Who Needs an SUV When You've Got a Street Legal Golf Cart?

A rearview mirror, headlights and a New York State license plate.

It's just like any car except this is a street legal golf cart.

"We certainly get a lot of strange looks. To be registered in New York State it has to have turn signals, parking brakes and seat belts," said Rory Allen.

You may have seen 32-year-old zoomcopy.com owner Rory driving around downtown.

"It's basically a golf cart with license plates," said Allen.

Finding a parking spot is easy.

"It really opened up a lot of opportunities for us to make it to our customers quicker. We're in the quick printing business and this allows us to be in our customer's offices downtown in a matter of minutes," said Allen.

The cart can keep up with cars in 35mph traffic zones and connects to a regular outlet.

"It goes 27mph, depending on the hills. It's electric so it has six large batteries we basically plug it in when we're not using it," said Allen.

Each charge lasts the cart around 30 miles. The Tomberlin Emerge retails for about $6,000 but averages out to a penny per mile.

"We travel to our customers offices downtown about ten times a day. If you compare it to the cost of gas it's about a tenth of the cost of gas to run," said Allen.

Rory's golf cart also comes complete with heated seats and a roomy back compartment for storage.

"There's a mixed reaction between people not acknowledging us at all and people who can't stop pointing at it and looking at it," said Allen.

Rory says the street legal golf cart doesn't have snow tires but it is an option. He's only owned the cart for a couple of months and isn't quite sure yet how the cart will handle in a lot of snow. To him, it's all just one big experiment.

If you're interested in purchasing one you can call Jeff's Skis & Machines at 934-4332.