Zagato Elcar: Furiously Junky

In 1975, Consumer Reports compared the CitiCar and the Zagato Elcar. The CitiCar was found to have major handling problems, inadequate safety, and short battery life. At $2,946 ($12,856 in today's dollars) it was expensive.

Blue Book Value on a 2008 Honda Accord as of April 3, 2014 is $27.22 cheaper than a CitiCar (adjusted for inflation), and a whopping $2,335.76 cheaper than the Elcar.

Believe it or not, there was a worse option than the CitiCar. The Zagato Elcar was Italian built, but even the CitiCar outclassed it. At $3,475 ($15,164.76 in today's dollars) it was more expensive than many real cars of its time - cars that had to meet safety standards. It was built by Zagato, a famous design studio, in Milan, Italy and imported to the US by Elcar Corporation.

The Elcar offered three motors - 1000 watt, 1500 watt, and 2000 watt. (For comparison, a microwave is usually 1100-1200 watts). The suspension was notoriously shoddy and collapsed during a braking test from 30 mph. That same Consumer Reports test also saw the car spend over half of the testing period (74 days) under repair.

The Elcar claimed to be cheap to operate, but it was costly to repair and far more expensive to buy than a conventional gas compact car of the time.