Oh, what's gonna jump out at me and it's leaking coolant? It reminds me well. the SE piece of carbon fiber has no pass-through to the cab. There's no interior handles. There's a good chance this hasn't been done in at least a decade.

What is this stuff here? All right ladies and gentlemen, here we go. All right behind this gate is something that I don't know if I can fix. Okay I already got this. We're going to call it the space van from now on, but Arnie bought it.

he's like hey, Alex I think you should take over and I said okay but no guarantees and it's been sitting here for about four months and there there she is. doesn't look like much. So before this this van had never been outside right? it was It was kind of sitting inside. Yeah, it's been sitting for probably about 12 years.

So this company was trying to build a hundred mile per gallon concept van this hybrid and they were trying to get a 450 million dollar Grant from the US government and uh, they presented it was in Washington DC it does run and drive. it did but the grant did not go through and then this thing just sat in a warehouse for like 12 years and it's soon going to be sitting at legit Street quarters. Oh man, look at this. what in the world am I getting myself into? Yeah, it's got chrome rims.

Yeah! I mean you know I love my Chrome wheels. That's worth the price right? That's right. So Arnie sent me a bunch of articles on this van. but yeah, basically Obama had offered a 450 million dollar Grant and this company tried really really hard to make a van that got 100 miles per gallon.

It's a plug-in hybrid and supposedly it goes about 50 miles on electric power alone. but this thing is wild. It weighs like 3 300 pounds it has. It has like a carbon fiber tub or something, right? Yeah, the bulkheads carbon fiber.

It appears to be made out of fiberglass for the size of the vehicle. It's actually like pretty darn light. Oh very light. 3 300 pounds.

That's like my McLaren The numbers seem to be about a million dollars invested in this thing because I mean when you're opening something from scratch Dude I was gonna say insane way Way more than that. That's what I was thinking. Well the good news for you is since we kind of revealed it. well Travis Who I got it from, who rescued it was on? Vin Wiki he told the story about.

You know, kind of about the van. We've actually we got in contact with a couple of former employees that had a lot to do with this thing. So I've got some phone numbers for you and uh and some people that are actually eager to help. And while it doesn't have a title, but we talked to one guy who may actually have it, things are getting better.

and it was built off of a like a 2009 Town and Country or something like that, right? That is the theory. That's yeah, there's a lot of unknowns. We have no schematic. We have no real information at all about this.

What's the name of the video? The bright idea? The bright idea. That's right. So it's by the Bright company and then they named it. The Idea: Those clever, clever little fellas.

and Gales Okay, so we have no wipers. Uh, we have plastic here. Yep. I Don't believe these actually go up and down.

There's some screws. Oh my gosh, What in the world? So the government wanted a 100 MPG kind of delivery van. So this potentially could have been used by maybe the postal Service and many other agency bodies. They wanted to see if someone could do it.

and then it could possibly be kind of like a modular platform that could be used all around the country. This is carbon fiber. Okay, yeah, a lot of money went into this. Wow.

and it's clean. It is clean. Yeah, this is all Chrysler right here. Whoa.

I Don't know about the mileage there. 182 000 miles I Don't know about that. but look at that. I Got some 12 year old gas in there.

Sweet. What is this? Video mode? Show Car mode AC Clutch Spare spare on what Bright Cp1 glove box controller? Well what's an oh that doesn't That's like a fake glove box guys. This is so so crazy. I I'm I Bought this van so they obviously had to think of aerodynamics here so the wheels are completely covered.

but this this like looks mean like I like the styling of this. Oh yeah no. I mean this thing is so rad it just gets crazier and crazier as you look at it. It also comes with the clay mold.

Whoa. I'd seen pictures. Oh and it's smells like clay. What in the world? I've always wanted to own a concept car and this is I mean this is a concept car this is.

This is as close as I think I'll ever get. Unreal. I Said like custom lightweight like racks in here. All the hybrid system is up under the side door.

We'll have to get it away from the garage. Okay, but it just gets crazier and crazier. This is insane. Look at all this stuff.

High voltage cables. We have the clay molds people. We have the clay mold to this thing. I Mean it's in really, really good shape too.

There's no dents or anything. What's crazy about these things is you would expect that. You know they didn't get the grant that they would just like throw this thing out in the back of their lot or something. But this thing was stored indoors and yeah, as soon as I saw it I'm like man.

I gotta have this thing. Someone needs to save it. Yes, yes, that's you. No pressure, unknown hybrid, weird van thing that has no schematics.

and yeah, I can I can do this? Oh I Thought this. Oh yeah, no this is not a slight. Oh, another model, another clay model. Oh look at that guys.

What in the world is going on over there? Look at all of this. Oh man. no schematics, No nothing. This is gonna be like learning a whole new language which is normally really really hard unless you use.

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So take advantage of this killer deal. Learn a new language today and with that, let's get back to my Space fan. So I guess this is powered by a four-cylinder Oh oh okay. that's not good.

That is not good at all. Rodents: Oh no, this is why I guess it was inside. As if this thing wasn't going to be hard enough to figure out. Now we got this is the worst I've ever seen where I wonder what this was though.

Like This had to have come from the vehicle and they'd shoot up everything. Hopefully though they didn't chew up the wiring. Look at all this this is gonna be fun. Oh no.

Uh So yeah. Well, here's the engine. It's A It's a Chrysler four-cylinder There's an electric motor in the back so it's all-wheel drive then right? Yeah, Because this is front wheel drive. That's yeah.

Okay, let's get this thing on the trailer and I'll do you. I'll have to get the vacuum out I Thought you were going to get it running. Yeah, right. We'll just jump start it and throw.

Yeah, here's our Chrysler key. It's got no 12 volt battery. so this right here with the gas tank and everything. That's got to be a sticker there.

This car is dead. Like completely dead. That's funny and like a lot of concept type of cars. they're just meant to look like they work but they don't like.

There's plenty of Articles Road and track articles and everything on this car. I don't I Didn't see any of it running or moving right? There are there are videos of it driving. Okay, like for sure it does drive. from this company though.

Yes, from this company. This this vehicle. This is the only one that was built and there is video of this thing driving. Hmm.

100 wait. but that could have been like a Nicola situation where they just made fake videos of it. like rolling down a hill. There's definitely videos of this thing driving on flat ground.

100 you know. But like like we found is the HVAC system. There is no HVAC system. Okay, and then the windows are our lexan and uh, you know it's like, well, you don't need air conditioning, you just roll the windows down.

Well, you can't because they're actually riveted in place. So okay. definitely a cosmic vehicle. But it did run and it is all there.

The hybrid system is there. The batteries for the hybrid system are all there. All right. Cool.

Um, let's try and move it I Guess is it in neutral? Yes, it is in neutral. Oh okay. I Think it's perpetually a neutral for now. it's It's so light, Guys, So light.

see I'm just kidding. that really hurts my finger. So you use this winch quite a few times, right? Arnie First time using this trailer, so don't judge me. I'm figuring it out.

the winch is not working and we suspect it has a dead battery. Uh, luckily I carry stuff around in my car just in case. I Don't even think it's picking anything up. Yeah, this guy's dead.

Juice It Up There We go. Okay, now you got plenty of power, All right? Alex You can pop out. we may both have to stand on. I Think this thing's so heavy in the back that it doesn't want to tilt It Forward Oh, you want to try standing on this thing? We need human weight power.

We can't get this to move forward because I think there's a ton of weight back here with batteries and stuff. So we're using a brand new Jack Oh look, it's got a it's got a date. It's from 1988. Wow, look at that.

Okay, that side slashed. always an adventure 2009 date code on these tires. and they got a ton of tread left. So today's rescue vehicle of choice was the McLaren because anyone was coming with the van.

So it's a nice day. Not the best body lines so it's good. Data Drive the McLaren Duramax Savannah Towing I don't I don't know what we're gonna call this thing. I mean it's the bright idea we're all loaded up to go to legit three quarters.

Give this thing a new home. Well I Gotta say this is one of those moments I never saw coming I Never thought I'd be following my new weird space fan in my own McLaren if you told me this like 10 years ago, I'd say you're I mean if you told me this six months ago I think you were crazy, Well we made it Now we have to figure out a way to drop this off in the parking lot. We'll have to shuffle it around in its final resting spot for us to work on it later. Definitely got a lot more room now though, so that's kind of nice.

Well, the potential 100 MPG plug-in hybrid Space Van has made it into legit Street quarters and I'm thinking I'm just going to call it the Space Van from now on. but let me know if you guys can come up with anything better in the comment section. No, this is the worst I've ever seen. So so bad.

But the good news here is that this is where a 12 volt battery sits. So after this cleanup, we are just going to go ahead and get a battery and see what lights up here. We go people here we go. Oh geez, Soaked up some water.

That's nice. Look at this custom intake. Fancy. This is always kind of scary.

like what's going to jump out at me. anyone in there. I Gotta say, these mice had a very warm and comfy little room. It doesn't smell though, so that's a good sign.

Oh, this is so bad. Look at this. Okay I can see some of this was right in here. Maybe all this white insulation was in here? I'm not even really sure where it came from.

To be honest with you, there's so much of it. They say this has such a Rat's Nest of wiring no pun intended, but so far so good. I Don't think they've eaten through any of this. Oh the engine computer.

Please be okay. Oh man, it does look like this has gotten wet at some point. Hopefully it's just the outside. So far, no mice yet.

it's possible we find some dead mice in here. Oh man, this never ends well. we found the transmission people. Here we go.

This looks like some custom linkage right here. I'm not sure if that's Factory So far we're doing pretty good people. I Haven't seen any chewed up wiring I haven't even seen any droppings. Is it possible these mice built their home and then left their home? Maybe they don't like space fans? I Don't know.

Oh, you know what? let's check this engine oil. This is good. Oil looks new. It's a good sign.

this is not a good sign. This is a power steering pump with a line that's just completely crushed and broken off. Not sure what's going on there. This welded pedestal looks like an engine mount that they may have built themselves so that looks custom.

ground wires. No idea what's going on here. Oh this is such a big mystery guys. Will this engine turn over? What in the world does this grain do? Who knows what's in here? Oh whoa.

Paperwork? No way. Sorry. I'm getting a little distracted here. I'm excited.

let's get the vacuum out. Foreign. Here's the engine compartment all cleaned up and I haven't found any rodent droppings, any dead bodies, nothing. It does not smell at all.

And here's all of the insulation that we pulled out and we definitely would have seen. Mouse Poop in here. I Found a little battery and uh, I'm dying to see what happens when we hook up 12 volts to this thing. There's a good chance this hasn't been done in at least a decade, so this will be interesting.

I Mean I Highly doubt this is going to work. It would be crazy if we just hook up this battery and it just goes into gear. I Don't know. it's like in neutral.

It's like permanently in neutral right now. It'd be crazy if this went into gear and then just worked. I Got a blue LED and this is clicking. uh I don't know what? this keyless entry? Okay, okay, all right.

well that's something. All right. Yeah, this battery doesn't fit. We're we'll have to get something a little bit more permanent, but fancy van is what Arnie called it.

Okay, let's see. let's see if anything lights up. so the blue light could be like an alarm thing, but this battery is probably dead in here so we'll just see if turning the ignition will do anything. nice.

I'm totally freaked out here. Are we in park in this weird little shifter? Yes. Foreign. Oh my gosh, What in the world was that? something in the back just like shook the entire okay, hold on.

let's disconnect that battery. Oh my gosh. Okay, what in the world? Uh, the electric motor. It's got a rear electric motor.

Okay, we're gonna. We're gonna simmer down here on the battery. Let's move this thing in a spot. I have many fire extinguishers in the shop as well, but we might have to investigate a little bit more back there with the high voltage battery and the motor and just this is a little scary.

Okay, let's just take a quick look back here. What in the world? It had to have been the motor shaking around back there. This the guy here doesn't really help being in the way at some point. I'm gonna have to take this out.

It weighs a ton though. Now what's going on? Okay, so these are just the Okay, There we go. That's that guys. I'm not gonna lie.

I don't I don't know what's going on back here. there's our electric motor and who knows, maybe the thing's not even bolted in. Ah man, this is a little scary. All right.

There's two doors here. Okay, so here's our fuel door. probably some really old Fuel And then does this say charge port? Yep, look at that. it's a J1772 charge port I Have that.

but I'm not plugging this in at all. This is scary now guys. That noise. and I mean it shook the entire van.

That freaked me out? No, well, this is interesting after making that crazy noise. Now this thing seems to be in park before it was just forever in neutral and it won't move. I Do think something happened with the motor in the rear and now it's stuck. so we're gonna Jack it up, put some dollies underneath there, try and move it around the shop because right now it's just blocking everything.

All right. So my theory is correct. strong, we can move this thing. It's not the rear motor that's locked up.

I think the car put itself into park. uh when we gave it power so you can see, this linkage is not Factory Uh, neither is this motor right here. So what happened is we gave it power and I think it moved the shifter linkage. you can see they labeled reverse so yeah, it might be in park or maybe drive or something like that, but it's not moving.

All right. Cool. So I think we were here and then reverse the neutral Maybe find out with this thing in neutral and making a crazy loud noise from underneath I think uh, we we got to get it on the rack. we gotta see what's underneath it.

Hey, it's like our first maiden voyage although Max is pushing right now I mean Max is definitely super strong, but uh, this thing is actually really easy to push I'm calling Travis Bell right now because I just rewatched his Vin Wiki and he said something about it moving Miss Travis hey Travis it's Alex I didn't make it to make you look better. What's up? Uh Travis the space van. um I got a question I I apologize I'd watched the VIN Wiki from many months ago and I just re-watched it. You had mentioned something along the lines of this thing like ran and drove at some point and okay I just uh.

I'm about to lift this thing up and dive deep and what? What's the deal? Did it run or drive for you? No so running and driving when they tried to sell it or present it to the government. clearly in the video it is running and driving when they roll it out in front of Congress it's running and driving myself I Have never seen it do anything but some crazy Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Scary stuff. Okay and I pulled it with the Kawasaki Mule and that. That's all I've ever done with it I Physically never seen it run and drive, but at some point in life in its lifetime, it did okay.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Is that when you turn the key forward if you have a battery under the hood and it just shakes the whole van, Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, it looks like it's on Hydraulics But yeah, yes, it shakes. Okay, Okay, all right I got it to do that. It was very, very scary. As far as we know, this thing was in a warehouse and it hasn't ran and drove in roughly 12-ish years.

Well this and it's uh, when I experience the same key thing and immediately immediately okay, all right, that's what Arnie said Ernie that's when he gave up. he was like Alex it lights up and it does something crazy. He didn't tell me it shook the whole van though. but okay, I'm gonna continue on.

I'm gonna get underneath this thing and see what we can find. uh and I'll keep you posted. Good luck Thanks man! Travis Bell Ladies and gentlemen Travis Bell He is the one who found this I think it was on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace sold it to Arnie for 1500 bucks and Arnie sold it to me for 1500 bucks. And if I ever sell it for any more than 1500 Bucks Taking both of those fine gentlemen out to dinner.

Okay, so I'm gonna say this is probably one of the sketchiest things I've ever lifted. I'll show you guys. Hopefully it works. Go Okay, I'm just gonna get it off the ground barely and see where we're at here.

Okay, that's pretty decent. It looks like the Hybrid battery is kind of in the middle. that's really heavy. The engines there that's kind of heavy and there's not a lot in the back.

Can't get the lift arms anywhere back there though. How I feel about this? That's scary. Okay I think I'm gonna get some jack stands under. There should be good enough to to see what's going on.

All right ladies and gentlemen, here we go under the van. You might be wondering if I'm scared right now. Yes, a little bit. You also might be wondering do I own a creeper? No I don't I have some jack stands under here as well just to be super safe.

But let's explore this. This mysterious Mysterious World and a part number for the front fascia. This looks like they completely built this from scratch. This definitely does not have functioning air conditioning.

It does have the compressor here, but it's not hooked up to anything. I have some kind of box here. This could very well be the factory subframe from the miniband that this engine came from. I Got to do a little bit more research, but this might not actually be out of a minivan.

It might be a Dodge Caliber engine. We'll find out. All right. Here's more of this stuff.

Still no signs of mice or anything, so that's good. Okay, we have something that's looped right now and it's leaking coolant. Maybe a heater core Loop or something. but outside of a little bit of surface rust on that subframe, this this floor and everything just looks so good.

and this might be a coolant pump for the battery. Yeah. I'm going to say that's the coolant pump for the battery. It's running back there.

it's got a factory catalytic converter and then this looks like a resonator and man, this thing was just barely used. Look at this. The sticker is good. I'm gonna venture to say this is where the battery is.

Right next to it is the fuel tank 2008. Definitely a Chrysler fuel tank. All right here. We go here.

We go here is the electric motor. There are the gigantic power wires going to it here as well. All right guys. I'm phoning a friend to get some advice.

Alex Rich What's going on man? Um. I'm underneath the space van. I Was telling you a little bit about this. what do you see I see a lot of a lot of weird stuff.

Let me let me show you. Yeah, yeah, so what is that called? Is that the inverter? Okay, um. there's really only a few basic components you should see. One is the uh, the controller, the inverter, the motor battery is DC to DC converter.

Okay, so as long as all those things are talking to each other, you should be okay. but that look s like it's the all right. Let me let me just show you the motor really quick. Yeah, there it is.

Rich What do you think reminds me of the uh, the Tesla Drive Unit in the way from what I can see so far. Okay, okay, so kind of close. But do you see uh, phase wires coming out of it? Three wires coming out of it into something else? Yep, what? Yep, what is you? See that? Oh, there we go. Yeah, yeah, Are there three wires there? Yeah, right.

there's three wires right there. Okay, those wires are going short and then now now that you've found those two components, the next one's the battery. You know where that is right? This looks like the casing uh. underneath the vehicle and it and you access it inside the vehicle.

I Will say this: Rich something. I Found. That's weird. Is this connector? here? it is.

It just doesn't like go to anything. Oh, see that? No. okay uh. is there a logic wire attached to the connectors and the connector just kind of floating there I Can't tell.

No dude, there's nothing. there's nothing. See that? Oh yeah. okay.

this is an experimental vehicle. What happens if you if you pop that connector out anything? This could be it. Rich. This.

this could be the end and you're here to witness it. Okay I am. It's nice knowing you I don't want to be a witness to this. Thank you for all your help with this space fan.

Oh okay. look at this. it's just oh so. you broke it.

No, no, no look, look, it's it's just. it's just like a little plug. Yeah, I bet it is. It could be completing the circuit for the battery right? Yeah, no, that's got to be it.

Dude. No. No. I mean it was snapped in, it was snapped in properly.

All right, All right, the van obviously wasn't. We tried firing it up. You get like basic 12 volt low voltage systems working well. I I actually did put a 12 volt battery in here and the whole thing made a crazy like banging noise.

It shook the whole van. That's why I'm underneath here kind of inspecting to see what's going on. you know? But let me ask you this. Rich if this has a Lithium-Ion battery that's been sitting for roughly 12 years, Is it okay? Is it okay? Do I do I have your blessing to plug in? I Was just thinking of plugging in a 120 line to it because I have my J1772 connector for my Chevy Volt tell you not to do it.

but I'm not a pro I tell you to plug it in I tell you put the van on dollies and push it outside I Make sure you have a pretty good circuit breaker and just go to sound. Okay, all right. well thanks Rich I'll uh if you have lineman gloves need light, you need high voltage gloves too. I got nine Mill gloves from Harbor Freight oh those are are those nylons.

Oh you're fine. You're good. You're good. All right.

Hey, if I don't, if I don't call you back, you know what happened. Give me back All right. he'll keep you posted. All right.

Thanks Rich All right so Rich is saying just to plug the thing in which I'm not gonna lie I was pretty scared about that. but get this, this is crazy. So Arnie found a lady named Amy a while back. uh that had worked for Bright Idea and he just sent me her contact information I called her super nice.

she answered right away and she told me so much about this van in like two minutes. I'm like hang on, hang on! We got to do a zoom call so you can tell me and everybody else at the same time. so we're gonna do a zoom at the end of the video. but she did say that this van costs about three million dollars to build back then.

I Got it for fifteen hundred dollars. So this story is getting crazier. So then she put me on a group text with one of the engineers that actually built this thing. This guy named Sean super nice as well.

You could tell this was like a passion project. Oh and she told me that the old CEO started crying when he found out that this van still exists and he wants to buy it back so we'll see what happens there. But he said after I explained to him the loud banging noise. Uh, he said basically if the thing looks intact like it hasn't really been touched or messed with in the last you know 12 years, then it's a fully functional vehicle.

He's like, that's how we left it and then everybody disbanded and that was it. So he said to just put a normal 12 volt battery in it and then you have to ensure that the high voltage battery is at a high enough state of charge. And what he explained here is there's an electric motor on the rear axle with a dog clutch to disconnect the electric motor from the axle. Uh, that is the only thing that could make the loud banging noise and he said in here that there is a startup sequence and that can be an issue if you have a very low state of charge which is probably what we have.

So basically he's saying just plug it in too now I'm still kind of scared but I feel a little bit better. So anyway, right now, while we have the car on the lift and because this is as far as my charge cord reaches, I'm going to change the oil and then we're pushing it right back here and we're going to plug it in. All right. Well this is interesting: I Just went inside of the van just to take a look at all this stuff here and the door closed and there's no way there's no interior handle.

I'm so glad that I brought my cell phone. This piece of carbon fiber has no pass-through to the cab. This this door is completely sealed from the inside. My only hope is back here.

Nope. Okay, well I guess it's just me and the clay molds at this point. I brought my flashlight I Gotta say, it's really cool having these clay molds look at this. I mean it's obviously not complete.

but and then mini clay mold? Very cool. Yeah. I should probably make a phone call. All right.

Luckily it's noon so Max is still here. Let me out. Max Hey yeah I Learned a lesson today. There's no this.

No AC no working Windows no working interior door handles in the back. That's awesome. Yeah, let's see what we're gonna get out. We go first.

oil change in Forever Oh wow that is nice and and uh, my oil drain is full. So I'm using the Warped LS1 oil pan for my Trans Am This oil is like brand new. This is great! I Don't believe this is a Dodge Caravan engine. I Don't think they even had a four cylinder What? engines came in a 2009? Dodge Caliber All right, this might be a Dodge Caliber engine.

148 horsepower Sweet. All right. Well now I know what oil filter to get I mean I guess there's a part number there too. Look at this like brand new.

It looks good, looks really good. All right with the oil filter off I Gotta run over to the parts store to get that. But first let's pull these plugs in case we need new ones. Seriously has to be the jankiest looking intake I've ever seen, but it's an experimental concept vehicle.

what do you want? All right, let's pop these plugs out. Now by the looks of the oil these are these are going to be good I Hope I don't know. Yeah, they're really good now. we're definitely gonna bore scope too.

We got Ngks and so far this looks perfect. It's definitely been ran, but it looks clean and the rest of the plugs look good too. All right, Borescope time. Okay, let's look inside of our little caliber engine.

Oh, she's pretty. She's nice. Not that much carbon buildup. it's probably a really low mileage engine.

All right. here's another cylinder. looks good. Okay, this Piston's all the way up.

Okay, last one Okay good. We got a little valve open and we can start to see a little bit of the cylinder wall there. Yeah, what? I'm looking for here is rust or obviously any catastrophic damage. I Don't see any of that so we're gonna be safe to fog these and then turn it over.

I Use the Amsoil engine fogging oil, but in any local auto parts store, you get whatever brand you want at this point. I Think all engine fogging oils are pretty much the same, so we're just going to spray it in here. Fights corrosion, protects against dry start wear. I like these cans because they truly do spray upside down and this stuff smells so good.

like I'm hungry for cake. It smells like cake fogging oil has been in the cylinders for about an hour. No plugs are in. Let's see what we got.

Oh like butter. Yes! this engine is awesome. I Mean it's an awesome condition I Don't know if they 148 horsepower caliber engine is awesome, but it's gonna do what we need it to do. I think which is run I Hope I Don't know about you but I am so excited right now.

Um, if we are able to plug this battery in, let it do its little reset procedure or whatever and don't get that clunk noise. We could not only get this thing started, but potentially we could get it to move. maybe I don't know. a three million dollar concept van.

Oh, and I totally forgot there's paperwork inside we need to discover too. Okay I'm gonna get these plugs in right now and I'm actually having the oil filter and the oil delivered. so then we're gonna go. We gotta go look at the paperwork.

This is so exciting! What is this stuff? I Saw this when we first got it and we have bright Automotive display new screen access prey off okay Center Stack axes okay just telling you I guess how to work on it painted bolts inside storage bin are decorative and not removable used Oh man, this is so cool. All right it's telling us right down here about how to remove the driver's seat I think or Slide the driver's seat. look at this assembled 2009 and this was in 2010 some kind of sticker make of car 2009 assembled. that's that's the make engine ID number some craziness I don't know Engine faults, road test no Faults Found uh, 2009.

anything else. What's this? Indiana Certificate of red Vehicle registration Wow! this thing was registered. look at this issue date 2011. What in the world I Don't know what kind of vehicle this is registered as this is crazy this I have a 120 Outlet Okay yeah so this is.

this is like a fake fake love box. doesn't actually open. Everything's just a little fake in here like it doesn't actually have power windows. It's got the switches though.

I Don't know what's going on. It's got a picture of a paper clip on here. This goes back no way, no way. Are you kidding You kidding? That is nice.

A little work spot. you got your drinks Right Here Auto manufacturers pay attention to the bright idea. that is cool. Oh man it.

Clips back into the carbon fiber. Oh hold on. What's this? What's this? What's this? More logs? No, there's nothing I think that's it. There's really not too much in this interior and a lot of it could very well be fake.

I Can't wait to see what this screen does because that's fake. It's just a sticker. I Don't know why they would pick 182 000 miles though. Coils and plugs are back in and we got a new oil filter for hopefully it's the right one.

I Called the Auto Parts store and I said 09 Caliber. Then they asked me a few questions like all-wheel drive, front wheel drive, what engine, blah blah blah I'm like it's it's actually a bright idea. They're like what? I'm like nothing I Didn't think the Caliber had any different oil filters but there we go. She's on.

5W20 going in and now I'm not using Amsoil this time I just got whatever the cheapest stuff at the store was. it'll it'll be okay I figured out that a Ford battery fits under there pretty well. I Got two fire extinguishers ready to go and I'm getting a little a little shaky here people. Not really sure what's going to happen when we plug it in a Lithium-Ion battery that hasn't been plugged in in 12 years.

Okay, I have done a little research and it seems that it will be okay if it's just like a really degraded lithium ion battery and the engineer and Rich told me to do it. so it's It's ultimately their fault. Yes, battery fits pretty well. It's for a Mustang All right.

I Got our flashing clicking thing all right. So before we turn the key again and get that crazy noise, we are going to plug this guy in. Oh, this is the right connector. Yeah, come on dude, this isn't what is this.

This isn't this. No, we might just have to start this engine man. I Was not expecting that. I Popped this open and it just kind of generally looked like your typical electric car charging port outside of a Tesla Um, and it's not.

well. look at this. this exposed circuit board right above it. Whoa.

dude. there's a wire just hanging right here. Great. Okay, yeah, that's fine.

let's tuck that away. Let me know in the comments if you guys know what kind of plug that is, if it's even any kind of standard EV plug I mean I've owned a couple EVS at this point and it was either this or Tesla plug. That's it I Don't know. I'm just gonna go for it guys.

I'm gonna fire up this gas engine and see if it'll charge up the EV battery and it does have a gas tank obviously and I was tapping on it from underneath and it seems to be completely empty I Couldn't find a fuel filter to replace so we're just going to put some some fresh fuel in this guy. Fill her up. I'm glad it didn't have a full tank because 12 years of bad fuel and I didn't see a drain down there. That wouldn't be fun.

All right, that's enough I just put a couple gallons in I don't even know if this is going to work all right I do know this. I'm gonna hold this guy right here when we do this. I'm just going to go for it. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna try and start it.

Like looking to see if my head's about to hit something. My heart is racing. Guys this really this is crazy. Okay here we go: one two three I turned the key, it didn't start I already know it's gonna do that I'm just gonna do it again I Don't care.

Start: Okay, that is really bad. What in the world is going on here? This really stinks I think I'm gonna try and get a hold of that engineer again I Want to see what's going on under the car? I'm gonna gonna stay out of its way though in case it decides to move. Um, all right. go ahead and turn that key on.

Did you see you see? Okay, that is not good. That cannot be some kind of normal reset procedure there is that is crazy it's Gotta I mean it's got to be like a broken Mount or something like obvious. hang on I'm going in. Oh great.

This is the bracket that holds the big electric motor and it looks like it's been broken for a long time. I was over on the other side I didn't see this I mean not that it's normal for this thing to bounce around like crazy, but if there was any movement from this motor, it would. Yeah, this is a big bummer for sure. I Still don't think it should be going wild like it is just by turning the key and the gas engine's not even starting.

Why can't the gas engine just start without this thing wanting to bounce up and down? I don't know. All right. Well the engineer got back to me on the cable. He said this is an early version of the current J1772.

There was a cable that should have been with the van, this connector on one end and a standard 120 volt Outlet on the other. All right, let me get back there. I didn't see anything I put a rag here in the door latch because this thing it just it just wants shut on you and I don't feel like getting trapped I'm the only one here now. so if I do get trapped I'd have to call someone to come get me because No One's Gonna Hear Me I'm in a brick building inside of a space van.

All right. Foreign. Okay, there's some ducting. Wow.

look at the heatsink on this with a fan up there. This thing is so wild. So yeah, that's that's where our charging cable would go in. I don't see anything though.

I've already looked in here, but maybe it got lost in the sea of wires I feel like I'm Indiana Jones right now. Okay okay. mini clay guy. I'm just almost ruined it.

12 volt battery charging only. Oh, this is pretty cool. All right. I don't see it I Gotta say, this is all like crashing down here I was so excited we can't charge the thing.

it's got a broken motor mount. essentially. what's this guy so rigged up it's insane unless it's underneath this clay model now. No.

Well, at this point I'd like to see if I could just get this gas engine running so it could at least charge up the high voltage battery. Oh, and as a reminder, June 24 2023 we're having to fill the van with cans event. so I'll have my supercharged 15 passenger van there. Maybe this guy, we'll see how it goes and I'll leave all the information down below so you can bring your car.

There's going to be food available for sale. we're all going to be hanging out. It's gonna be a lot of fun and the food pantry needs more than just cans. So I'm going to leave a link down below.

You can click on to see other items that they need and hope to see you guys there. Let's let's see if we can get this going. Good Good: I Don't know. Is there any other reset underneath here that we need to do? I mean this is crazy guys.

This is crazy. You need to be one of the guys that built this car. Basically this is nuts. Look at all this though.

just connector. gigantic connector. There we go. No No no no stop stop stop.

Hey I mean I just did a quick one there but it didn't do that crazy motor thing. Also, didn't start. Let's do it again. Stop stop stop stop.

I Gotcha I Gotcha. Ah I won't start. What in the world? it's in park supposedly I'm not giving up just yet. What I want to do is stop that motor from shaking like crazy and this looks like a fireman safety loop.

Essentially, this should shut down all the power to the high voltage battery. It just makes a connection all right now. We shouldn't have a noise. Okay, we're good.

Now we have some kind of humming noise. It's not a fuel pump, but we're not even getting starter action here. Oh wait, it's showing drive now. It was definitely in park and now it's Sean Park again.

it goes back to park. What in the world? Oh oh, is that it's got electric power steering? Doesn't it? Oh okay. gotta get this engine started. This is nuts.

I'm gonna press the on button. Oh my. God This is just like a cheap sticker. This is hilarious.

What does it say? Oh okay, it's like I think that's their logo. Oh man, did they just put this on here for marketing Like people would think, this just signifies turn on an electrical device. This thing is. so this whole car.

Oh my Are you kidding me? This whole thing is fake. What does it say? Look at this. Someone left a note. Engineering Sam I Think Engineering Sam This is hilarious guys Engineering: Sam What's wrong with this thing? I'm talking to engineering Sean Right now that's who's texting me I Want to hear this from under the hood? What is that Super loud I Mean their motor is running stuff is doing something.

It was an idea. All right. it was an idea. Wait a minute.

I Remember this guy. Show car mode Cluster illumination. Let's put it in show car mode. Let's just do this all.

AC Clutch Now we'll leave that alone. Okay, we'll just do these two cluster illumination and show car mode Let's see. Does that make this too simple? No, this is fake I Don't think this does anything at all. I mean it could be touch screen, but there's no other infotainment knobs.

Nothing Okay, this is kind of crazy. Listen to this. Uh, don't try driving anywhere. Okay, but if turning the key switch wakes up the vehicle, use the Prius style Park reverse neutral drive to put it in gear and I think the engine should start I'm like, oh, why is that I'm like in all their cars, it's it's the opposite and he says as long as it's in park I don't think it will attempt to start the engine only if it's in gear.

So I asked him why he hasn't responded yet I'll obviously let you know when he does, but we're gonna put this in a year now. I Guess All right. So right now it's definitely in park. One click over is reverse neutral drive.

I'm gonna go drive. then this should be low. Okay, whatever. we'll leave it in low.

How about that? And I'm not putting it in reverse because if it does something, it's going to smash into the TA. At least we have a little bit of an airstrip here for this thing to, you know, smash into the Corvette All right here we go. No still nothing. it says it's in park I Don't know I'm gonna push this guy into I Don't know if that does anything and you know what while we're here, let's just let's put it in regular drive.

All right. Here we go again. All right guys, it is the next day. Uh, this battery went pretty low yesterday so I charged it up and more importantly I text more with the engineer.

Kind of refreshed his memory by sending him some pictures and it's been 15 years since he helped build this thing so he remembered kind of the starting sequence. if the EV battery is discharged, so this, this might work. Okay, so here's what he said: we're gonna put the key in, put on the brake, we're not turning the key all the way and then we're putting it in. we're putting it in Drive It started Okay, so the whole issue here was and I'd messed with the shifter linkage by the transmission a bunch is it needs to be in Drive essentially to start it and you don't actually take the key and turn it forward like you normally would on a car.

To start it, you just have to put it in position two and then it senses you're in drive. It senses that the EV battery is at a very low state of charge so it automatically kicks on the gas engine just like a hybrid would. But this system is very bizarre so a little confusing. You can't pick any of these modes, but basically, if the battery is fully charged the main battery, its rear-wheel drive EV Only when that gets below a certain threshold, it kicks on the front motor and then it's kind of sort of all-wheel drive.

Sometimes when enough regeneration from the braking sends power to the battery to get it over a threshold. It's very confusing. So basically, the car is sometimes rear-wheel drive, sometimes front-wheel drive, and sometimes all-wheel drive. And if it's not charged, you literally start it by putting it into drive.

So yeah. okay. but here's what's crazy right now. So how do I It's stuck in drive though.

like the engine's running. It's great. Oh oh oh oh, it's in Reverse now. Okay, I'll take that.

but how do I get it back to park like I'm done I'm done driving. Okay, let's just push park down. don't you? Oh do I Oh I Thought this was a rest position. Okay, cool, That's it.

It works. Um, okay. all right. let's do this again.

Okay, and then we click it down for park. Now the engine will stay on. Let's go listen to it. Yeah, this thing sounds perfect.

Great. No smoke coming out of the back, no exhaust leak, no ticking, No, nothing. what? Oh, okay. so I guess if you don't do anything, it just shuts off.

key on break. Okay, then back over to park. So weird. Uh, so the engineer said this screen does light up and it gives you I guess a bunch of information.

It's not lighting up for us now, obviously. but I haven't tried messing with any of these switches. Let's see if that does anything. I don't know.

I'm just literally turning everything on. Oh hey, it's got a blower motor that works. Nothing works like all these are just kind of fake. It's all fake.

It's all fake. Push the power button. Power! Yeah! Power on headlights don't work. It doesn't have wipers.

it's a prototype that's for sure. I know the motor is like really not being held in at all. but I wonder if we can lot drive this like I Definitely won't put it on the road, but let's let's get it off. The jack stands all right, see if it moves a little.

Okay, well. I'm off the brake I'm in. Drive I'm giving it gas nothing I'm flooring it right now. It's got no input on anything.

Let me try reverse. same thing. Okay, oh oh, hang on. oh hey, it's moving.

No way. Oh oh I Just okay. I'm not gonna push my luck anymore I can't I it moved like a few inches in reverse and it it says it's going into drive. Something's going on with the linkage there.

We got it completely broken bracket and that electric motor ready to fall out. So I don't want to mess with that. We're going to have to remove uh, well, essentially the motor probably and the bracket and get that welded up, figure out if it needs any more strength reinforcing. and then I did find out from the engineer that the connector on this car this it was a prototype J1772 connector so the one that we see today.

It came before that and it never went into production. They basically invented this thing. it doesn't exist anywhere so he says I have to d-pin that whole thing and put a new outlet from a more Modern Electric Vehicle in order to charge this thing so that'll be fun to figure out. But in the next video, we're gonna have to figure out the charging situation, fix that bracket, really figure out how to get this thing to move and and go for our first drive.

All right guys! So I have Amy on zoom and Amy had reached out to to Arnie when she found out that the van kind of re-emerged into the world and we spoke for a couple minutes and I was like hang on, hang on, let's Zoom So Amy worked for Bright. Uh, you were one of the first employees, right? Yes, that was the first non-executive hired and I did marketing and sales and uh, so the company started in 2008 and um I think we ended with about 65 employees when the company finally folded 65. that was, that's not. It's the first thing that I wanted to know when Arnie called me and was like hey, you got to buy this van from me for fifteen hundred dollars The first thing I was like how much could this thing have possibly cost to build because like with concept vehicles I know obviously it's all R D and then this on top of that isn't a basic vehicle.

it's obviously a very expensive build. But in 2009 2010 money or whenever you guys finished the van, how much do you think the company had into this thing? Well the vehicle itself was uh almost two million dollars of investment. um you know Millions were raised. we were very hundreds of Millions millions of start this autumn.

Really we were trying to do what Tesla was doing but for fleets So starting a whole new automotive company takes hundreds of millions of dollars and we had an amazing executive team all from you know GM and Chrysler and just top-notch Executives that had the vision and the passion to you know really create this new company and unfortunately it didn't happen. But there was so much investment in development that went into building this vehicle. My role was to travel and interview the top 100 Commercial fleets. So I would ride along with Frito-Lay at four o'clock in the morning and find out what did they like about their vehicles, what they didn't like about their vehicles they know I'm documenting everything and bringing it back to the engineers and then the engineers go and make it happen.

Oh my gosh. so so 2 million went into the building of the van back in 2000 like nine money. so that's like three three million probably to today But does that include I mean 65 employees for how many years? Uh so bright Ended in 2012. So from 2008 to 2012.

Is this the only van in existence? Like was there were there more? So that was our Alpha vehicle goal that we used as a demo to you know bring around to customers it's been to Capitol Hill right? It was all about launching the vision and then the next round was to build the beta Vehicles which were going to be pre-sold and deployed in fleets. to you know get more feedback so that then for production we were good to go. Okay so this is the only. This is the only van though.

It is. Wow! So everything went into this one van. Yeah and it is okay. So I I Wrote down a list of stuff because I'm like I don't want to forget anything.

Why was it abandoned? Like it? It looks brand new and then you know so it looks. Obviously it's been stored indoors for the entire time. Um when you guys folded was what was supposed to happen to the van? Like it's just so crazy that it ended up on Facebook Marketplace for fifteen hundred dollars. Like what happened is my mind.

it was actually donated Um to um a a non-profit you know company that was Um that had engineering students. It was supposed to be utilized for kind of the future and development for the state of Indiana and unfortunately I don't know how it ended up on Facebook Marketplace I'm not gonna lie when I saw the video I shedded a tear because I was like that was two million dollars of investment that was, you know, long hours and long flights going into developing this. We had 35 million dollars of pre-orders from commercial fleets no like like Comcast and Best Buy and you know, huge. Duke Energy Even invested in our company because they all saw the value of the future of electrification and it was custom built and designed specifically for fleets which is my background right? and so it just it kills me it was on Facebook my Marketplace for fifteen hundred dollars like so that's insane it has been to Sweden it went to Volvo to do um, aerodynamics testing.

it's been to Norway for you know EVS I mean we we had to carefully ship that vehicle all over to Capitol Hill to get you know the you know political parties all involved in what we were doing and and to to know where it's interesting. It's so nuts. So okay. speaking of the I guess the politics of the whole thing.

Why do you think you guys didn't get the 450 million dollar? Grant I Guess another question related to that is does it really get 100 miles per gallon Because that was the goal right? right? So it was a plug-in High hybrid. It was 100 mile per gallon Because back then you know we really believe plug-in hybrid was the transition to fully. Yeah, but we weren't ready yet, right? Infrastructure is not there I'd say now we are. but back then we weren't and so um, you know the investment that went into that and you know there was funding the Advanced Technology Vehicle manufacturing.

Uh Loan program was funded by the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration was Distributing it. and unfortunately they invested in companies like Solendra who went bankrupt. They did invest in Tesla they were the only ones that pay it back. it went into Fisker which was not even a US company and here we were saying we're Pride Automotive We're a U.S company with U.S jobs in Indiana and and in Michigan and we were trying to really, you know, create this American-made product that was affordable.

It was purpose built, it was lightweight, aerodynamic. you know it actually really was efficient. and really, did you know keep the cost down because the vehicle was lighter, That you can keep the cost down because the battery would be less expensive, right? versus the Oems. Just take existing chassis that are steel, add some batteries on it, and call it a hybrid and then you're paying a lot of money because of the weight of the vehicle.

And Bright's Focus was primarily voice of the customer. that was my job. Get the voice of the fleet customer and that's what you see in front of you is all of that feedback. Okay so from the top commercial plates.

if I ever fix this thing up and get it driving I should be able to get you know average with the EV range and the gas engine running. I should be able to do like 100 MPG with this. it's so insane because it's like a it's got a lot of room back there I can't wait to test it and I get it to drive again it's got no AC or roll the windows don't work you know but whatever. oh man.

okay um how fast does it go? Do you remember remember I mean it was all right. it was a Chrysler platform. You know we actually had to deal with General Motors to to be our parts been right because we didn't want to reinvent the wheel right? Literally right? We didn't want to create all new parts, we wanted to utilize the existing part spin of you know, big manufacturer and then we provided the powertrain system so that kind of was going to help keep costs down for maintenance and repairability of the vehicle once it was in production. Okay, back then that was when the Chevy Volt came out so a lot of that stuff could have probably worked.

Did you let the old CEO know that it's still around? Yeah, by the way, what is it? Whatever he's done with it, tell him to give me a call because you know really the executive team that built this company. They have been Evus since the early 90s with you know they they worked on GM's first Ev1. A lot of the yeah, it's a lot of our team built the hardware and everything from Ev1 so it crushed them obviously to see the video because this is years and years of their passion. Well um yeah, I don't know how much I don't know how much my channel you've been able to see but I do mostly gas high performance kind of stuff.

but even as a little kid I've always been interested in EVS like the Ev1 when I was a little you know I was born in 84. so you know that was early 90s and I was a kid I'm like oh my gosh, this thing's like a remote control car. you know, like it's electric. So to hear that I now have a concept vehicle that was designed partially by people that were involved with the Ev1.

like that means a ton to me. So my goal is simply to get this thing working again and driving. and I want to test it out and and then from there I'm definitely down to I'll drive it wherever the old CEO and the old engineering team is I'd love to show them you know their van again I know they built it but they haven't seen it in a while. So yeah, maybe we can work out a deal I don't know I'll give you his number.

All right? well I I'm gonna continue to work on this thing. um I have you know some some pretty decent help and then you hooked me up with Sean the engineer uh who's been answering my text messages which is cool thank you Sean I Got My Buddy Rich Rebuilds You know he's he's on the line too. So we're gonna figure this thing out and hopefully make the old team at Bright proud and get it back on the road. That's awesome! So thank you so much for taking the time to uh to to talk to me and tell me all about the car.

I'm super excited I'm excited. Story behind behind? Yeah, thanks for sharing that story. It's in good hands I'm keeping it indoors. Thanks again Amy I Will keep you posted on everything and maybe we'll see you in a future.

Video sounds good Thanks a lot I Know this is a weird one guys. I've always wanted a concept car I Never thought it would be something like this but for fifteen hundred dollars I couldn't pass it up and I know it's kind of unusable, but it's kind of the concept of of concept cars. So I hope you guys enjoyed this little Adventure thus far if you did, give this video a big thumbs up, share the video with your friends and family. subscribe if you haven't already and most importantly, have an awesome day! I'll see all of you in the next video.

Foreign. The interior doesn't smell I think the interior doesn't smell either, so the interior doesn't smell either. The interior doesn't smell either, although it's kind of masked by a bunch of clay. The interior if you click leave, this doesn't sound polish at all.

Yeah no no no I'm just I'm kind of new click knee click knees who had reached out to him I got her contact information. Best part is you guys can save 60 off your subscription if you. okay okay okay basically explain that there's a weird basically explain that there's a if you click me if more you link or click baby. I said it good.

There's an electric motor on the rear axle with a dog clutch to distance. Ah, best part maybe I want to leave I'm done with this and he said in here that it's possible there is a weird and he said in here that all right, think of something else. Think of the TV show you're watching Friday Night Lights whatever I like these because I like these cans because they spray up to that. We're gonna get arrested in this neighborhood sitting here with a camera.