.
19 light weight  180 kg with out batteries. All up weight with 150 kg passengers and batteries  480 kg  1080 lbs
20 speed will be 30 – 40 mph  (55- 65 km/h) range 30 miles (50 km)
21 All components  are easily repaired by average NZ garage personal.
22 All body parts are flat sheet and can be replicated by any sheet metal work shop.
 There are many less important features , a present total of 40 so far.
Mr. K.F.Edgecumbe and Mr. C L Horsfall are the builders of this car.
Our philosophy behind this car is this.
1 we have built a car that is entirely for electric  traction and have found that there is very little in the present petrol car technology that is of use to electric cars.
 A total approach to lightweight construction results in a car that is just as strong as the heavier car as it does not have the weight behind it to cause the damage.
2 In New Zealand (1976) it is no use importing materials as the government will rightfully claim heavy taxes to try  to limit the drain on overseas exchange.
 The use of technology in the car is already present in the country means  that no imported machines are needed and the components can be manufactured  in any engineering shop in New Zealand.
3 the car can be assembled by any one with a bit of mechanical knowledge.
This will mean the car can be sold as complete or kitset.
4 the manufacture of the car can be done by cottage industry type of manufacture where the components for the car are built remotely from the assembly plant and a great many different firms presently in operation will be involved in the car  thus using capital investment that is already there.
5 although sophisticated in its concept it is very simple in its design and is nothing that can be taken away from it and yet it is still able to meet its design functions.
We expect a great deal of problems and obstacles as  we progress with the car but we hope soon to be able to start on a second prototype car that will have al the major problems ironed out.

[Quiller]

I'm going to give you a point for finding the car and its builder (plus loads of info  ) - but I do have a specific name for this so I'll keep the puzzle open. Anyone?

[Paul Jaray]

For sure this is not the Fire Fly...
http://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/index.php?topic=5951.0

[piersdad]

OMG the top pisture was the first showing of the car in New ZEaland the lady in the pasengers seat was a mis new zealand  contestant and just as this picture was taken some smoke issued from the car and  only for a few seconds she was extreemly frightened. how ever it was ok fro the rest of the show.

the second picture of the same car called  coNZept was taken befor it was displayed in auckland new zealand.
it worked well and ws the catalist for launching  the NEEV truck Natural Energy Electric Vehicles.
we produced 9 trucks befor the petrol price dropped
 http://www.storydad.com/forum/index.php?topic=600.msg2310#new
the real reason for the crisis
so today there are still 2 left in musems in New Zealand
 the sports car we called firefly and was 70 mph top speed and later was converted to a hybrid in 1978  by using a VW motor on the rear and extending the wv gearboxes main drive shaft to the fromt of the gear box ( a real engineering feat)
this enabled me to demonstrate the car any where as an electric .
the person in the last pic was tony whitton and he was another electric car enthusiast.

so the the    coNZept   was a car that was built as a project to aim at 1/3 car weight 1/3 battery weight 1/3 passenger weight and we achieved this

the fait of the conzept was to be destroyed  to make sure at the time that no one could copy our many inventions so sadly it could have been a musem piece now.
 but give me 3 sheets of alloy and 20 meters of tube and the car would exist again.

[Paul Jaray]

Is this enough? 
Nice to see You here, piersdad!

[Quiller]

Wow, thankyou piersdad for your comments - and a well deserved first point on Autopuzzles. It's not often you get such a complete back story on a car on AP!

BTW, I've also seen this car listed as the 'Kawakawa' car, a name I note appears on the Firefly photo - could you clarify possibly?

[piersdad]

i lived in KawaKawa a small town in north of north island in New Zealand.
it was named that by the local paper and that was when we decided to give it a name.
we wanted concept and new  Zealand in the name  so we called it  coNZept a nice symetrical logo
but as we did not  go ahead with its production and perfection (a dreadfull mistake) we were convinced to design and make the NEEV electric truck
here we made a record that is unrecognised.
the two engineers  colin horsefall and me Kay Edgecumbe started in christrchurch work shop and designed from th eground up an electrric truck which only had standard automotive parts such as wheels brakes and steering and other snall bits.
so the chassis,  suspension, body, cab, wiring etc was all designed on the run with no drawings just a picture in our minds.
the result was in  6 weeks    we had a truck on dispaly at a symposium for electric vehicles.
no changes were needed to go into production of another 9 vehicles. so unofficially we beat the americans and their jeep  which took 7 weeks to design to the prototype / production stage.

so here it is
[img]


my self Colin Horsefall left  and manager clem Hibbot right

so privately we two  claim the record for the fastest production prototype vehicle      we beat america

any way i now only have the honour of two of my efforts in musems and some more in private colections

[Quiller]

Thankyou so much for your contribution - a very interesting story indeed. And way ahead of your time...

[piersdad]

 

got am email  to say one of my electric trucks i made has  turned up in England  in a collection  so some one thought it was  worth taking it to the other side of the world
this makes 3 of the 9 trucks made in collections or museums