Yahoo Autos Junkyard Gem: 2006 Kandi KD-970GKE-2
Kandi has been selling off-road machinery in the United States for quite some time, generating occasional talk about building affordable EVs here in recent years. Yes, Kandi-badged golf karts, dirt bikes, dune buggies, karts and other non-highway-legal machines have been commonplace in North America for decades… but today's Kandi-built Junkyard Gem is a something a bit different.
I found this mysterious vehicle at a boneyard just south of Denver, and it appears that somebody bought the whole thing within days of it showing up in the inventory.
This car—yes, it qualifies as a true car, as we'll see—was built when Kandi was run by the Zhejiang Kangdi Vehicles Company in China. The company appears to have gone through some mergers and/or ownership changes since then, but an Internet Archive Wayback Machine search for 2006 brings up this page from the company's old website, describing a KD-970GKE-2 "Go Kart" with a 1,000cc engine.
The engine is a Lifan SOHC straight-four, with old-fashioned distributor ignition and what appears to be extremely simple throttle-body fuel injection.
The whole thing looks very much like a 970cc Suzuki F10 engine, and the "970" in the model name suggests that this could be one of the many license-built F10s built in China by various manufacturers.
The power goes to the rear wheels via an old-fashioned four-speed manual transmission.
