In the Greece of the 1970s the economy was booming, industry was seeing a heyday, and unemployment was virtually unknown. It was a time of innocence and a time for intrepid entrepreneurs. It was a time when a restless businessman, two top designers, a score of engineers, technicians, and workers from Piraeus and the islands, focused on creating a cute orange car, the first electric car in the world to enter series production.
Michalis Stavropoulos, for years managing editor of “4 Wheels” car mag and as of recent a filmmaker could not let the chance slide by and decided to make the story the feature of his movie, which is called “Between Two Islands,” that will compete at the 16 Documentary Festival at Thessaloniki (14-23 March).
The story of the Enfield 8000 began at the end of the sixties. Enfield Automotive, based on the Isle of Wight (one of the title's two islands) was behind the project. At the time the firm was a leader in innovation specializing in designing electric cars. At the time there was intense concern that fossil fuels would soon rum out, and big cities suffered from air pollution. The owner of the firm was the shipowner Yannis Goulandris frrom Andros, while the designer of the innovative Enfield 8000 was Greek engineer, Konstantinos Adraktas.
The car was developed in the UK, where the firm managed to win a competition sponsored by the Electric Energy Board for the production of 100 cars, leaving companies like Ford and Leyland behind. It was the first small production line in modern automotive history.
The story takes an interesting turn a little before the beginning of production, when Goulandris, despite reactions from Konstantinos Adraktas, decided to shut the UK plant and move it to Syros, at the site of an old textile mill, near the Neorion shipyard, which Goulandris had bought in 1968. The new designer was Georgios Michael. Workers from the shipyards were “recruited,” along with workers from Syros, Piraeus, and the islands to work the metal.
The first car rolled off the production line on Syros, in October 1973, around four decades before the auto industry began the mass production of electric vehicles. The The Enfield 8000 was a 2-seater battery-electric city car. Powered by an 8 bhp (6 kW) electric motor and lead-acid batteries, the car had a top speed of around 48 mph (77 km/h), and a range of around 40 miles (64 km). The Enfield 8000 had a tubular chassis frame with aluminium body panels. It used suspension parts from the Hillman Imp, the doors were adapted from the Mini and the rear axle was derived from Reliants three-wheelers, with a relatively luxurious interior design with leather upholstery. It was just 2.7 meters long and weighed 965 kg, of which the batteries accounted for 300 kilos.
The story did not have a happy ending. At the beginning of 1976 production came to a halt after a production run of 120 cars, most of which were shipped to the Electrical Energy Board in the UK, and a few individual clients abroad. The reasons for its failure were many surmised Mr Stavropoulos, from the inherent problems with electric cars like the range, to the fact that its appearance at a time of political transition form the junta to democracy. Mr Stavropoulos does not believe that there were concerted efforts by competing industries or the fuel industry to sabotage its production, although nothing could ever be corroborated.
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