The Electric Car Owners Club was started in 1982 by Frank Didik as an informal association of electric car owners and enthusiasts. At that time, interest in electric cars developed during the second gasoline crises in 1977, had died out, and it was very difficult for electric car owners to obtain information on maintaining and improving their electric cars. The club acted as a focal point for electric car owners. By 1986, over 900 electric vehicle owners world wide had joined the group. Most owners had either CitiCars, ComutaCars, Elcars (from Italy) or various conversions such as VW Beatles, Renault R5's, Renault Dalphine's, Bradly GT2's and even van conversions such as the Electric Jet Van. There was never a fee to join, though many members contributed their time and money to send out a newsletter and operate the BBS system. What distinguished Electric Car Owners Club™ members from so many other groups today, is that almost every member not only discussed electric cars, but also owned and drove electric cars on a regular basis.

  The Electric Car Owners Club™ also maintained an extensive library and photo collection of various electric cars world wide. Sadly, some of the archives were destroyed in a fire in 1992. Nevertheless, much of the remaining archives (over 20,000 pages of records) are being scanned and edited and is expected to be published on CD-ROM in mid 2002. This database/archive should be of great interest to all electric car owners and enthusiasts.

  The Electric Car Owners Club™ is also known as the Electric Car Society™. Today, the world wide web, with its many excellent electric vehicle related discussion groups and mailing lists, has very adequately covered the area that the Electric Car Owners Club™ had set out to do. We have been encourage all members to get on the web and join these groups. Over the next few months, a number of additional files will be placed on the WWW. Some of the files to be included are original CitiCar catalogs, repair, information, sources of parts and various databases. Electric car owners, enthusiasts and builders will probably find the upcoming CD-ROM of use.