THE SPARROW STORY
The Raven Prototype of 2005
Corbin Motors shut its doors in 2003, but the idea behind the Sparrow did not go away. In 2005, Mike Corbin built a prototype called the Raven to revive the single-passenger vehicle concept, this time with gasoline power rather than an electric drive.
From the Sparrow archive. Product plans, events and availability described here belong to the original historical period.
Keeping the solo-vehicle idea alive
The core of the Sparrow concept had always been the footprint rather than the powertrain: a compact vehicle sized for the one occupant that most commuters actually carry. The Raven applied that same thinking with a gas engine, which sidestepped the battery cost and range questions that shaped early electric cars.
The Raven remained a prototype and did not go into production. It sits in the Corbin story as a bridge between the original Sparrow years and the later electric redesign, showing that the compact commuter idea survived the company's fall.