I was one of the lawyers involved in representing several of Steven Romer’s former law clients after Romer absconded with $6 million + in client funds. He disappeared around Christmas time one year and resurfaced a few months later telling a bizarre story about how he had been kidnapped by unknown gunmen from “X Corp.,” a company that he refused to identify. We did not learn who “X Corp.” was until about 2 years later, during Romer’s criminal trial, when he claimed that “X Corp.” was actually General Motors and that they were after him as part of a huge conspiracy to suppress his electric car technology. I googled his name to see what happened to him after his conviction and came across this blog — I guess that he electric car story had some basis in fact, although it sounds like Solargen was a pretty dubious venture in itself.

I am also a native of Cortland NY and remember the Solargen era. John Kane (post above) remembers it well too.

Cortland is a small city that had a lot of locally owned industry in the first half of the 20th century. Cortland had Smith-Corona and was “the typewriter capital of the world.” Wickwire steel mill had large shares of the world market in certain special products. Carriages, clothing, tennis rackets, Cortland had a lot of industry. But one by one industries were leaving or closing.

The best place in town to work was Brockway Motors. They paid the best hourly wages of any shop. This was once an independent truck manufacturer but had been acquired by Mack Trucks. Mack Trucks had a larger plant in Allentown PA. In 1977 Mack moved all the operations to Allentown and took most of management but not the front line workers.

This was the era of high gas prices, the “national malaise” of Jimmy Carter, and a general outlook of doom and gloom. It was a time when nobody could forsee the 1980s, the 1990s, a stock market at 14K or even 10K. It was into this environment that Steven Romer came. Along came this man who was going to locate a cutting edge industry right in Cortland! He was going to acquire the old Brockway Trucks facility and make the product of the future, electric cars. He was going to hire back all those laid off Brockway folks. People wanted to believe.

The story of Solargen and Steven Romer would be quite a book.

- Steve Jerome

/a quick correction: Steven J. Romer, former president of Solargen Electric Motorcar Corp. of Cortland, NY was convicted of bilking investors of 7 million, not 10 million dollars. This happened after he left Cortland and closed Solargen and went to NYC. I googled his name and the report said that Romer had been denied parole after 13 years of a possible 22 year sentence. Those cars may turn out to be valuable just because of the bizarre story.

Dear Reader,
I am a native of Cortland, NY. The Solargen Electric Motorcar represented one of the worst scams ever visited on my hometown. The story is worthy of a book. Stephen Romer, a lawyer who helped buy out and close Brockway Motors (Cortland NY) for Mack truck got a 3 million dollar grant from the US government to build electric cars. The lions share of grant money available at the time went to the big auto makers and of course they took the money and ran as did Romer.

Romer never intended to build electric cars – the city of Cortland gave him buildings and incentives, hoping to take up the slack from the closing of Brockway. Romer hired one mechanic, installed his wife (Romer’s) as secretary and proceeded to pretend that he was serious. In one instance, he was under pressure to produce something and he had announced that he had a new revolutionary battery type that would make his cars feasible. Mysteriously, there was an “accident” on the way to the showing and the batteries were destroyed.

When Romer left Cortland, he went to NYC and managed to bilk investors out of ten million dollars. I remember seeing a picture of him being led away in handcuffs. At that time, he was either mentally ill or was pretending to be.

Many residents of Cortland bought dealerships for these cars at 1,500 bucks a pop. I know – I have the checkbook receipts from the office. When Romer left, he didn’t clean out his office, but friends of mine did.

Those cars never went 30 miles, or any miles, that I know of. They weren’t supposed to. I have two of the original Solargen Electric Motorcar signs that hung on the fence outside the building. They remind me of an amazing scam that happened when our government gave a guy 3 million dollars and never even checked to see what he was doing with it.

Perhaps there are three known to exist. Forney Museum of Transportation, Denver, Colorado, has a 1979 with approximately 270 miles on it. I understand that it is to be exhibited this month, (June).

Oops, bidding has ended. I guess I *would* be surprised if it went higher.

He’s already got a bid for 3500. I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes higher. If all it needs is new batteries and some minor repairs, this would be a great buy.

Consider that the new G-Whiz costs 18,000 US, and is a tiny cramped thing in comparison. What I’d like to know is the maximum range on a single charge, which is probably very poor. My best guess would be 30-40 miles.

How come there are so fewer blog post now a days. You used to expect 10 a day. Reading them was a great relief from work.