Ann-Margret's Electric Sports Rider

I had promised a piece on the connection of the Kelsen Electric Sports Rider to the famed entertainer Ann-Margret, so here it is.

The car was a 1961 Kelsen Sports Rider electric car made by Art Kelsen in Stanton, California. From what I can tell, this particular three-wheeled car was modified with a custom rear section from a golf cart by George Barris the "King of Kustomizers" at his shop in North Hollywood, CA. As a youth I used to ride my bicycle down to the Barris shop and peer through the windows at all the great Cars of the Stars and Moviemobiles. In a previous post I described the cars produced by Kelsen which, like other autoettes, were primarily built for running errands in developments and neighborhoods and had a top speed of about 25mph.

From two different books on George Barris I've compiled George's recollections of the car. As George recalls in 1964, "More importantly, we did a custom Ann-Margret golf kart as a Christmas present from her new husband, Roger Smith. It was built around a Kelsen Manufacturing Sports Rider electric cart that I got from Art Kelsen down in Stanton. We proceeded to completely re-body it in 20-gauge steel sheets so we could trim it out with hand carved wooden ornamentation. Once this was done, we gold-leafed the whole body using imported Italian gold leaf, which we weatherproofed with two coats of clear. We then added a fringed surrey top, custom gold A-M logo stitching, matching Mouton carpet, her name across the nose in script, and a chrome edge bumper. At the time, it was a $8,000 kart and totally unique. We helped Roger wrap a red ribbon around the cart before he presented it to her at Universal Studios. She was ecstatic about having her own wheels to whip around the huge studio lot." The Barris shop also added spun Moon disc covers to the rear wheels (I've always liked Moon discs).

Here is the car outside the Barris shop in North Hollywood.

The Ann-Margret car was the first in a series of small electric cars customized in the 1960's for Hollywood celebrities like Bob Hope, and others. Unlike Ann's car, the others were based on golf carts. Ann-Margret liked the car so much that nearly a decade later she still had it at her home in Benedict Canyon and mentioned it in interviews for LIFE magazine and LOOK in 1971. Here's a couple of publicity shots of Ann-Margret and the cart.

If anyone has any other pictures of this car or knows where Ann-Margret's Sports Rider is today I'd love to hear about it!