Friday, August 22, 2008 – Reinvented Roadster

Where Santa Monica blends into Venice, on Main Street near Pier Avenue, you see the world has changed – or the California roadster of legend has changed.  Now it's electric.

From the Santa Monica Daily Press coverage of the Santa Monica Alternative Car and Transportation Expo, December 9, 2006 –

At the kick-off, environmental car lover Paul Pearson brought his all-electric California roadster along with his wife and dog, Bonzo, an American bulldog that was sitting in the backseat while sporting a sweater.

The roadster, which set Pearson back only $10,000, goes only 25 miles an hour and has enough juice to make about three trips into the San Fernando Valley. It’s the perfect vehicle to make the short trip to the grocery store, Pearson said.

"Santa Monica is such a small town," Pearson said. "We constantly make runs of two or three miles."

The website is electriccustomcars.com – there's more there.

If you wish to use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. And should you choose to download any of these images and use them invoking the "fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, please provide credit, and, on the web, a link back this site. 

Technical Note:

Photographs after March 3, 2008, were taken with a Nikon D200 – or a Nikon D70 when noted. All previous photographs were taken with the D70. The lenses used are (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300 mm telephoto, or (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. Photography here is modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.  The earliest photography in the archives was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik