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A chopped-up General Motors EV1 shell sold for $23,662

Despite not having a VIN, a powertrain, a frame, or any doors, a decrepit General Motors EV1 shell recently sold for $23,662.10 on govdeals.com. Sold by the University of Cincinnati, the car — or what remains of it — is headed to an electric vehicle collection called The Beata Electric Motor Carriage Collection. Technically, the GM EV1 was the first mass-produced and purposed-built electric car in America. When it was released in 1996 for the 1997 model year, however, GM strictly leased the car as part of a "real-world engineering evaluation." The limited production run was meant to test real life with an EV and judge the interest from the public. GM only built 1,117 units, all of which were recalled, and most of them ultimately were sent to the crusher. But a select few were stripped of their powertrains and donated to universities and museums for educational purposes. One of those non-functioning cars made it to the University of Cincinnati in 2008. The post says it "has been in storage since," but it's not clear if the car sat in storage untouched or was stored and used by the university. According to EpiclyEpicEthan1, who posted the sales listing to r/cars, the car was purchased by The Beata Electric Motor Carriage Collection in Colorado. The Beata (derived from the Latin word for blessed) collection is a gathering of '90s OEM electric vehicles and a general EV hub. The website says the vehicles are used for testing, diagnostics, education, events, and overall preservation and documentation. The rare and niche collection also includes a 1993 Dodge/Chrysler TEVan, a 1997 Honda EV Plus, a 1999 Dodge/Chrysler EPIC EV, a 1998 Ford Ranger EV, a 2002 Toyota RAV4 EV LongRanger III, a Tesla Roadster, a 1998 Nissan Altra EV, a 1998 Chevrolet S-10 EV, a 2011 Nissan Leaf, and a 2012 Tesla Model S. Beata also has several other projects under construction such as the 2000 Toyota RXT-G Prototype, a 1997 RAV4 coupe EV prototype, the 1995 AC Propulsion eCivic EV, a 1995 ACP RXT-G Prototype LongRanger II, a 1995 ACP RXT-G Prototype LongRanger I, and a GM EV1. Beata acts as a resource for EV1 owners and helps place parts it finds and doesn't need. The parts it does need are put into building a working EV1. Beata's current EV1, which is 80 percent complete, is made up from more than 50 different parts sources, including from all three versions of the EV1, the 1994 LPF4 PreView "Impact" series, the 1997 EV1, and the 1999 EV1.

Junkyard Gem: 1996 Saturn SC1

Before the Saturn marque got locked into a downward spiral of muddled brand image and billion-dollar Opel badge engineering, American car shoppers loved Saturns' plastic bodies and fixed-price buying experience. The original SC coupe looked a bit like the Isuzu-built Geo Storm but was a Michigan design and had a smaller price tag, and it sold well. Here's a final-model-year first-generation SC1, languishing in a Denver-area wrecking yard with nearly 300k on the clock. Saturn S-Series cars were simple machines, and many examples held together for the long haul. This one reached the kind of mileage figure you'd expect to see on a Camry or Civic from the same era. I'm not quite sure what's going on here, but I suspect that the car's final owner performed a bit of spray-foam-and-Bondo bodywork when the rear plastic body panels got munched in a crash. The twin-cam Saturn engines made respectable power, but this car has the 100-horse single-cam under the hood. The car weighed a mere 2,282 pounds, though, so it had about the same power-to-weight ratio as the slightly heavier Honda Del Sol, with a much lower price tag ($12,195 for the SC1 versus $15,250 for the Del Sol). With a manual transmission, which this car has, the SC1 was a lot more fun to drive than most frugal commuter cars of its era. It's no Saturn Ion Redline (an example of which I found nearby in the very same wrecking yard), but still an interesting chapter from the tale of the rise and fall of Saturn. When you want a two-door with some spunk, sleep on it first. Yeah, we're puzzled by this ad, too. Featured Gallery Junked 1996 Saturn SC1 View 14 Photos Auto News Saturn Automotive History Coupe

GM recalling another 2.7 million vehicles in five separate campaigns

The recalls keep rolling in from General Motors, evidently keen to avoid repeating the mistakes of the ignition-switch debacle and clean house. This time they're all coming at once, with five separate recalls announced together covering approximately 2.7 million vehicles.
The largest of the five actions involves over 2.4 million units of the previous-generation Chevrolet Malibu and Malibu Maxx, Pontiac G6 and Saturn Aura in order to fix brake light wiring harness, which have been found to be susceptible to corrosion. The recall is separate from the 56k Aura sedans which GM recently recalled over faulty shift cables, not to mention the previous massive recall of 1.3 million vehicles - some of them the same models - but appears to have resulted from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation that started with the G6 almost a year ago.
The second-largest campaign involves the 2014 Chevy Malibu, specifically those fitted with GM's 2.5-liter engine and stop/start system, approximately 140,000 examples of which has been found to have problematic brakes. The issue does not appear to be connected to the recall of 8k Malibu and Buick LaCrosse sedans (also involving brake woes) which we reported upon last week. Four crashes have been reported in such models, but GM admits it's not yet clear if the problem was a contributing factor in the accidents.