[ausev] I finally own an electric car! (GEM E4)

[ojas]

Cool!
I don't have any technical advice, but the seller is incorrect: This was
definitely used in Idiocracy <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/>, a Mike
Judge movie released last year that was mostly filmed in Austin. I always
wondered what they used for donor cars in that movie - now I know.

"Brawndo - it's got what plants crave!" was a dead giveaway. =)

On Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 6:25 PM, Vern Graner <vern at txis.com> wrote:

> Hi everybody! :)
>
> I recently (well as a few hours ago) became the owner of an electric
> GEM car, AND a four-passenger golf cart! :)
>
> I bought them off of Craig's list and according to the seller, they were
> modified for use in the movie "Jackass". The GEM car was modified to
> have a whole new body and a swing out side door. It was driven on-camera
> during a scene with cop cars chasing it (I haven't seen the movie so I
> don't know for sure).
>
> The golf cart was also used in the movie, but it was modified to have a
> flat bed to hold beer coolers and rails to hold a canopy of some kind
> (missing now)?
>
> The GEM car is in pretty rough shape as its been sitting outdoors in a
> field for gawd knows how long (4-5 years I guess?). :( The car does not
> have any batteries, but the seller assures me that the GEM car worked
> before the batteries were removed.
>
> The golf cart is in worse shape as it appears that not only was it left
> exposed to the elements, but the wiring harness has been completely cut
> out of the vehicle! (arg.) I've posted a gallery of pictures of both the
> GEM car and the golf cart here:
>
> http://picasaweb.google.com/VernGraner/GEMCarPictures#
>
> Also, they had a CDROM that came with the GEM car that had all the
> service manuals, brochures and even tax credit forms! I've placed the
> content here in case anyone needs them:
>
> http://www.notepad.org/GEMcar
>
> I'm pretty sure under all the foam body is a GEM E4 (the four passenger
> version). The wiring (when you see the pictures) looks pretty mangled,
> so I'm thinking it will need a pretty extensive check-up before any
> power is applied.
>
> We plan to pick the GEM and the Golf Cart up on Monday afternoon and
> (heres the thing) I was hoping to get the GEM car up and running and
> give it to the kiddos for x-mas (shhhh! its a big surprise!) :)
>
> I'd love to hear any advice and/or see if anyone here is interested in
> helping get the GEM running.
>
> Vern
>
> --
> Vern Graner CNE/CNA/SSE    | "If the network is down, then you're
> Senior Systems Engineer    | obviously incompetent so why are we
> Texas Information Services | paying you? Of course, if the network
> http://www.txis.com        | is up, then we obviously don't need
> Austin Office 512 328-8947 | you, so why are we paying you?" (c)VLG
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>
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