Golf Cars Through The Decades

Though regularly called "golf carts," motorized vehicles that carry players and clubs around a course should properly be termed golf cars. Containers for golf clubs that have no motor and are pulled around by a player on foot are carts, technically speaking. When a conveyance runs on an electric or gasoline engine, that is a golf car.

Miniature electric-powered vehicles were first developed for disabled Americans in the 1930s. Companies also offered them as an option for women when they went grocery shopping. Marketeer Company, a Redlands, California manufacturer, first suggested an electronic car for golf course driving in 1951.

Marketeer devised the concept of electronic vehicles during World War II when rationing had made gasoline harder to obtain. The Marketeer golf cars of the 1950s used a 36-volt battery for power that had earlier served to move the wing flaps on B-17 bombers. Most golf cars of that era had a tiller instead of a steering wheel, and three tires. Golf cars looked like this until the 1970s.

By the 1980s, golf cars had grown to four wheels and ran on gasoline. The cycle has turned full circle in recent decades, however: sensitivity to the ecology has brought electric golf cars back into vogue. Designed to carry freight as well as passengers, on the links or off, contemporary golf cars also vary in potential top speed and handling.

For $3,000 to $15,000, an habitu?of the links can purchase any of a number of standard models on the market. The size of a vehicle can affect the price, of course: most golf cars seat two to six passengers, but larger ones are available. Additional features, such as cooler trays, ball cleaners, windshields, and a more powerful motor, can increase the price.

In earlier times, well-to-do owners of golf cars occasionally customized their vehicle to make it look like a NASCAR racer, a Hummer, a Rolls Royce Phantom, or a California roadster. More recently, manufacturers have performed customizations for golf car owners. Not only a familiar luxury car shape, but interior lighting, hydraulic brakes on each wheel, a heated windshield, sports car-quality suspension, and other features are available for the asking.

Since the 1970s, golf car designers and builders have extended their markets beyond greens and fairways. The vehicles have become popular for transporting people and gear on movie sets, in storage warehouses, and at retail gardening centers. Adaptations to the basic design have included pneumatic-assisted tilting dump beds, and refreshment vehicles with shelves and refrigeration units.

Another venue for golf car use in the last 35 years has been planned retirement communities. Whether they have a golf course or not, towns like Peachtree City, Georgia, Sun City, Arizona, and The Villages, Florida have embraced golf cars as a fixture in their communities. Belize, the popular Caribbean destination for vacationers, also sees heavy use of golf cars as a local mode of transportation..