New York mayor Bill de Blasio, making good on a campaign promise, has asked the City Council to ban the city's iconic horse-drawn carriages within two years. That's led to some discussion of replacing the carriages, which often provide tours of Central Park, with vintage electric vehicles.
We like this idea.
Hizzoner has drafted legislation that would ban equine modes of transport by June 1, 2016 and provide job training for the 300 or so carriage drivers while ensuring their horses aren't made into dog food and glue. Not everyone loves the idea, of course; an editorial by The New York Times urged the council to "Dump the bill. Keep the horses." We're not gonna wade into that debate, but we do like a proposal by advocates of the bill who suggest a "vintage" electric car could replace the carriages. The "Horseless eCarriage," with room for eight and heated seats, is "authentically styled and constructed to replicate turn of the century cars with a target build date of 1909," the group says.
But why settle for a car that only looks old when history offers the real deal? At the dawn of the automotive age, electric cars were as common as their gasoline-burning counterparts. Then, as now, they were cleaner, quieter, and easier to operate than those using dino-juice. It wasn't until the teens and '20s that internal combustion won the day, thanks to advances in engine technology (and the invention of the electric starter).
With that in mind, we've perused the excellent Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942 to offer a selection of seven electric cars that would make fine substitutes for the horse-drawn carriages clopping through Gotham.
