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Take THAT, Tesla fans!

Published October 27, 2008

Take THAT, Tesla fans!

We’re probably showing our age when we remember Fernwood 2 Night, the 1977 mock talk-show spinoff of classic 1970s comedy series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. But it wasn’t until we found one of the old clips that we realized: Good lord, the show’s writers anticipated the Tesla Roadster battery by at least 30 years!

The clip (which runs 3:40) has host Barth Gimble (Martin Mull) and his fractious sidekick Jerry Hubbard (Fred Willard) welcoming Fernwood’s local gas station owner Virgil Simms (played by a very young Jim Varney, of the “Ernest” movies). Virgil has invented an electric car, which seems to be based on an orange Volkswagen Fastback from 1971-73.

Once the battery is revealed—actually “about 4,000” of them, seemingly D-cells—we couldn’t help but think of the Tesla battery pack, with its 6,871 lithium ion cells. Guess those battery engineers must have been watching late-night reruns again…

The proto-Tesla, circa 1977.

(Our thanks to car fan Rick Feibusch of Venice, California, for the link.)


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Bryce says:
1 year ago

hahahaha............................................................................

1 year ago

That brings me back... Thanks

Now if you could just post an episode of "soap"

FactChecker says:
1 year ago

Come on, the Tesla Roadster doesn't have 6,871 individual cells in it. That would be ridiculous.

It only has 6,831 cells.

Jerry says:
1 year ago

good stuff I remeber watching that show all the time. 1977 energy crisis its sad how little we have done since then

[the writer] says:
1 year ago

@FactChecker: LOLOL ... "You are so busted!"

Sorry about that, clumsy fingers ... or neuron short-circuited ... or something. I knew that, I really did. I've written it a zillion times. Sigh. Nice to know we have such detail-oriented readers.

Does that mean I now owe you 40 commodity 18650 cobalt-based Li-ion cells ? ? ?

Piscal Pisali says:
6 weeks ago

really funny video. I really liked it.
Regards
Free Hosting |
Bollywood Tour

Penny Stocks says:
6 weeks ago

I laughed for 10 minutes. Again laughed....I shared with my friends and they also laughed.
Thanks a lot.

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