A Derelict GM EV1 Is Coming Back to Life, With GM's Help

A General Motors EV1 that spent years rotting in an Atlanta-area impound lot is getting a second life, and this time the automaker that tried to erase the car's existence is helping to rebuild it. The two-seat electric coupe, GM's ill-fated 1990s answer to California's zero-emission mandate, sold at a tow yard auction in late 2025 for $104,000 to Billy Caruso, a New Jersey-born, MIT-trained engineer who had already spent years quietly collecting and reviving obscure 1990s electric cars in California.

The car, identified by its serial number, 212, was one of roughly 40 EV1s known to have survived GM's infamous purge of the program, in which nearly all leased examples were reclaimed and crushed after the automaker canceled the vehicle in the early 2000s. Number 212 escaped that fate because it had been donated to a learning institution, Clark Atlanta University, rather than leased to a private driver, a legal distinction that kept it out of the crusher and, eventually, on a path to a public sale. By the time it surfaced at auction, the EV1 was in rough shape: its distinctive gold-tinted windshield was shattered, components were missing, and it showed the kind of neglect typical of a car left outdoors for two decades.

Caruso's winning bid outpaced an earlier attempt by Jared Pink, who runs the YouTube restoration channel Questionable Garage and had teamed up with fellow EV builder Rich Benoit to try to buy the car themselves. Rather than compete, the two parties joined forces: Caruso would own and steward the car, and Pink would document its restoration on camera. According to Hagerty, the partnership formed because "the Classic EV world is a small one," and Pink already knew Caruso from a previous deal involving a Chevrolet S-10 EV conversion.

What turned the project from a niche restoration into a wider story is GM's own involvement. According to Hagerty's reporting, GM staff have been supplying both parts and technical support, most notably donating a replacement windshield sourced from an EV1 parts car in the company's own historical vehicle inventory, since reproducing the gold-filmed glass from scratch would be prohibitively expensive. Caruso and Pink were also given access to GM's Technical Center and an interview with GM President Mark Reuss, who has taken a personal interest in the project. Caruso told Hagerty his "heart was filled with joy" on learning GM would help, adding that the support made him "double down on the importance of this project" and made him "realize I am now a part of the story."

Pink, recounting the process to Hagerty, described the emotional arc of the build: "From the first step of getting it out of the tow pound on that rainy morning, to the trips to the 'EV1 Warehouse,' it has been so electrifying to be a part of it." He said the team wrestled with sourcing a working brake torque controller and repairing a water-damaged junction box, calling GM's level of cooperation "honestly kind of unbelievable" once the automaker confirmed it wanted to help rather than shut the project down.

Caruso is no stranger to resurrecting forgotten 1990s EVs. Before EV1 #212, his collection included a 1994 Geo Prizm EV conversion, a 2000 Solectria Force built on a Geo Metro platform, a Toyota RAV4 EV, and a Chevrolet S-10 EV, cars he has kept running with new battery packs sourced largely because of his access to California's unusually deep pool of surviving 1990s electric vehicles. He has since folded that collection into a planned nonprofit effort he calls the California Electric Vehicle Museum, or "Project Cal EV," meant to preserve and explain a period of automotive history he says is otherwise disappearing along with the people who understand it.

The team's stated goal is to have EV1 #212 running again by November 14, 2026, exactly 30 years after GM's original EV1 first hit the road in 1996. Caruso has said he plans to add the finished car to his collection, drive it on California's Skyline Boulevard, and bring it to car shows around the country, a full-circle turn for a vehicle GM once fought to keep off public roads entirely.