Enfield E8000 Electric City Car

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Established in the 1960s by Greek millionaire Giannis Goulandris, Enfield Automotive was an electric car manufacturer based on the Isle of Wight.

The Enfield 8000 was a prototype electric vehicle which emerged out of a competition run by the United Kingdom Electricity Council in 1966. Designed by Konstantine Adraktas (the Chairman and Managing Technical Director of Enfield and developed from the earlier Enfield 465 an electric car built only in prototype form in 1969), the Enfield 8000 (also known the E8000 ECC or ‘Electric City Car’) was a two-seater battery-electric city car, which was first introduced in 1973. 120 cars were built on the Isle of Wight, of which 65 were used by the Electricity Council and electricity boards in the south of England.

The Enfield 8000 was built around a tubular steel chassis frame with aluminium body panels. It used suspension parts from the Hillman Imp, doors were adapted from the Mini and a rear axle derived from Reliant three-wheelers. Powered by an 8bhp electric motor and lead-acid batteries, the car had a top speed of around 48mph and a range of around 50 miles to 90 miles, depending on driving conditions. The car featured a primitive form of the KERS kinetic energy recovery system seen today on Formula 1 cars since it had an on-board charger which recharged batteries fully while freewheeling downhill.

The Enfield 8000 passed all the necessary tests for production in the United Kingdom and was also due to be produced in America. Indeed Ronald Reagan, the Governor of California, sent a cargo plane to have three E8000s moved to California in support of his Clean Air legislation, however nothing came of this and the car was never produced in the States.

Manufacture of the E8000 was moved to Piraeus on the Greek isle of Syros during the oil crisis of 1973, although the vehicles were still sent back to be assembled on the Isle of Wight until production finally ceased in 1977. The Greek-built car was known as the Enfield-Neorion, although ironically it could not be legally sold in Greece due to tax categorization issues connected with electric power, so all production was exported to the United Kingdom.

This interesting and now very fashionable all-electric car was first registered in 1974. Perfect for beating the congestion charge, it was light-years ahead of its time, even when purchased for the Stondon Collection in 1991 when such vehicles were still struggling with the legacy left over from Sir Clive Sinclair’s ill-fated C5. It comes with an old style V5 and a current V5C.