Earlier in the year I made friends with Mike Harvey who had joined our local electric vehicle club and immediately became busy converting cars to EVs and making BugE Blue Sky Design kits into drivable electric vehicles. After successfully building an award winning EV, as well as a comfortable, drivable BugE kit (pictured above) and learning how to do the CalCars Prius Plug-in Hybrid conversion, Mike got the idea that he could make a business out of his newly acquired skills. I decided that I would help. Mike put out a press release letting the world know that Harvey Coachworks and EV were ready to take orders for ready to drive BugEs. The first people to contact us after the press release were a group out in Hollywood that organized celebrity gift rooms. Gift rooms are mainly to have celebrities handling or showing off products that they receive, giving the companies that supplied these products an opportunity to take their pictures with the product. Connected, the organization that had contacted us, had been looking for something green and something charitable to attract celebrities to their room, which had been timed to correspond with the American Music Awards. What we came up with was to have the celebrities at the room sign a BugE that we had specially built for this event, and then we would auction it off for a charity. The auction is going on now, just click on the picture above. We settled on Autism Speaks, a charity close to Mike’s heart for personal reasons. Connected was completely on board with how we wanted to handle things and put their support behind our efforts to make it happen.
What followed next was Mike and I screaming across the country from the right coast to the left in a mini-box truck with the BugE inside. We were desperately trying to make it to Los Angeles in time for a demonstration by CalCars on a fast Prius plug-in conversion. It meant that we would have to make the trek in only 2 and a half days. We just made the end of the event after all the media and fanfare was gone, but as luck would have it Chelsea Sexton and Linda Nicholes of Who Killed the Electric Car? showed up just after we did. Mike and I didn’t want to miss out on an opportunity to have two EV stars sign the vehicle, so we asked Linda and Chels to sign and they graciously obliged.
The following day we were off to Hollywood to the Sofitel hotel for the Connected gift room date where we were placed just outside the entrance in between the registration table and the gift room. Every celebrity enthusiastically signed. They were excited by the cause, they were excited by the vehicle. It seemed to establish a really good feeling about the event and what was to go on beyond that. For me the event took on special meaning once I saw Earnest Borgnine sign. Earnest Borgnine’s body of work on the silver screen and off is unparalleled. That he was willing to lend his support made all of our efforts worth while. Some of the biggest stars were of course from music, such as John Legend, Chris Daughtry and two members of the Cheetah Girls (ask your preteen). The first day we got more than 50 signatures, the second day was just as good.
Now it is your part. We need you, and that means all of you, to bid on the BugE. The more people bid the greater the amount it will be sold for. The greater amount that the vehicle will be sold for, the more money we raise for Autism Speaks. Please, click on the link below and bid.
Ebay number 160189478545
