Howard University wants to make it perfectly clear that its super rare GM EV1 is not an abandoned vehicle. Therefore, it should certainly not be towed, impounded, and auctioned into private hands. The fact that this is exactly what happened to another university-owned EV1 must surely be a coincidence.
From the Howard University News Service:
As thousands of Howard University students make the trek up Georgia Avenue to campus, they unknowingly walk by an important piece of automotive history. Nestled in the parking lot of the Lewis K. Downing building sits a General Motors (GM) EV1, a bright red two-door from the late 1990s that looks alien compared to the modern cars that surround it.
The strange-looking red car parked next to the brick building certainly looks abandoned in the article’s lead image. But that is absolutely not the case:
Though Howard’s EV1 has been stationary for years, the College of Engineering and Architecture says it is not abandoned. Maybe one day, we’ll see this historic vehicle restored and ready to tackle the streets again.
Well, thanks for clearing that up. Why make this clarification now? It couldn’t have anything to do with a certain other GM EV1 that recently sold at auction for $104,000 after another university marked its as abandoned, could it?
Learning from others’ mistakes
The Cliff’s Notes version of the EV1’s story is that GM built 1,117 of them in the late 1990s, leased them out, took them back, and crushed all but around 40 of them. Those were then disabled (except for one left intact for the Smithsonian), then sent to museums for display and universities for educational purposes. Hemmings has a detailed list of the remaining EV1s in existence. Howard University’s is listed, as well as the one in these photos (belonging to Tulsa Tech and on display at the Heart of Route 66 Auto Museum).
An EV1 belonging to Clark Atlanta University is not on Hemmings’ list, likely because the university itself seemed to have forgotten that it had it. As best as we can piece the story together from our friends at The Autopian and Jared Pink of The Questionable Garage, a dilapidated green car had been sitting in a university lot for some time. The untrained eye could mistake this for a Saturn SC2, which is rather ordinary compared to the piece of automotive history that is the EV1. Eventually, campus police marked it as an abandoned vehicle. They jumped through all the proper legal hoops to try to find the owner, only to fail, likely due to the uniqueness of this situation. GM did not step forward at this time to claim the car, which would have been its chance to take it back. When all else failed, the poor EV1 was towed to an impound lot and put up for public auction by court order. The internet went ablaze, leading to a bidding war that ended at $104,000 for a legal, privately owned GM EV1. It’s probably worth much more. There’s so much more to this story, and it’s worth following the links above if you’re interested in more about this particular car’s history and its restoration. Both stories are equally crazy in their own ways…