Yahoo Autos Dartz Freze Froggy EV Beachstar is an electric, golf cart-like roadster
Known globally for peddling hard-to-match flamboyance (including some infamous options), Latvia-based Dartz is moving downmarket by releasing an EV called Freze Froggy EV Beachstar. The golf cart-like convertible traces its roots to China and it was designed as a tribute to a pair of decades-old concepts.
Dartz explained that it developed the Freze Froggy EV Beachstar for car-sharing programs, rental car companies and resorts in the market for a small, inexpensive and relatively stylish vehicle to drive around their respective properties. It looks like the pocket-sized convertible is related to the Wuling Hong Guang Mini EV, which — as its name implies — is a 114-inch long electric car built and sold in China. The Wuling model is a product of a joint-venture among General Motors, SAIC and Guangxi Automobile Group. While the microcar is only offered with a fixed roof, the Freze Froggy EV Beachstar stands out with a short windshield, equally short windows and no roof panel.
While buyers will have several colors to choose from, the model depicted in Dartz's press images features a yellow and green paint job because it picks up where two earlier design studies left off. The first is the Millennium Adventure, an off-roader built by dropping the body of a first-generation Mercedes-Benz SLK 230 on the frame of a G-Class. An investor named Jim Rogers commissioned it in 1999 and took it on a 116-country, 152,000-mile tour of the world. The second is the Volkswagen Froggy, a Beetle with several frog-inspired modifications.
