Solved - NEH 395: Nic-L-Silver Pioneer 3-seat electric roadster and hardtop 1959

[Carnut]

A point if you know what this is called and why it's special:

[Paul Jaray]

Great pic! 

[Carnut]

Up we go...

[ftg3plus4]

I believe that is the Nic-L-Silver Pioneer electric roadster -- a car I almost once posted myself.

As for why it's special, I'm not sure what you're looking for, unless it's the fact that it was electric.

From my source:

"...nearing completion in 1959 was the Pioneer, a fiberglass-bodied three-seat electric backed by the Nic-L-Silver Battery Company in Santa Ana, California.

Engineering, mainly by Frank Kurtis of race-car fame, featured a unique torsion-bar suspension and twin 8-horsepower motors driving the rear wheels by chain. Sales were imminent by autumn 1959, when a Pioneer wagon [the subject of another AutoPuzzle, BTW] was announced along with a detachable hardtop option for the roadster, which was pegged at about $2,000 retail.

...Pioneer was doomed by likely sales volume that was just too small to offset huge production start-up costs.

The Golden State itself tried to summon the future by mandating electrics, even though technology in the 1990s still couldn't resolve some of the deficits that plagued [electric cars] in the 1950s."

[Carnut]

Yes, that's the car.
And yes, it was special because it was electric, still pretty uncommon for this type of car in the those days.

[Ray B.]

...Sales were imminent by autumn 1959, when a Pioneer wagon [the subject of another AutoPuzzle, BTW] was announced along with a detachable hardtop option for the roadster, which was pegged at about $2,000 retail.

Here is this other AutoPuzzle... http://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/index.php?topic=5398.0