The Chrysler PT Cruiser is one of the most memorable vehicles of the neo-retro movement. At the turn of the millennium, Chrysler slapped together a mid-century design with economy car parts and built something that was, however briefly, an accessible fashion statement. They’re not quite so old that they’re cool again, but this particular example might just be the raddest thing I’ve seen in a while.
This PT Cruiser is up for sale on Facebook Marketplace in Oilville, Virginia. It’s got 77,000 miles on the clock, an automatic transmission, and a decent coat of blue paint. Oh, and it’s got a gullwing door that opens right up to the sky, like some kind of crazy tuner car from the mid-2000s.
Only, in this case, there’s a far more practical reason for the fancy mods. This PT Cruiser is wheelchair accessible!
Yes, the whole point of that gullwing door is to create a big, wide opening so the driver can get their wheelchair into the car. Entry is via an electrically operated ramp. There is no conventional driver’s seat, either. Instead, the driver remains in their wheelchair, which gets locked into place using an EZ Lock Wheelchair Docking System. This uses a pin mounted on the wheelchair, which locks into a V-shaped bracket on the vehicle floor, and is operated from an attachment on the dash. Once seated in position, the driver can then raise the ramp and remotely close the doors with a button on the keyfob. With the given seating configuration, the vehicle will seat three to four additional passengers beyond the driver in their own wheelchair. The vehicle also appears to have hand controls for the throttle and brake.
This PT Cruiser appears to have been built by Freedom Motors. The company sold a range of modified PT Cruisers for the wheelchair market. These could be had in various configurations with the wheelchair user given either the driver or passenger position in the vehicle, referred to as the PT Driver or PT Rider respectively. This example is set up so the wheelchair user drives the vehicle. The model was pitched as a “cool” alternative to traditional wheelchair-accessible van models.
Outside of the modifications, the car appears to be a PT Cruiser in relatively good condition. The engine bay appears clean and tidy, as does the interior. Interestingly, the advert also appears to have a closeup photo of one of the tires, indicating it has a decent level of tread.
The car is being sold by H&C Auto, a used car dealer in Oilville, Virginia. The car is up for sale for $5,800 plus a $399 dealer processing fee, so call it $6,200. If you’re keen on scoring a gullwing PT Cruiser, you’re probably not going to find another one any time soon. However, it’s worth noting that you can’t really drive this thing without a suitable wheelchair, as you’d have nowhere to sit.
…though the headlights could use a polish.
Ultimately, this is both a cool modified PT Cruiser, and one with a very important purpose. It gave someone in a wheelchair the ability to drive themselves around at will in considerable style, assuming the PT Cruiser is an aesthetic you respect. Now, this bold vehicle will serve another, and likely draw a few eyes when that rad gullwing door opens up in the parking lot. Pretty darn cool, if you ask me.
Image credits: Facebook Marketplace, EZ Lock
Not a fan of the Bruiser but damn, that is one awesome mobility conversion. Not for everyone or every environment as you need some beefy arms to get up that short ramp even with kneeling shocks. Snow looks like it would be a major PITA with such a short ramp and steep incline. If one of the big accessibility conversion companies could by the rights to his patents and with some tweaks make it better that would be awesome. The guy gets major cred in my book for designing and build such an awesome vehicle.
I have a friend who drives locally in his ’63 VW bus. Modified only by installing a VW Type 3 automatic transmission, hand controls, and monkey bars at the ceiling to swing/drag from the side doors to the driver seat.
I do like the concept, though it definitely requires a handicap spot to work, you’re not street parking this thing unless you want to roll into traffic.
That was a painful video to watch, but it’s a nice concept that doesn’t stand out as a wheelchair car. I thought it was weird when the video mentioned the option for a manual transmission, which seemed like it would be quite the challenge until I realized that must apply to the version modified for the passenger space.
It’s too bad the VPG MV-1 failed. I guess that’s not a huge market, but I also read they had a lot of problems. Didn’t help that they had too many unnecessary proprietary parts. Still would be nice to have purpose-built wheelchair vehicles instead of expensive, conspicuous, and often poorly modded standard vehicles (though I guess the conspicuous part is less likely to get someone harassed by some loser self-appointed parking lot enforcement vigilante).
On the contrary, manual transmission options used to be available with hand controls, usually using a motorcycle style clutch handle so you could gas and clutch with the same hand.
No idea if that was true of this model, but certainly was available in the 80s since a family friend had it.
I thought of that, but they would have to use one hand to operate the clutch, one to operate the throttle, one to sometimes operate the brake (even with a hill holder function, there would be times it would be needed), and to shift, they’d have to move their arm past what might be the interference of the wheelchair arm to reach the shifter. Then there’s having to deal with all those controls with the wheel in different positions and being able to respond in an emergency. It could be done, but even as a diehard manual fan, I know that’s not something I’d want to do in even moderate traffic.
This looks a lot easier to pull off than the guy with a lifted K5 Blazer who rolled up, did a sort of jungle gym move to get in the driver’s seat and then reached down to fold his wheelchair and toss it in the back.
For weirdness I’ve encountered motorcycle sidecar rigs where the rider rolled their wheelchair into the sidecar and ran everything from the sidecar
This just shows how useful the PT Cruiser was for interior room. You could fit 5 adults, and plenty of things in the hatch in the footprint of a 2nd generation Neon. That’s what I really miss about the boxy era with the PT Cruiser, Cube, Element, xB, you had the same basic premise but with style, all we have left is the Soul, which is fine as long as you keep it away from usb cords.
Okay, hear me out: make the passenger side have the same gullwing door, add a big ol’ jet engine that deploys out the hatch, and you have yourself a pretty good IRL M.A.S.K. Thunderhawk!!
If I had won the mega millions last week, an 85 Iroc Z and some gullwing doors might have been on my shopping list….
That’s pretty cool, and a lot less ungainly than all those lifted BraunAbility Pacificas and Grand Caravans driving around.
That’s what I thought; this seems way more economical, practical, and, uh, stealthy?
Yeah. I shared the ad with one of my old friends who – because of an accident within a month of us graduating high school – is quadriplegic and always in the market for such vehicles, and his responses were that he prefers lifts to ramps, and that being a 2007 vehicle, even with the low mileage this thing is old for purpose.
That being said he has visions of adapting a 60s or 70s cab-over van to hand controls.
That EZLoc system is a lifesaver. We had one for our daughter’s chair and it really made life simpler. We had it in a Chevy Express van with a power chair lift that removed the center captain chairs and it really worked well for our family.
I love this. A lot of people do not respect reserved parking spots. Just by being a tiny bit smaller and lower (shorter ramp), it allows a little bit of wiggle room when a single-occupant three row road obstacle parks too close to a reserved van space.
Thanks for highlighting a market sector that the automakers have ignored- For decades wheelchair using drivers have been causing sales bumps for 2 door coupes and low riding pickups and minivans with suicide doors. GM even featured a wheelchair using employee in an ad for the extended cab S10 with suicide doors and I swear half the buyers of one of Nissan’s minivans were wheelchair users. Today we gimps have few choices left- All the pickups are too tall to transfer into, vans are getting up there in height and price, and the Mustang is about the only 2 door left.
That’s one thing I’ve always wondered about. It’s already expensive to convert cars to wheelchair use. In the last four years the ones that were the favourites of conversion companies because they didn’t break $50,000 (the Transit Connect, Dodge Caravan/Chrysler Town & Country, Ford Edge, Ford Flex, Nissan NV200) have all been discontinued. And the new ones are terrible to convert because they sit too high, the doorsills are too thick, the door openings are so small, and the interiors are too cramped with the center console dashboard being too damn thick. In the next decade, are an entire group of people about to become largely immobile outside of their own homes because market compression has killed so many options?
Maybe one of the actual auto designers that are hanging around here could explain why center consoles are so ubiquitous.
I like a little something to the right of the accelerator for my foot to rest against on long drives , but that big pile of crap I don’t need.
Police cars get column shifts and no center consoles, why not the rest of us?
Agreed, Hugh and Vee- My daily drivers are a Transit Connect and Golf7 TDI. Got the Connect for the low floor and high roof and ’cause it’s just so damn versatile, Golf is low enough but wish I could still get a 2 door. With easily accessible vehicles like these disappearing from the market, gimp mobility is getting damn expensive- Those lower and turn seats are $10K each, and carving up minivans just to get a few inches of height ain’t cheap either. Even hand controls are getting expensive- Been hoarding a couple sets of them since the 90s, car I had one in was stolen so I’m on the verge of putting the other set in the Golf. Transit Connect has a knee(capping) air bag so have to go with the new hand controls for electronic throttles, they won’t sell hand controls to DIYers anymore and I’m afraid to even ask. the price!
I’m pretty well abled, but I’m am told that VW new beetles are remarkably adaptable on account of having so much interior space. I see one with a wheelchair on a roof rack with some sort of stowing arm mechanism occasionally
Those damn giant center consoles make even massive road pigs cramped AF inside and for no good purpose. They’re the most inefficiently designed spaces for oversized sugar water containers, maybe a phone charger, and probably an over-designed shifter with poor feedback that could be located anywhere else, especially when manual transmission cars have largely been dropped, so there’s no parts commonality consideration as an argument, not that the console needs to be so damn big even if there was.
This is awesome. Might be a bit tough to get in and out of with bigger wheelchairs or for older folks who aren’t as precise with getting in and out, but that’s damn cool that they’ve modified something that’s not a big van.
Good on them for making this, bigger vans can be unwieldy in urban environments. I love that this gives ultimate usability to the disabled; not just caregivers, family, etc…
Is anyone doing mods like this today? The Kia Soul would seem like the logical successor
Nice idea to give wheelchair users the option of driving themselves around in regular sized and regular looking car instead of a lifted minivan or those ugly MV-1s that were around, seems like there’d be a market. I had a coworker years ago who drove a 2000s Civic with hand controls, but, in her case, she used a lightweight collapsible chair and was able to slide herself into the driver seat and fold up the chair and stow it in the front passenger area, she didn’t need it modified so extensively that she could stay in the wheelchair and drive on in, but that probably still would have been a lot more convenient
Maybe the new skateboard electric platforms will help with this sort of thing. Us normally abled too often neglect the needs of our brethren.
It looks like the floor has been lowered in this car, and like the ramp may stow under the car floor. That space is less flexible in an EV where it may be occupied by batteries.
I’ve seen similar done with full size pick ups. The front and rear doors open as one gull wing door and a wheel chair lift raises the driver into the cabin instead of using a ramp.
It appears the Freedom is still at it (or at least, someone using that name), with the Kia Soul being the heir apparent to the PT Cruiser. It doesn’t look like the “self-drive” configuration is terribly popular (or they sell fast), although they have this one with a transfer seat setup:
https://www.freedommotors.com/product/wheelchair-suv/2024-kia-soul-ex/
Wondering if the advent of side airbags has made cutting into the B pillar less palatable from a liability point of view (although it gets done with full-size trucks, so maybe not).
I was wondering a bit about the driver’s airbag, too, how well that works with a chair that isn’t as securely connected as a car seat would be – VPG didn’t install a passenger side bag in the MV-1 for that reason (and also therefore never followed through on the original plan of offering an optional front passenger seat)
Without testing, there’s no way to be sure the side airbag wouldn’t introduce unintended hazards when used with something other than the factory seat.
I actually love this car just for the execution of it’s mission. Damn fine modification if you ask me.
Like that it has some protection from being a pure drive through in a side impact, but i expect the other driver will still park on the pt cruiser driver.
Seen that car lot, I’m willing to bet there are Pine needles under every single windshield wiper
A friend of mine had a similar system in her R50 MINI. Her dad modified the car for her and used the back hatch as the door with a fold out ramp through part of the rear bumper. She was so excited about it because she’d never had the chance to learn to drive because she couldn’t sit in a regular seat with her conditions so at age 22 she got a car and her license all at once. It’s been 15 years now and she still cruises that little thing around.
This is pretty cool! I have a younger brother with spinabifida and we have looked a bit at driving options for him. Mostly Honda elements and single cab tacomas or rangers with swiveling drivers seats and chair winch. He’s not super stoked about the idea of a van, and this is probably not too much better, but a really awesome idea! There were xB’s built similar to this too
I hope they weren’t first-gen xBs. Those lose a lot of rigidity when cutting into them. Toyota had to buy back all the xBs with the webasto sunroof installed.
I didn’t know that about the first gen’s. I think they only did 2nd gen’s this way and the rear ramp on the first gen
The exterior looks good until you get to the passenger front. The wheel looks bent. Someone turned into a lamp post or a cement pylon at a pretty good speed is my bet.
Its amazing how much damage a concrete filled pipe can do near a gas pump. I’ve had a wagon with both rear 1/4 panels tuned up by them before I owned it.
Huh, I think I’ve seen one of these before when I was driving through Kansas. I spent a few minutes behind one on the highway wondering what in the world was up with what looked like hinges on the driver’s side. I never got to see the side profile to look at the driver (or get a better view to determine if they were hinges), so it has just stuck in my head as a mystery. Mystery potentially solved!