I
f this brings back memories, or dredges up a
long-subsumed fear, or if you want to know
more about how Long Beach was the sun of the
electric cart galaxy, one of the nation’s premier
experts on the subject, Larry Fisher, will cover ev-
ery aspect of the “low-speed electric vehicles” in a
presentation, “The Autoette, As Modern as Today:
Long Beach and the Electric Car” from 1 to 3 p.m.
Dec. 8 at the Historical Society of Long Beach. It’s
part of society’s “Chrome: Cruisin’ Cars and Clubs”
exhibit.
F
isher is the executive director of the National
Hot Rod Association Motorsports Museum
in Pomona, and when you think of hot rods,
three-wheeled electric golf-carts don’t automat-
ically spring to mind. “I got into electric carts by
accident,” he said. “I collect vintage motorcycles
and I was out someplace checking one out at
someone’s house, and I saw that he had an old
Autoette,” said Fisher. “I said, ‘I remember those
when I was a kid,’ and I’d forgotten about them. I
passed on the motorcycle, but I bought the car."
A
t one point, he said, he had 36 of them. Now
they’ve joined the fleet at the Historic Elec-
tric Vehicle Foundation, in Kingman, Arizona, of
which Fisher is a charter board member. “After I
bought the first one, I started researching them
and I began to realize there was a lot of incorrect
information about them in the web sphere. And
I found out that Long Beach was the epicenter of
their production.”
T
afel had the good fortune of inventing the
Autoette just as World War II was breaking
out, and the defense industry snapped them up
to use in warehouses and factories, where they
were put into use instead of gas-powered Cush-
man carts.
“After the war, the momentum increased,”
said Fisher. “They became popular as a
second car, and their names, like the Mar-
keteer and the Electric Shopper, reflected
the idea that they were viable alternatives
to a second car for housewives to do their
shopping and run errands.
“They were sidewalk legal and curb cutouts al-
lowed them to drive up on the sidewalk, so they
could park right in front of the store. Businesses
along American Avenue (Long Beach Boulevard)
had Autoette parking.”
T
he cars, especially when they took to the
sidewalks in large numbers, were more of a
nuisance than a peril, said Fisher. “There weren’t
a lot of accidents, but the cars were unstable
at speed and if you turned too fast you’d flip it
over.”
A
t the dawn of the 1970s, the Autoettes had
become enough of a problem that they were
basically legislated off the streets and sidewalks,
and Downtown pedestrians rejoiced. The three-
wheeled vehicles are now just a memory.
B
ut electric carts are far from dead. In fact,
they’re making a resurgence in beach commu-
nities, such as Belmont Shore and Naples, where
parking is a problem and they’ve become the ve-
hicle of choice for people just wanting to zip into
town for a meal or shopping.
“People look at these modern vehicles and, yeah,
they have better construction and they look nicer,
but their performance, ironically, is about the
same as the Autoette. They top out at about 25
mph and they have the same 50-100-mile range.
People talk about them being modern, but all
they have to do is look back 50 years,” said Fisher.
“We’ve already been there.”
T
he Historical Society of Long Beach Gallery is
at 4260 Atlantic Ave. Tickets for the Autoette
event are $25.
JANUARY 2019
41