New in the collection: the Witkar

This electric car was the first shared car in the world. Its creator and designer, Luud Schimmelpennink, a so-called provo, wanted to use it to tackle traffic problems.

The city of Amsterdam was clogging up – why did everyone need to have their own car? The Witkar, introduced in 1972, was far ahead of its time. At first you still had to pay with coins, but soon you could do this with your own coded magnetic key. A drawback of the Witkar was that it had to be recharged relatively often. In 1974, the first electric charging station for the Witkar was therefore opened, quickly followed by 3 other stations. The aim was to eventually create 25 stations and 150 Witkars, but that turned out to be unfeasible. For 25 guilders per year and 10 cents per kilometer driven, you could make “lifelong” use of these vehicles. A few thousand Amsterdam residents became members of the association, but it never became a resounding success. Even so, it was not until 1988 that the municipality of Amsterdam decided to terminate the project.