Before Jack Hooker started Kart Digital, he was better known for owning the first Mercedes-Benz dealership in Dallas. He took over the business in 1957 from his father-in-law, Andrew "Rip" Van Winkle, who also had a Pontiac dealership in Dallas.

Two decades later, Mr. Hooker sold the Mercedes business to Stephenson Motor Co. In 1987, Park Place bought it from Stephenson and continues to sell the German luxury car in North Texas.

Around 1980, Mr. Hooker and a partner worked on an electric car project funded by federal grants. The pair replaced the lead in typical batteries with a wet cell that had magnesium fuel rods. Magnesium and graphite plates then were bathed in a special electrolytic solution, which released electric energy as it dissolved the magnesium rods.

"There was a huge push in the late '70s and early '80s to build electric cars," said Drew Campbell, president of the New Car Dealers Association of Metropolitan Dallas. "But as oil collapsed in the mid-'80s, they faded away."

Mr. Hooker's project foundered as the gas crisis subsided and the Reagan administration canceled its funding. Electric cars generally were "of minimal value then because of their range and [of] even less [value] by today's standards," Mr. Campbell said.

Now, with gas prices touching $4 a gallon, Mr. Hooker said he'd like to reprise his electric car project. The current economic environment, combined with technological advances in batteries, could make such a car viable today, he said.