2000 Corbin Sparrow For Sale On Bring a TrailerBring a TrailerBring a TrailerHere's one you may not have heard of, a three-wheeled EV called the Sparrow.Comical in appearance, it's actually sensibly designed by a pioneer who held multiple EV speed records.This one needs a bit of work, but it's an opportunity to swap in modern lithium-ion batteries.Peter Parker was minding his business one day when he was suddenly bitten by a radioactive spider and then turned into Spider-Man. What's just turned up at Bring a Trailer (which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos) is what his superhero ride might be if he was instead bitten by a radioactive banana. It's a Corbin Sparrow, an oddball little yellow EV, and it's at least as a-peel-ing as a Marvel superhero movie.Bring a TrailerA sensible single-seater three-wheeler suitable for short-range city commuting, the Corbin Sparrow combines practicality with looking like a shoe. It sprang from the mind of a pioneering motorcycle customizer who had worked as an electrician in the Navy. It's more weatherproof than a bike, doesn't take up much space in traffic or when parked, and overall seemed like a sensible runabout back when it debuted in the 1990s.AdvertisementAdvertisementIt's worth delving a little into the creator of the Sparrow, Mike Corbin, because he was a bit of a daredevil. The Sparrow looks a bit like the kind of car you'd see in the pages of a Richard Scarry book, but Corbin's pioneering EV work was a lot more ferocious. In 1974, right in the middle of a fuel crisis, he piloted Quicksilver, his battery-electric motorcycle, to a landspeed record of over 165 mph. It's a record that would stand for nearly four decades.Bring a TrailerClearly, Corbin knew his stuff. While the Sparrow didn't quite take off, due to the heavy lead-acid battery technology of the time, it did work, and the idea was sound. The comical looks landed it a cameo in one of the Austin Powers movies, as freaky-deaky transportation for the villain Goldmember.The Sparrow also inspired the what-if ElectraMeccanica Solo, a similar battery-electric three-wheeler that was more modern. Who's to say the single-seater EV concept might not have worked given what gas prices are at these days?Bring a TrailerThis banana-yellow example is a project that's been sitting in a Fort Worth, Texas, museum for some years now. It'll need some TLC to get back on the road, but the good news here is that battery technology has advanced rapidly over the years. Price and capacity for lithium-ion battery packs have come down and gone up, respectively, and making this little Sparrow fly is theoretically a simpler task than fiddling around with pistons and carburetors.AdvertisementAdvertisementGet it up and running and it'd be the ultimate comical grocery-getter, the kind of thing that would draw more eyeballs than any Lamborghini or Ferrari. What's that? Banana-sense indicating that there's crime afoot? To the Banana-mobile, we gotta split.The auction ends on August 11.You Might Also LikeGift Guide: Best Ride-On Electric Cars for KidsFuture Cars Worth Waiting For: 2025–2029
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