Photo by Carly Pearson
Mic McGuire sits in his rebuilt VW bug. McGuire and his friend Tony Tollette turned the car into an electric car to help conserve the planet's natural resources.
Mic McGuire’s 1971 Volkswagen bug doesn’t sport any flowers or peace symbols but, like its predecessors from the ’60s and ’70s, it’s a protest of war and a paean of sorts to environmental stewardship.
The VW, newly transformed into an electric vehicle, has become McGuire’s daily ride.
It wasn’t always the snappy-colored standout it has become. It looked a little forlorn and rusty when Tom Hicks gave it to McGuire to transform.
McGuire’s top talents, however, lie in music and ministry. Consequently, he called on a handful of mechanically inclined friends to help remove the car’s old gasoline engine and replace it with an electric motor kit and nine 8-volt batteries.
Tony and Rhonda Tollette allowed him to use their garage for the duration. There, the group of friends hammered out the dents, installed new carpet, headliner, seatcovers, tires, lights, brakes and gave it a final paint job.
“The paint job is the combination of our creative juices, but mostly it’s Tony’s work,” McGuire said of the vibrant yellow car with its black fender skirts and “450 amps” trim. “Tony helped enormously on the project.”
Photo by Carly Pearson
Mic McGuire's electric VW beetle runs on nine 8-volt batteries.
Frank Harbaugh and Gary Thompson, both automotive professionals, lent their skills, too. A few months and a few thousand dollars later, it was finished.
McGuire has enjoyed the learning process, the conversation and camaraderie of the pros who helped, and the personal satisfaction of finishing the job.
“There were lots of doubters,” he said. “I’m as glad that it works as anybody else.”
The VW has run easily at 45 miles per hour, and it is built to run at highway speeds, though he has yet to try them. The record high speed for an electric car is 247 miles per hour, he said.
The operating cost is about 3 to 5 cents per mile in any traffic, approximately half the cost of operating a traditional car, according to 2006 figures based on a gasoline cost of $1.50 per gallon. And that does not include an estimated $400 to $600 for annual maintenance costs of a gas engine.
All in all, the modified VW is a bargain, economically and ecologically.
“It made its debut on Earth Day here at the church,” said McGuire, who is pastor of Grace United Methodist Church.
To him, it was a fitting initiation. The VW’s modification was an expression of McGuire’s faith, applied in both the secular and sacred worlds.
He has a one-word initial answer for people who ask why he switched from gasoline to battery power: Iraq.
“That was my simple answer,” McGuire said. “I agree with the president that we are addicted to oil, and I disagree that we’re not there trying to protect our oil.”
McGuire is convinced that the nation’s addiction to oil lies at the root of the U.S.’s war against Iraq, and as a Christian, he cannot condone killing, especially not to satisfy an addiction.
“How do we fight addiction?” he asked rhetorically. “We quit using that which we’re addicted to.”
But there’s more to McGuire’s answer than a national appetite for oil.
“More than that, it’s also taking care of the environment,” he said. “This car … produces no emissions, it produces no pollutants. Yet at the same time I am aware the electricity that I do use is generated by other resources that do cause pollution.”
Still, the electric VW uses less energy and causes less pollution than gas-powered cars, and that’s important to McGuire for several reasons.
“I think that we are to be good stewards of the earth’s resources, not just how much we use them, but how much we overuse them,” he said. “More important to me, am I being a good steward of God’s resources? … If we had just the in-town driving being done in electric cars, people would save an enormous amount of money and pollution.”
Switching to electric motors in New York City, for example, would drastically reduce emissions and engine noises that pollute.
Electric vehicles use no power when they are not accelerating, and that in itself would be monumentally significant in the stop-and-go traffic jams of larger cities, he said.
“I didn’t want to ... play like I’m trying to save the world,” McGuire said. “But at the same time, I don’t want to sit idly by and do nothing.”
Comments
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Posted by Wasp (anonymous) on May 11, 2007 at 9:52 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Very interesting...now all he has to do is cover it with solar panels so he does not have to plug it in as much!
Posted by MelissaE (anonymous) on May 11, 2007 at 10:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I love that they did this!
I'd totally get one! Good job guys!
Melissa
Posted by noel_stanton (anonymous) on May 12, 2007 at 7:43 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Cover not only the car roof, but also the garage roof with Photovoltaic panels and perhaps put a carport next to the church with more panels on its roof.
Kansas has 300 days of sunshine and Mr. McGuire's electric "city car" is an excellent idea that deserves to be pursued as a new product filling a niche.
Emporia, the Detroit of Sun Cars!
n. stanton
Posted by retroelectrocoupe (anonymous) on May 18, 2007 at 4:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
this is great ! a former jayhawker i build and teach how to retro/convert cars, bikes, boats , soarplanes to zero em. at retro_electrocoupe@yahoo.com. if you are interested in setting up classes there or to attend a class in colorado ( a great vacation the rocky mtns. near durango,co ) for info write to po 211,mancos, Co.81328 or email . keep up the the good work rev.
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