3 Automotive Urban Legends, Hoaxes, and Conspiracy Theories
Automobiles have been around for more than 120 years. It shouldn’t be surprising that, over that time, myths and lore have accumulated. Some of those stories are indeed true, like that of Henry Ford physically attacking the prototype of the restyled Model T that his son Edsel had commissioned on the sly. Others are fanciful and have that certain ring of urban legend, and there are even those stories alleged to involve dark secrets and conspiracies. Even paranoids can have actual enemies, of course, but most conspiracy theories deserve their association with headgear made of thin sheets of refined bauxite. However, as the rabbis of the Talmud taught, no lie can stand without a grain of truth to make it believable.
So without further delay, let’s look at three popular stories that are often repeated in various iterations as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, that people swear happened to a friend of a friend of a friend. Enjoy the read, and then in the comments below, please tell us your favorite automotive urban legend, myth, or conspiracy theory.
Myth #1: Henry Ford’s Specifications for Parts Crates Allowed Him to Recycle the Wood as Floorboards
Our first tall tale has to do with Henry Ford, the subject of many such yarns. Allegedly, Ford Motor Company specified the size of crates used by component suppliers so the boxes could be carefully broken down and the wood panels repurposed as floorboards for Model Ts.
My favorite, rather elaborate, version of this story (elucidated here at the Jalopy Journal) hinges on what kind of plywood Ford used for floorboards. Of course, one commenter says, “the facts are true.”
Apparently, one of his outsource CEO’s got a call from Henry, not in regard to the product being sent to Ford, but the containers they were being shipped in. Ford started growling at the guy that the boxes were unacceptable and needed to be changed IMMEDIATELY! Ford then gave the fellow instruction on what type of wood to use, new dimensions, AND where to drill the holes and what type screws to use.
Now, as soon as the gentleman was off the phone with Henry, he was back on with of Ford’s execs, along the lines of, “the guy has finally cracked, etc”.
Well, the day came for the first shipment to arrive. Ford came down to the loading dock, with a train of exec’s waiting to see whether or not Ol’ Henry was ready for the happy farm… Ford asked one of his employees to move one of the boxes over to the assembly line, took off his jacket, unscrewed one of the boxes and put the board onto a chassis that was on the line.
I know that I embellished a bit (been a while since I’ve heard the story), and I don’t know what year it was, but the facts are true—Ford got free floorboards out of his supplier.
In reality, not much of that story is true, although Ford did use a lot of wood in making the Model T. It’s estimated that each Model T used about 100 board feet of lumber—for the floorboard, toeboard, dashboard, spokes for the “artillery” style wheels, and a wooden frame for the body’s steel panels.
Also, after the Dodge brothers (who were his primary supplier) parted with Ford, Ford Motor Company developed into one of the most vertically integrated manufacturing firms in history. Eventually, FoMoCo made its own steel from ore mined from its own mines, its own glass, and Henry even tried growing his own rubber trees in the Amazon. There was a period when Ford didn’t have that many outside suppliers. Because of his need for wood Ford owned about a half-million acres of forest in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, along with three lumber mills as well as a large industrial facility in Iron Mountain for milling that wood into usable parts. If anyone was making wood crates for Ford parts, it was Ford. Those wood crates, however, were not recycled into floorboards. There was a special department at the Rouge facility for recycling that wood into other crates.
The urban legend dates back over a century. In fact, in 1922, the financial and business editor of the New York Tribune wrote Henry Ford to verify the story and Edsel Ford’s office replied, saying there was “no truth whatever” in the story.
One part of the story that is true: Henry Ford was very much into recycling. The Iron Mountain facility didn’t just make wood parts (and bodies for “woodie” station wagons and eventually military gliders during WWII as well). It processed sawdust, wood scraps, and other waste materials into usable materials like methanol, creosote, and charcoal briquettes.
Myth #2: GM Bought Up Streetcar Companies to Kill Public Transportation and Sell More Cars
The idea of big corporations conspiring to increase profits at the public’s expense is an easy one to sell to credulous people, even some who are initially skeptical.
This particular conspiracy theory has been amplified by Hollywood, via the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and on public television through the documentary Taken for a Ride. Here’s how it goes: In the mid-20th century, American cities had inexpensive, efficient, and convenient public transportation provided by streetcars running on rails and powered by overhead cables. General Motors changed all that when it bought up streetcar companies and purposefully stymied them by increasing fares and decreasing service. All of this was supposedly a step in ultimately replacing them with buses that were more profitable to GM, but less convenient to riders. In turn, the add-on effect would be to persuade now-unhappy public transportation riders to switch to privately owned automobiles.
We actually know the origin of this conspiracy theory. Fifty years ago, a newly hired attorney named Bradford Snell, working for the U.S. Senate on antitrust matters, testified that the government had criminally charged “…General Motors and allied highway interests for their involvement in the destruction of 100 electric rail…systems… throughout the country.”
Snell further said that a “federal jury convicted GM of having criminally conspired with…others to replace electric transportation with gas or diesel-powered buses,” and that the streetcar systems had been “vastly superior” in terms of speed and comfort to the internal-combustion-engine-powered buses that took their place.
Snell concluded,
“The noisy, foul-smelling buses turned earlier patrons of the high-speed rail systems away from public transit, and, in effect, sold millions of private automobiles…General Motors’ destruction of electric transit systems across the country left millions of urban residents without an attractive alternative to automotive travel.”
Let’s break this down. It’s indeed a historical fact that the General Motors-affiliated companies (with investments from Firestone, Standard Oil and other companies in the oil and transportation sectors) National City Lines and Pacific City Lines started to purchase municipal trolley systems starting in the late 1930s. It’s also a fact that, in a few short years, those streetcar lines went out of business, to be replaced by municipal bus lines. As well, it’s a historical fact that GM, Pacific City, and other firms were indicted in 1947 for conspiring to monopolize the interstate sale of buses, fuel, tires, and other supplies to their captured transportation companies, as well as conspiring to form a transportation monopoly. While most of those companies were convicted on charges of monopolizing the sale of buses and related materials, they were acquitted of the charge of trying to monopolize transportation in general.
Transportation Quarterly is an academic journal published by the non-partisan Eno Transportation Foundation. In 1997 it published a paper by Cliff Slater titled General Motors and the Demise of Streetcars arguing that there was no conspiracy. Slater argued that the trolley systems were replaced by buses for strictly economic reasons. Buses were cheaper to run than streetcars and were much less expensive to implement because they didn’t need railways. Cities and suburbs were expanding rapidly, and it was much easier, cheaper, and faster to simply add another bus stop on existing roads, rather than extend the rails.
The paper further asserts that it wasn’t the death of streetcars that increased private car ownership; it was the other way around. Before the popularization of the private automobile, if you wanted to get to work on time, you took pains to live within a 30-minute walk of a streetcar line. The convenience of driving directly to one’s destination in privacy and comfort won out over taking a crowded trolley and then having to walk blocks from the trolley stop to one’s final destination. Additionally, having a private automobile makes shopping and carrying home your purchases more convenient.
In 2010, CBS’s Mark Henricks reported:
There is no question that a GM-controlled entity called National City Lines did buy a number of municipal trolley car systems. And it’s beyond doubt that, before too many years went by, those street car operations were closed down. It’s also true that GM was convicted in a post-war trial of conspiring to monopolize the market for transportation equipment and supplies sold to local bus companies. What’s not true is that the explanation for these events is a nefarious plot to trade private corporate profits for viable public transportation.
Myth #3: The 200-Mile-Per-Gallon Carburetor
This myth also has to do with alleged suppression. In this case, oil and car companies supposedly kept a highly efficient carburetor off of the market.
In truth there are, ahem, manifold reasons why the auto industry moved away from carburetors and embraced electronic fuel injection. Controlling emissions was probably the, ahem, driving factor but the simple fact is that fuel injection works better. (Editor’s Note: Ronnie’s throat-clearing quota has been reached. One more and we pay him in lozenges.) What’s surprising is that despite the indisputable superiority of fuel injection, stories about miracle carburetors continue circulating to this day. What’s not surprising is that, despite the change in technology, there are still dubious fuel-saving devices on the marke. Many claim to work via your car’s OBD II port or even the 12V power socket.
As with other urban legends and conspiracy theories, this one has a compelling story. Variations abound.
Here’s the gist: Someone takes delivery of a car from a major automaker. In some versions it’s a retirement gift from the company, in others a couple arranges for a factory delivery. They are shocked to discover that the car achieves unheard-of fuel economy. In some tellings, it’s 100 mpg; in others, it’s as much as 200. Of course, nobody can ever prove it because these stories usually end in one of four conspiracy-laden ways:
- Mysterious men show up, pop the hood, make a few adjustments and the magical mileage returns to normal.
- The automaker recalls the car. It is either replaced by another car or the original car is returned, minus the unusually efficient gas mileage.
- Guys in suits with briefcases of cash show up and make an offer that can’t be refused.
- The car is stolen or otherwise disappears overnight.
The popularity of this particular urban legend has arguably tilled fertile ground for scam artists promoting dubious inventions. You may have heard of scams such as the “Fish Carburetor.” To make matters more confusing, while there have been multiple cases of such fraudulent products, there was a genuine, non-scam Fish carburetor.
We’ll get to the real-deal Fish carb in a moment, but first, let’s look at the Pogue carburetor. The Pogue’s story contains many elements essential to nonsense narratives of this type, though I think the story might be best characterized as a hoax, rather than a scam, since no money or products ever changed hands.
Charles Nelson Pogue (1897-1985) was a mechanic and inventor from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. From 1927 to 1934, Pogue successfully filed for four carburetor patents, U.S. patent 1,750,354, U.S. patent 1,938,497, U.S. patent 1,997,497, and U.S. patent 2,026,798. While some reports describe Pogue’s carburetors as catalytic, none of the patents mention the use of catalysts. What the patents do mention is vaporization. Some context: One problem that affected early carburetors was an inability to fully aerosolize fuel, resulting in small drops of liquid fuel remaining unburned. If you could better vaporize the fuel, people deduced, you’d get more power and better fuel economy because of more complete combustion.
In 1936, the Canadian Automotive Trade magazine reported that a car equipped with the new carb was able to travel 1879 miles on just 14.5 gallons of gasoline. (That works out to 129.5 mpg.) A Winnipeg car dealership manager claimed to have achieved 217 mpg after fitting a Pogue carburetor to his car. Another dealer claimed to have gone 26 miles on just one pint, which is 208 mpg. As the stories spread through Canada, the reports and rumors proliferated.
To his credit, Pogue denied these reports. Some said that thieves had broken into Pogue’s shop and had stolen some of his carburetors to either discover its secrets and/or suppress its production. Wealthy Canadian backers were rumored to be negotiating with Pogue for the rights but the deals somehow never came to fruition. Some believed Ford of Canada had bought the rights to the technology.
P.M. Heldt, the engineering editor of Automotive Industries magazine during that period, in regard to a diagram of the Pogue carburetor, said, “The sketch fails to show any features hitherto unknown in carburetor practice, and absolutely gives no warrant for crediting the remarkable results claimed.”
Critics wanted to see the miracle carburetor, but Pogue apparently never demonstrated a working version, nor did his carburetor ever see series production. Of course, as these things go, the fact that the Pogue carb never saw the light of day is pointed to as further evidence of the conspiracy to suppress it. Thus, the story continues to be perpetuated. The fact that there is no record of Pogue ever assigning rights to his patents to anyone, including car and oil companies, doesn’t get as much air among conspiracy theorists.
Unlike the Pogue carburetor, the Fish Carburetor Company actually produced working carburetors—over 125,000 of them from 1947 to 1959. Invented by hot rodder John Robert Fish in the early 1930s, and protected by three U.S. patents, the Fish design was meant to solve the problem of carburetors’ float chambers. Carburetors use a float chamber to meter fuel to the jets; the chamber fills with fuel and a float attached to a valve shuts off the fuel when the chamber is filled. Acceleration, cornering, and braking forces can affect the position of both the float and the fuel, interfering with fuel delivery and causing drivability issues.
The original intention of the Fish carburetor was to avoid the weaknesses of the float chamber and its sensitivity to the forces of acceleration and cornering. The sources I found give two different descriptions of how Fish’s invention worked: One source says that the carb operates on pressure differential—not air speed. The other says that it sensed the mass of the airflow rather than the volume. Either way, the Fish device was said to be self-adjusting and self-compensating to changes in weather or altitude. The Fish design also did away with accelerator pumps with a clever ram air design.
Instead of the single jet of conventional units, the Fish carb delivered fuel using six to ten jets built into the throttle spindle, which was said to produce better fuel atomization and vaporization, thus improving fuel economy, power, and cold-weather starting. Fish claimed 20 percent better fuel economy and 30 percent more horsepower when compared to conventional carburetors.
The Fish carb got a publicity boost when stock car legend Fireball Roberts swapped out the OEM four-barrel carb in his Hudson Hornet racer for a couple of Fish units, to some success. The Fish induction system became popular in the early days of stock car racing.
Now here’s where the Fish story gets a little bit, ahem, fishy. (Editor’s Note: So will it be Halls or Ricola?) Supposedly, original equipment carburetor makers conspired to put Fish out of business. Fireball Roberts was said to have done well in qualifying, but somehow his tires never lasted the way they did for factory-supported stock car teams. The United States Post Office allegedly started marking all of Fish’s shipments “FRAUDULENT,” returning them to sender with claims that the carburetors were not actually being produced. (That’s a little bit odd considering that there’s an archival photo of the production line in Daytona.)
It’s worth remembering that the era in which Bob Fish was operating was one during which time federal bureaucrats and prosecutors effectively put Preston Tucker out of business, though a jury acquitted him and his associates of any wrongdoing. It thus seems possible that overzealous postal inspectors, concerned about gas-saving gadget scams, targeted an innocent company.
The way the story goes, the Post Office’s actions resulted in the carburetor’s rights being reassigned to a Canadian company, which sold them outside of the United States.
The Fish carburetor truly did develop a following in the hot rod community, and the Brown Carburetor Company of Draper, Utah put it back into production, making about 10,000 new Fish-design carburetors from 1981 to 1996.
On the Jalopy Journal forum site, a poster said a friend tested a Fish carburetor versus a conventional unit on his 1961 Ford six-cylinder standard transmission station wagon. Over 1000 miles of testing with each carb, the Fish improved mileage by about 10 percent but at the cost of losing about 30 percent of the power as well as having less torque, affecting drivability.
How, then, can we explain the success that Fireball Roberts had with the Fish carb? Well, they do apparently work well at wide-open throttle, which also explains their popularity with period hot rods. The two Fish carbs that Roberts used had approximately 40 percent more venturi area than the stock four-barrels.
By the mid-1950s, carburetor design from major manufacturers like Holley, Carter, Stromberg, and Rochester had improved significantly. And, seeing as the Fish carburetor appears to have had some drawbacks in street-use vehicles, it’s understandable how it faded from the market via natural causes, so to speak. Combine Roberts’ success with a disappearing act and you have, ahem, fuel for conspiracy fancies about magical carburetors.
Please let us know about your favorite automotive urban legends, conspiracy theories, frauds, or hoaxes in the comments below!
How about the story of the stripped late model Corvette for sale on a used car lot in a neighboring big city for $100? As the story went, an elderly gentleman bought the Vette, died in the car in a remote area and his body wasn’t discovered for weeks leaving the stench of his rotting body permeated in the fiberglass which nobody could get out. All the usable parts were removed leaving only the body, interior and chassis. We were all sure we could get the stink out using bleach or all sorts of cleaners but nobody could answer where the car lot was.
The other one was the Vette bought by a gentleman who then shipped out to Vietnam and was killed. His parents let it sit in the garage for so long that the only person left was the elderly mother who sold it for $100 because she didn’t know what it was worth. If I had nickel for every time I heard one of these variations, I’d be a hundredaire!
I seem to recall hearing that legend as the basis for the song “Private Malone” by David Ball
I can tell you that my Uncle received a 1953 (maybe 54) Corvette from the old lady neighbor across the street. Her son owned it and died (reportedly while serving in VietNam) and she gave the car to my Uncle for taking care of her landscape needs for years. My cousin STILL has the car.
I like the one where the husband runs away with his secretary and tell s the wife to sell the vette for what ever she can get and send the money to him.
I heard that joke before and in the last days of his driving career Darrell Waltrip drove the K-Mart/Route 66 Ford Tauris. Darrell made a commercial for them with that story as a baseline telling somebody how he bought his 70 Mercury Cyclone for $10 from an angry wife whose husband ran off with a younger woman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whAXYWgwIZ4
Personally, I can document a story near that one: My father was the Chevrolet dealer in Johnstown, PA 1950-65, as a child I grew up I the dealership. My earliest memory as a three year old child was during the summer of 1953 when dad brings home a brand new Corvette, pretty much the first one seen in Western PA. He gives mom a ride in the car, gives me a ride (I still remember it, 71 years later) and promptly trades the car to Grabiak Chevrolet in New Alexandria, PA for two Bel Air hardtops. Thought the car was the stupidest thing Chevrolet had ever done.
Fast forward 15 years, I’m in college, and showing a 1937 Buick Special at AACA shows in central and western PA. Dad’s high school graduation gift to me, and he slowly began to appreciate the antique car hobby. Summer of ’68 and I find that ’53 Corvette. Six blocks from the family home, sitting in a garage, and rotting. Turns out the guy who bought the ’53 later bought a ’58 from dad, and a couple of years later was killed in an accident in the ’58. Mom promptly parks the ’53 with the attitude of “my son’s car, it stays here!” and proceeds to let it deteriorate.
Dad an I spent the next five years trying to talk the lady into selling the car. No way. It’s my son’s, it stays here. We never unduly pressured, but never gave up. Summer of ’73, a Saturday morning, and I get a call from dad. “Guess whose name just appeared in the local obituary page?” I was in my and heading over to the house immediately.
The car was already gone. Somebody in that family had it marked, and it was probably out of the garage before her body was cold. Never did find it again.
As a Young man working in a body shop with wrecker service, I heard this story. the Corvette was not sold, but buried, as the stench was unbearable.
In 1965 my father bought a 62′ Falcon Futura 6 cyl, 4 speed from a neighbor who handled insurance cars which have been totaled. The owner of the Falcon had stopped living in the car and some time had passed before its discovery. I remember dad paid $300 for it. Dad was a meat cutter and used the car to carry chickens, beef and such from the slaughter houses to his store. The aroma of the previous owner lost that battle to the chickens.
is this story still around ????
In 1970 in Toronto Ontario I heard the similar story at high school. That evening my Dad started to tell me the same story that he had heard at work that day !Fifty..count em fifty years later I head the story at a house party. here on Vancouver Island.
This story had spread across Canada over the years with various makes of cars. Thunderbird etc etc
First heared that story in 1959.
The dead guy who decomposed in the Vette was a stable of the early “Urban legend” stories. Someone knew a guy, who knew a guy who knew the person selling the Corvette. I originally heard it about a rich single guy who drove up to Tahoe for a ski vacation, pulled into his garage, had a heart attack and died in the Corvette. Nobody checked on him for months. Hence the smell. It has been many years since this one hit the rumor mill.
He died of fright when the guy with the hook arm, escaping from the prison for the criminally insane, got his door open and jumped in.
I head a similar story when I was in the 3rd grade in 1963
Heard the same story (and its variations for years growing up) and then came my great shot my junior year in college. My best buddy from high school found a dead Texan’s Corvette from the Dallas area and, of course it was in the summer time so had the smell and all that. Did have some cash saved up and talked to my local banker (small town and everybody knew everybody) and he agreed he could to x-amount of bucks on a loan. I then did some research and found some biological product used to dissolve organic residue for crime scenes, undertaking establishments and the like to remove the smell. Got my money from the bank and went to my buddy’s place so we could go get the car and, wow, never say this coming…..”Damn, Chuck, I just saw that being towed away yesterday on a flatbed, somebody in Ft. Worth came an got it”.
Is this the same story that Mythbusters addressed? I recall them using a C4 and a dead pig for it.
What was the one about magnets on-or-in the fuel line supposedly aligning the molecules to get better mileage?
And “You’ve got to change the air in those tires! It’ll only be $5.”
Or the nitrogen filled tire…
That is still a scam today at at least one big name tire retailer. Sales pitch; it will not lose pressure in winter. When taken in to the same dealer for low tire pressure in the winter; “well, all tires leak”.
I figure since atmospheric air is composed of almost 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen, your filling your tires with a lot of nitrogen to begin with. Then using the theory that oxygen molecules being smaller, dissipate out of the tires faster than the nitrogen molecules, that means over time the percent of nitrogen molecules would increase even as you add more air. So, in essence your tires are naturally becoming nitrogen filled without any intervention.
You are correct sir!
Now you’re thinking!
The use of the inert gas nitrogen in tires is prevalent in aviation tires to prevent expansion and contraction due to heat, atmospheric pressure, etc. especially in fighter and military applications. Of course, you are correct that tires leak any gas if the rubber is faulty or old, and I don’t know if nitrogen is really an advantage for ordinary driving. Maybe for track racing?
Nitrogen is not an inert gas. Inert gases are helium, argon, neon, xenon, radon and krypton (a real thing). They are alos known as noble gases which simply means they are chemically unreactive. Nitrogen readily reacts with other elements – nitrous oxide is an example car guys know about.
N2 Nitrogen IS an inert gas because the molecule has a filled outer valence shell, where as noble gasses are comprised of single atoms with filled outer valence shells.
The difference is subtle, but distinct.
I post a factual statement about the difference between an inert and a noble gas and it requires waiting moderation?
N2 Nitrogen IS an inert gas because the molecule has a filled outer valence shell, where as noble gasses are comprised of single atoms with filled outer valence shells. The difference is subtle, but distinct.
At least on here the “fact checkers” actually allowed an actual fact.
Any gas will expand and contract with temperature changes. Nitrogen is used because it does not contain moisture AND, most importantly, the pressure required for larger aircraft tires and smaller business jets. These tires require more pressure than normal shop compressors are able to produce. For smaller aircraft, regular shop air is used.
The dealer-add-on nitrogen is just another high profit, little or no value option the finance guy tries to sell you at closing.
My nitrogen filled tires lose much less pressure due to temperature changes than when I used regular air. Facts matter!
Facts do matter! In this case the fact is that the difference between how nitrogen and air expand/contract with temperature at automotive tire pressures and temperatures is insignificant (a tiny fraction of a percent). Some good reading here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressibility_factor
Nitrogen is often used in tires on race car tires because it is much more stable. Tire pressure effects a car’s handling, when using nitrogen the tire’s pressure doesn’t increase as much due to tire temperatures, limiting how much the diameter of the tire changes during a tire run. An added benefit of nitrogen for racing is that having it allowed us to power pneumatic tools such as impact guns off of the nitrogen tanks, eliminating the need for a generator at the track before there were battery powered impact guns.
Using nitrogen in tires is not a scam, though it’s advantages in the average street car’s tires are somewhat limited.
What about nitrogen filled tires? Air molecules are small enough that they eventually permeate through the rubber resulting in a lower air pressure. Nitrogen molecules are larger loss of pressure is slower, 3-4 months vs 1 month for air. Consequently, nitogen is also less corrosive than air. This is supposed to result in better handling, improved gas mileage, longer tire life. The disadvantage is nitrogen costs money where air is free.
Ugh. NO! I’m a molecular biologist. “Nitogen gas” is N2. Nitrogen’s molecular weight is 7. 7 times 2 is 14. “Oxygen gas” is O2. Oxygen’s molecular weight is 8. 2 times 8 is 16. Oxygen is LARGER.
Water, as vapor, is more soluble in O2 than N2. “Air” has lots of water in it, especially where it is humid. As water condenses inside the tire (cooler), the pressure goes down. As it heats up into water vapor (steam), pressures increase.
Unless you are on a track, N2 in your tires is a marketing scam.
Weight doesn’t mean size. Chemistry 100. Ugh to B.S.
Nitrogen filled tires aren’t a myth as far as filling goes. I’ve had two RVs that I bought new that were equipped with them and stickers applied above the wheels stating this. Never put much stock in it since air is approximately 70% nitrogen anyway and the outside air around the tire isn’t “pure nitrogen” so the reported advantages toward longevity seem ridiculous.
Or, put oil on your windshield wipers for better function!
Well, they don’t squeak anymore…
Addendum: the magnet/fuel-line thing might have been to stop rust particles from further travel.
It might work.
Beats me how that would improve fuel economy, though. Seems like it might help you from being stalled alongside the road with a stuck float needle valve, however!
but definetly contribute to a clogged/blocked fuel line
Seems like that would accumulate the particles on one spot and eventually clog the line.
Rust particles should be trapped by your fuel filter.
The magnetic attraction of rust is greatly reduced compared to iron, and some may not be attracted at all.
That seems logical since, IIRC, ford used to positively ground their cars for a perceived rust prevention benefit.
Cow Magnets!!! Big in the mid-70’s. I remember that.
Back in the 70’s when the cow magnet thing was big, I worked for a small company at an offsite location were only about a dozen of us worked. Our facility manager got one of those magnets and installed it on his car. A couple of our technicians took it upon them selves to sneak a gas can out and pour a gallon or two randomly into his tank! This went on for awhile and the manager was bragging about how well the cow magnet was working. After awhile it got to be a bit much sneaking the extra gas into his car and the guys came clean. Best job I ever had! We always has some prank our other tomfoolery going on.
That reminds me of the Gomer Pyle episode where Sgt. Carter sold his Dodge to Gomer. The guys were adding gas like you did, then Sgt. Carter bought it back and they started syphoning gas out. Eventually they spilled gas and someone dropped a lit match and the car blew up. Really funny episode until the beautiful Dodge Convertible was destroyed in the final scene.
Let’s not forget the famous mini supercharger sold by JC Whitney. It went between the carb and the manifold and the air movement would spin the propeller, supposedly compressing the air/fuel mixture, making it more dense and therefore more power in the engine….They made a fortune off that one.
This little acessory made the Fish Carburetor ‘flounder’ in the marketplace.
Early I’m career as an auto tech in the 80’s, I worked on many older card and rebuilt many, many carbs. There were a couple of customers who still had the magnets on their carburetor fuel lines and were firmly bought in on the notion that the magnets aligned the fuel molecules into a “straight line” and therefore was more efficient.
They didn’t agree that changing a dirty air filter would be even better, but those magnets..
About 15 years ago I was having dinner at my friend’s parents’ home and they had an elderly guest over for dinner. He started telling us about how he had these magnets on his van’s engine to align the gas molecules for better mileage. After dinner, we went out to see his van as I had never seen these magnets before. He opened up the hood on his Ford Econoline and showed us the magnets – he had placed them on the upper intake of his port-injected small block Ford V8 – through which no fuel flowed – only air.
Yah I remember that one going around years ago, totally forgot about it.
I remember use to see those for sale. Even as a teenager I remember thinking what in the world is the science behind those things.
The biggest current disinformation being distributed:
“the federal government will force electric cars on everyone.”
You can’t force anyone to buy something (except insurance, in some places.)
Have they forced anyone to install seatbelts in pre-1964 cars?
Or radial tires, disc brakes, airbags, in any car not originally equipped with them?
This is an interesting forum for this question, but when’s the last time you drove without car insurance? The government can most definitely force you to buy things
As my posting says — “except for insurance”.
This says says that we ARE FORCED into certain purchases.
Did you not see that?
There were times in the 1970’s when I did, in fact, drive without insurance, for short periods, when it was possible to evade it.
As a young male, insurance costs were truly prohibitive.
How could anyone, in my classification; afford insurance — JUST to legally drive; to the job that barely PAYS, just for the privilege of driving?
This WAS, and for so many others even today; a most common conundrum.
Thank God for Hagerty…
I didn’t…
Being in the industry I can tell you that I come across people, almost weekly, who still drive without car insurance.
It might be mandated (“forced”)but it isn’t always followed.
This is why we pay for additional coverage in case we get hit by an uninsured vehicle.
Yeah, and when they run away we are still left with out help from the insurance company.
Happened to me twice, if you can’t prove they were uninsured you are stuck paying your deductable.
Uninsured motorist is a waste of money.
Deductible is your choice for 1st party coverage.
If your state has UMPD, it must be confirmed, otherwise it is a Collision claim. If you don’t carry comp/collision, that’s on you.
Not all states have UMPD, and UM/UIM is for injury coverage.
It pays to know your coverages and read your policy rather than blame one of the most heavily regulated industries for deceiving you.
If I’m not mistaken, New Hampshire does not require insurance until after you’ve been in an accident.
Daddy chill
I remember my DMV driving manual as stating, “Driving is a privilege, not a right.”
One of the first things I purchased after getting my first license at sixteen was car insurance.
Anyone is a fool to operate without it.
No excuses.
Too many uninsured drivers have rear ended me.
Land of the nearsighted tailgaters.
In Colorado we are required by law to have liability insurance to register a vehicle. I see many vehicles operating with expired license plates. Some expired for a year or two and one expired for 11 years. I think many must not have any insurance either. One observation is that the BMWs and Audis parked in the Financial Services business parking lot have the greatest number of unregistered cars. You might not want to choose that occupation.
In Nevada, it is called “PL-PD” Public liability-property damage. The dollar amount is laughable. Hardly enough for a filling station to air your tires!
WAIT!! What is a filling station??!!! <>
I got hit by someone without insurance.
I got hit by an insured vehicle and still got the bill that their insurance should have paid.
Comparative negligence?
PD limits?
Did you pick a shop that won’t work with insurance companies?
A lot of information is lost here because the average consumer is clueless about their insurance.
A comment section associated with an insurance company – if you haven’t read your policy, print it out, get a highlighter, and read it. Especially “limits of liability” and “exclusions”.
Another waiting moderation…
I provide helpful commentary and it is “moderated”.
I don’t know about other states but in NY you can drive as long as long as you can prove ‘financial ability’ in the amount of $60k (the minimum liability required by law). Most people do this by buying insurance but you can also do so by posting a bond in that amount or putting that amount in an escrow account that is dedicated to only paying out for legally required auto settlements.
Outlaw the sale of new ICE vehicles in ten years, and eventually you will be forced to buy EVs because they will be the only thing available. Partner that with over-regulation of O&G production and there goes your choice.
I find it hard to believe that anyone arguing about EV mandates not being de facto reality is doing so in good faith. The only caveat is that most people who drive cars today won’t be driving them when EVs are the only option, whether by mere poverty or forced expiration.
Someone in my social group, was saying they heard that Jeep has said they are not going to develop an EV vehicle after all. Don’t know the truth to that, but..one never knows!
I saw 2 cars plugged into a charging station at a waterfront restaurant in Muskegon, Michigan earlier this month. A Tesla and a Jeep Wrangler.
Barnum was right!
What about nitrogen filled tires? Air molecules are small enough that they eventually permeate through the rubber resulting in a lower air pressure. Nitrogen molecules are larger loss of pressure is slower, 3-4 months vs 1 month for air. Consequently, nitogen is also less corrosive than air. This is supposed to result in better handling, improved gas mileage, longer tire life. The disadvantage is nitrogen costs money where air is free.
I have a collection of eight ICE cars on Hagerty and a few project cars that are in the process. I have two daily drivers, one is a plug-in-hybrid. I can’t be forced to buy a total electric car until gasoline is no longer for sale. I don’t have to ever buy a new car. As one wears out, just get in another one. I think gasoline will be available for years beyond the end of ICE production. I’m 67, so I think I’m covered.
Recently saw an old Motorweek episode that had a segment on a company working on an aftermarket driver’s airbag that Midas shops would install
What could possibly go wrong? LOL
QUOTE:
What could possibly go wrong?
END QUOTE
Go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong…..ad infinitum….
Guaranteed for life meaning until you die in an accident where the airbag failed to deploy.
airbags–that’s something I’ve wondered about–You don’t know untill it’s Too Late rather they work or Not-
Believe me. They work. I totaled my truck a few weeks ago. It took a week for the burns from the airbag to heal, but that was it.
Like a Maxwell House parachute
95% of all electric cars sold are still on the road. The remaining 5% made it home.
OMG-coffee went through my nose!
LOL! Great one!
Haha, good one – especially a Tesla. Never know what they’re gonna recall next. Hopefully my new hybrid Toyota is better than that!
I dont care who you are. . . Thats funny
Had to laugh. Saw a Tesla on the side of the road going into the city. Coming home it was apparent that he ran out of electric as there was an ICE repair truck there charging him up with a gas generator…
There was “Jeff” the Top Gear EMV which came with a very long extension cord.
Now the actual factual Nicola Tesla was going to transmit power wirelessly
JP Morgan pulled the financial plug on that idea
The European Union passed a law making it illegal to manufacture and sell ICEs after about 2030. That date has changed a couple of times. Car manufacturers do not want to have two production lines going. Two research and development programs basically becoming a very expensive dual car company. It is much less expensive to produce EVs that can be sold worldwide. The USA government is not involved in this. It is just an easy place to point fingers and place blame.
How is the US government not involved? The Biden administration through the EPA currently has regulation either in place or pending that would require 45% of all vehicles sold in the US by 2027 be “zero emission” (EV). By 2023 the mandate increases to 56%, with another 15% being some form of hybrid, leaving just 29% ICE. US manufacturers that don’t or can’t meet these mandated percentages will be subjected to massive fines. Current legislation in California requires all vehicles sold in the state to be zero emission by 2035, with other blue states such as NJ passing or considering similar legislation. US tax payers are being forced to subsidize the purchase of EV’s and pay for the construction of EV charging stations.
While the US may not be involved in the European Union’s 2030 ban of ICE vehicles, you’re fooling yourself if you don’t think the US government isn’t involved in a concerted effort to pass similar mandates here.
You should look up how much gasoline is subsidized by the government.
Entities claim normal business deductions and write offs, for example the cost of drilling a well that doesn’t produce anything as a “subsidy”. No significant write offs or subsidies exist that aren’t available to every manufacturer.
EV’s and electric utilities are directly subsidized significantly.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/drillinginfo/2016/02/22/debunking-myths-about-federal-oil-gas-subsidies/
The author of the Forbes piece you linked has 16 years of working in oil and gas on their LinkedIn page. Hardly an unbiased source.
Also, sure, split hairs on the definition of “subsidy.” The reality is that fuel prices in the US are heavily influenced by things other than production. Look no further than releasing barrels from our national reserve to keep prices down. Saying “we only give the large oil corporations tax benefits, not direct money” is some real mental gymnastics. Benefits are benefits. Corporate welfare is draining both of our pockets regardless of what we drive. Let the government remove it’s hand from the scale that prices gasoline and diesel and then see how everyone feels.
Since this discussion is supposed to be about auto scams, I will make the claim that EVs are the worst automotive scam I have ever heard of.
“zero emission”, think about it. A Chevy Suburban has a smaller carbon foot print than a Prius for the first 100k miles. What emissions were produced to charge that EV?
Can you cite your source for that carbon foot print data? Seems a little unbelievable, but happy to be corrected.
What emissions were produced to refine, store, and transport the gasoline for the Suburban?
The only way to successfully ban ICE vehicles…
Is to ban the manufacture of gasoline.
And you know that will never happen!
Take a look at the ICE registration fees in Norway. There’s more way to kill a cat than to choke it on cream.
Sorry Ray when you subsidize something and restrict another through legislation you are involved.
The only thing the government was thinking, was to eliminate internal combustion engines due to pollution! If that happens (maybe not my lifetime) what do you think you’ll have left to buy?
We can certainly upgrade our passenger rail beyond current third world levels.
When the tax on fossil fuel is $100/gal you’ll be forced to walk or drive whatever the government allows on the roads.
Technically the government can’t force you to do something but if you don’t do whatever they want you to do they could punish you severely if you’re caught
Back in the day, 70s and earlier, one could purchase an “Annual Uninsured Motor Vehicle Permit” for $25. That was in Ontario, Canada. Any accident determined to be the fault of the uninsured driver would be entirely his financial responsibility to make good. Of course, those who could not afford to purchase auto insurance who subsequently were involved in at-fault accidents didn’t have the wherewithal to make good on the damages. The law was changed to make insurance mandatory for all motor vehicles.
$25. “Hit Me” Was taking such a Risk—your fault & they take you to court-Sue you & the government paid & you paid the government back no matter how long it took– It was insane-
I actually put 4 lap belts in my 63, and the garage wouldn’t safety it until I put a third one in the back middle. After arguing with the idiot for a while I brought the car home put one in. Got the pass told him now I have to go home and take it back out,
Well put. The libertarian agenda of, “government will force you…”, gets tiresome after a while.
The government never directly forces the citizenry to buy anything. They use their regulatory power to make things unaffordable to get people to chose against the higher priced product.. ie: they didn’t force you to stop buying filament based light bulbs. They just made them so scarce (and therefore more costly) that you now buy LED light bulbs which (as a side note) never came down in price as the government promised for years.
I literally just watched that shipping crate video a couple of days ago
In my early days of internetting, I learned that Mr. Rogers was a sniper in Viet Nam. He wore the long sweaters to cover the tattoos on his arms. I’ve told that story many times, and of course folks have heard it from other sources. When I and the internet grew together, I later learned that it was completely false and Mr. Rogers was a communication school graduate who had children’s programming in the crosshairs the whole time (pun intended). I have told the corrected story many times, but the original story is much more entertaining and people like it better
Yes, we always prefer a good story, especially with with a moral – that’s why urban legends are so durable. I even published one many years ago in Car and Driver: Have you heard about the guy who drives a cement truck, sees a new convertible in his driveway, thinks his wife is cheating on him, and fills it with cement? Turns out that his wife just bought it for him as a gift. I found it in a book called Remarkable True Occurences, whose author assured me he had the press clippings to confirm it. A few years later, I saw it in one of Jan Brunvand’s urban legends books. I’ve been a lot warrier ever since.
I heard the “incredible MPG” story in the late 70’s not from a friend of a friend of a friend but from my own father. My dad is now 83 and has always been a hard worker his entire life which has definitely paid off for him because he is now a multi millionaire. So in the late 70’s he told me that he bought a brand new 1958 Impala with a 348 four barrel and a manual transmission at the ripe old age of 17. He said that the car got incredible fuel economy as in the range of at least 30 mpg on the highway and that at times it did even better (not the 100-200 mpg as stated in the article). I’ve always been a motor head with gasoline running through my veins so I know a good deal more about internal combustion engines than the average person. I said “dad come on, a big block land yacht that weighed close to two tons would never get anywhere close to 30 mpg!” He swore it was true. He then told me that he had to take it in for some warranty work unrelated to the fuel system and that they kept it way longer than what they should have needed to remedy the problem. He then said that when he got it back it would be lucky to get 15-16 mpg and that when he pulled off the air cleaner there was a brand new carburetor hiding under there. Now I know that the most direct path to higher fuel efficiency is aerodynamics, decreased weight and computer controlled fuel injection. I had a 1972 Honda 600 Sedan that got close to 50 mpg but that car had a two cylinder 600cc air cooled motorcycle engine in it with a four speed transmission and I don’t know if it weighed much more than 1,000 pounds. Would my dad lie to me? I’d like to think not, but he has always been a bit of a jokester!
Oh and relating to one of the other stories in the article it was in 1976 and I had just received my brand new shiny drivers license. There was supposed to be a 69 big block 4 speed Corvette T-top somewhere around my hometown that I guy committed suicide in and wasn’t found for about two months. It was supposedly for sale for $100 because of the smell but for some reason nobody could verify where exactly it was located even though I tried to find out for weeks. It’s just way too funny now that I look back on it of the gullibility of a young motor head with dreams of a couple of gallons of bleach and a pressure washer, LOL!
The interesting thing about this story is that it is at least in the realm of reality. One thing about the Impalas back in the day is that they were not heavy cars… weighing in at around 3500 pounds. Good luck finding a sports car these days that weighs that little. With an appropriately restrictive (malfunctioning) carb and no hiway driving, I bet you could eek 30 MPG out of one.
This guy put a lawnmower carb on a Maverick and claims close to 40 mpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7cNrFnWfx4
My BMW Z3 weighs 2600 lbs (small 2 seat convertible) My 1950 4 Door Plymouth weighs 3080 lbs. Only 500 lbs more ! Where is all that steel in the BMW? Plymouth is an Effing Ship next to the BMW Z3 !
A lot of that steel in your Z3 is in the doors
Put all the extra wire, connectors, pumps, compressors, modules, and high strength (heavier) steel in a pile, and there ya go. Wouldn’t trade any of the tech (safety and comfort) away, personally. But that is where all the added weight in modern cars comes from.
In the ‘sixtie (as I recall) Smokey Yunick was asked in PM (or MI, etc — one of those mags) in his column ‘Ask Smokey’ if a lawn-mower carb could be put on a guys Rambler six to further increase mileage, and he advised that if it did, the car could never accelerate fast enough to be safe in traffic. Makes sense, oc. I remember Fish carb ads in the second tier car mags, like Motor Life, etc. often full page. This is a good article, tho it leaves many questions open…
If you’re at all familiar with motorcycle carbs (variable venturi Mikunis, etc.) people have argued that these carbs on cars would make great mpg. The problem is, smaller engines with less rotating mass can increase rpms much faster without an accelerator pump. This theory extrapolates small-engine numbers to larger engines without real proof. Sounds good, but remember, according to the laws of aerodynamics, a bumble bee can’t fly. Laws of physics change as they approach extremes of size, mass, etc. If you have a 350 cid engine, even at 90% volumetric efficiency, it requires 1 part gas for every 14 parts air, and that will never equal 100 mpg, unless you have a seriously high gear ratio in your overdrive!
Our 93 Z28 with T56 trsns being over frive iin 5th and 6 th gear will approach 30 MPH. Has lower drag and lighter weight then later Camaros
Boy, 30 MPH in 6th Gear…! I’ve heard of lugging an Engine down, but you could easily count the Crankshaft rotations at that speed.
yes, I’ve been wondering about that one… Mostly it works like the 1986 computer controlled carburetor on my Ford van. You would think if it was legitimate, he’d sell a kit or something. He clams superior fuel atomization is making it happen, plus the computer carefully letting in air to lean out the mixture. I can vouch that my van ran terrible when it still had the system.
In the early 60’s, when I was in high school, oil companies would sponsor fuel economy runs (contests really) at the different high schools. (This was in Southern California)
I entered my mom’s 1959 Pontiac Catalina station wagon, with a 2 barrel equipped 389 v8. It tipped the official weigh in scales at 8000 pounds. I actually got 32 mpg with the wagon. Mind you, we did a lot of coasting downhill and other gas saving tricks.
We actually won our weight division and got a gas card at some company’s stations, don’t remember what company anymore.
Just that we had a lot of fun for the day and enjoyed a great lunch, catered by the sponsor.
Those were the days!
Manufacturers are “required by law” to make parts for 10 years for discontinued brands.
Totally false. I have been hearing that one since I was 10 years old and Studebaker ceased production.
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/07/orphan-cars-10-year-parts-myth/
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/14049/are-auto-manufacturers-required-under-us-federal-law-to-provide-parts-for-a-set
The Pontiac Iron Duke 151 CI is just reworked version of Chevy’s 153 CI four from the Chevy II. It isn’t.
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2019/09/20/for-the-last-time-the-iron-duke-was-not-the-same-engine-as-the-chevy-ii-four-cylinder.
Except for the station wagon rear quarter panel, there is no shortage of Studebaker parts today. One federal regulator obviously was asleep on the job.
People who think that the Studebaker 289ci V8 engine is a Ford engine. Any one could make a 289 V8, not just Ford,
Same old wheeze about the Rambler 327 V-8 rises regularly; didn’t become a Chevy 327, nor the other way around! And if the Rambler Rebel 327 could outrun a hot factory 283, we never saw it on the street in the day!
Tin foil in the wheel covers to beat radar, or grounding strips to trick radar
Although, I did know ‘a guy’ who had his electronics department build an active jammer for police radar that really did work
This thread is certainly getting a lot of (ahem) “mileage”
I see what you did there 👀😂
So if myth number 2 is a myth, why did GM buy all of the trolley lines?
Most were losing
(Sorrry) losing money and ridership, and the tracks were in the way of traffic. Busses could change routes as opposed to fixed tracks.
One can twist facts to any degree they want. GM was involved and it was for profit plain & simple.
Yeah, the second one doesn’t really belong in this article. I guess the myth is that they were expecting the scheme to drive sales of more passenger cars—I’d never heard that angle, and it’s certainly not true. That they were trying to sell more buses and tires and fuel, and that bus lines are cheaper to expand but more costly to operate than trolley lines, is certainly true and thus not a myth. (Otherwise you’d think maybe they’d have appealed some of those criminal convictions, no?)
EV’s will fully replace ICE vehicles many years from now but until jets and transport trucks are converted from fossil fuel climate change will continue. During the final year of being able to purchase a ICE vehicle, be it 2034 or whatever, many folks will buy and maintain it until they stop selling gasoline. If I still qualify for a drivers licence by then I may be inclined to do that. EV’s are great for inner city but I wouldn’t want one for a road trip – not today anyway!
There are ICE vehicles well over 100 years old that still run fine. I suspect that will be the case one hundred years from now. Gasoline may be less prevalent, but perhaps clean burning fuel will be available to run ICE machines. Of course, everyone reading this will be dead by then.
There’s already a clean fuel for ICE machines. It’s called water!
Please elaborate…. Can’t wait for this one. Before you say… split the water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, there is this little sticking issue that it takes more energy to split water than you get from burning Hydrogen. Despite most of the energy from ICE powered by gasoline being lost to heat, it is still one of the most energy dense fuels we know. It is why it won out in the very early days of the automobile, despite conspiracy theories to the contrary.
Excellent point. It’s the same with EV tech right now. It takes more fuel to generate the electricity to charge an EV then it does to just run it on gas and diesel. Last I researched, it still takes a 10×10 foot area of batteries to store the same amount of potential energy as 1 gallon off gas. I’m not against alternative energy sources but, I believe that, at this point in time, we need to explore all forms of energy. Different sources are more efficient for different uses/tasks/jobs. I think, maybe with another 20+ years R&D of battery and semiconductor tech, EVs could be more efficient. As of now, EVs are over promoted due to political and investors financial interest and nothing more. They should push hybrid tech. I owned one for 12 years and it was great problem free tech with great benefits.
Discontinuing the use of fossil fuels is not going to stop climate change. Climate change has been going on long before humans were on Earth.
How about in the 70’s, surplus WWII Jeeps for $100. They would come in a box, to be picked up at a train yard, and had to be assembled.
My dad’s cousins made their living buying WWII surplus and selling it starting right after the war. Tunick Brothers in Stamford, CT. Rumor had it that they would buy train cars of crated Jeeps for $5 each. By the time I saw his operation in the early ’60s it was mostly old cars but he did have a lot of military items like Jeeps, a DWK, large 6×6 trucks, and even a tank. May be some truth here.
That one is true. I saw the ads in Mechanics Illustrated when I was in high school, only the price was $50 each. I was told that you really had to buy at least three of them to make sure you got an entire vehicle. If an engine blew in the field, GIs would take the engine out of a crate and toss the worn out one in. They wouldn’t take the trouble to assemble a whole new Jeep.
Congress passed laws in the late ’70s forbidding the sale of surplus military equipment unless it was “demilitarized.” After that, those Jeeps got crunched.
In CA, the rumor/urban legend about the warehouse full of Army Harely-Davidsons in San Francisco surfaced regularly, and ‘they were only $200, and going fast!’ My college buds and I almost drew out our savings and took off for the Bay Area to cash in — luckily the pipe dream faded before we piled in the ’61 Impala and made fools of ourselves, but we came close!
PS/ I never heard the Jeep legend, but knew of many, many ex-Gi Jeeps that went cheap just as used cars. There were a number in our little mountain town, and with the horrible weather we endured, most had home-made ‘cabs’ mounted, often just plywood — with lots of barn paint!
I worked at an Austin Texas Jeep dealer in the mid 60s where we had a lot of WWII surplus Jeeps come in for service or repairs. They were used on local ranches and lived a hard life.
Nellybelle became a movie star 😂🤣, Ok it was a 1946 jeep
My grandfather had one. He drove it around his thouand-acre farm, and I don’t remember anybody servicing it. It was dirty and battle-scarred, but useful in a hundred different ways. We have a few photos of the Jeep, Grandpa driving, and four or five grandkids along for the ride.
The post war “War Surplus” stores were great fun for kids with a few coins to spend.
Not sure if this one is true or not. After the O.J. car chase in the Bronco, Ford changed the name of the newly redesigned Bronco to the “Escape”. I don’t know if the timing works out for the release of the Escape but the story is kind of interesting.
Ford changed the name after a few roll-overs with the Bronco. Between the low tire pressure they specified and the narrow track they were known to roll easily. The Escape has a wider track, and a few other design features that keep it from rolling as easily.
I remember ads persuaded me to buy special spark plugs in the early 70s.They were specifically engineered to increase gas mileage and improve horsepower. I wanted to believe I could get more horsepower out of my 1967 6-cylinder Mustang. Well they worked fine but with no gas mileage or horsepower improvement. Those types of ads were compelling in the 70s and continue to be so today.
Yep – I bit on that one too. The plugs had four outer electrodes, surrounding one central one. Like you, I found no improvement.
Much of the plug electrode mania comes from the fact that aircraft plugs do have multiple electrodes, even today. I was tempted about ’62 to try them in my ’55 Chevy, but a mechanic who had A&P experience pointed out that usually only one ends up firing the charge as they wear. “Mini-Superchargers” now, well…
The addition of water/alcohol to the atomized fuel is another story altogether; first introduced on a/c engines (before reliable fuel injection debuted) they are a mainstay for turbocharged machinery, right? I fabbed an experimental on for my Chevy 350, and it really seemed to work, especially on long mountain grades! Ran out of H2O too fast, tho.
That sounfs like the “Ridley Water Bomb”
Advertised in England in the 50’s.
Americans are suckers for losing causes, and electricity is the biggest losing cause of all times. Electricity cannot be stored, it cannot be regulated. Its powers are difficult to measure, Electricity is incredibly difficult and very expensive to create, far more so than gasoline. Any vehicle that has to be “recharged” is a time-wasting failure as a method of transportation. The operator spends as much time “recharging” as they do operating it. Wind is far more reliable, can be harnessed, and doesn’t cost anything. Where are the fools who want to rush to judgement about an “alternative” fuel? tToday too many people are wanting to create a new future without learning the facts involved. Electric automobiles failed in earlier times, and they are failing now. Steam is a much more reliable fuel, and has none of the problems of electricity. Electricity belongs in prisons where it can be used for a more useful purpose,
Retired mechanical engineer here. EVs not mandated, fuel economy requirements tightening. EVs great fun to drive w/much higher torque & acceleration. Much more efficient (about 90%) at the vehicle, with the electric gen efficiency greater than 40% and improving each year as old coal & gas generation retires & replaced with combined cycle nat gas (60% efficiency), renewables, and some places, nuclear.
Internal combustion engines nowadays lucky to get 35% efficiency.
Lifetime cost of EVs also getting competitive, with non-lux vehicle cost to own less than conventional drive when considering purchase price, energy cost to drive, & ongoing maintenance (no oil/fluid changes, emissions systems, transmissions).
Sounds like you have an agenda. And not true FACTS!!!
Everything Mr. Lea said is true. Most of the energy produced by an internal combustion engine is waste heat energy fed to the radiator.
How do you know K Lea is a “Mr.” ?
Yes but what about the lost heat energy at the power generation plant, weather it’s fossil fuel/nuclear etc.? What about the energy lost through thousands of miles of transmission lines? Moving the problem further away from you doesn’t make it go away. Energy can’t be created from anything without heat or other transformative losses. Energy can only be transformed from one form of matter to another. You “Engineers” should remember that from science 101. 🙂
How is what he said not facts. They are. The fact is, electric motors are incredibly more efficient than ICE engines. This is why trains, boats, and most industrial equipment are powered by electric motors. Also, chemical storage means keeps improving year over year. The real issue facing the technology is transitioning generation and infrastructure to cleaner and more efficient methods. Not agenda, just facts.
Try to take one on an 800 mile road trip. Turns a 1-1.5 day trip into a 2.5 to 3 day trip, especially if the trip is through moutain country in the winter.
Damn glad that i am 75 and won’t live long enough to have to dive one of the death traps.
Not true anymore. That was true 10 years ago. I am anti-mandate, but sorry, the pure numbers don’t lie. The above statement regarding energy efficiency are 100% true. To tell the truth, with modern charging technology and range, your 800 mile trip may take at most another 45 minutes.
Only one small hole in your final statement. While motor maintenance is less, there still are gear boxes and transmissions that need service and fluids, there are suspension maintenance, cooling system maintenance as well. While much of the information out there supports the “lower maintenance” claim regarding frequency, I find very little factual support for the “low cost” claim.
You are correct not to mention, how much fossil fuels are used to manufacture these cars. (Not including the batteries)
As I previously posted 95% of all electric vehicles sold, remain on the road. the other 5% made it home.
True….or probably will be in the future…because 95% will be autonomous driving…so NO need to ever go home.
LMAO! That’s a good. I’m stealing that, please?
“Electricity is incredibly difficult and very expensive to create, far more so than gasoline.”
Do you understand the refining process? Sure sounds like you don’t.
“Any vehicle that has to be “recharged” is a time-wasting failure as a method of transportation.”
What do you call stopping at a gas station? By your logic anything that is not perpetual motion is a “waste of time.”
If you think electricity is expensive but wind is basically free you are just showing your ignorance. Wind is just an electric generator. “wind can be harnessed” …… as electricity.
“Electric automobiles failed in earlier times” and over a century of technological advancement has happened since. They only failed during that early era due to battery tech, something that has come an incredibly long way since then.
Yeah….what about golf carts!
sorry dude it takes less than 20 minutes to fill my dual tank F350 desiel truck. Most charges take 2+hours, after you get to the charger.
Is that your charging experience or just what one of your buddies told you? That sounds like hear/say repeated out of ignorance.
Not all charging takes 2+ hours. If you drive a F350 “desiel” than it sounds like an EV might not be for you due to what you need a vehicle to do. That’s fine. EVs aren’t for everyone, but let’s stop acting like they are not a good option for some people.
Yes yhose batteries just grow on trees and are burning up the highways as well as parking garages home. School buses, etc.
Oil doesn’t grow on trees and isn’t easy to harvest either.
What about tidal action? It’s free, unstoppable and continuous by normal weather actions. Simples.
If I could only surf my F150 !!!
Steam? Seriously? Water freezes in the winter, it takes time to build up, and the Rankine cycle it runs on is inefficient. The only thing it has going for it is, external combustion is lower in emissions and can use a variety of fuels.
Compressed air is an effective power source.
I seem to remember a story about a special carburetor made in the late 70’s that claimed 100+ MPG. Could I be remembering the FIsh carb? Also some story about a guy who modified diesel VW Rabbits or similar vehicle that allegedly attained 100+ MPG. Anybody else?
Yep – I owned a 1972 VW Rabbit with a diesel engine in the 90’s… I used it to deliver Pizza Hut Pizza, and I got close top 50 miles to gallon with the damn thing and just loved it, and it has been the only vehicle I have owned outside of a few motorcycles that got that kind of mileage… The only car that i have owned that has even come close was a 1999 Saturn sedan I had that got 31 miles to gallon on hwy…
Had a diesel Rabbit with a Manuel tranny. I also got 50+ mpg. Hated to see it go.
Well…I never owned a Rabbit, or a Saturn….so I missed that great mpg…..but I did eat Pizza Hut pizza….. back in the day.
An old work colleague of mine bought a brand-new diesel Rabbit (he was a longtime VW guy), and he ended up getting rid of it much sooner than he expected. Fine in late spring, summer, early fall, but this was the upper Midwest, where you have to deal with winter days when the temperature doesn’t crack zero degrees. Get stranded on a few days like that, and you won’t come away with much of a sentimental fondness for the vehicle in question.
Yep. Saturns still do great. I have a 98 SW2 I picked up for $150 that had a burnt valve. I’m pretty sure it still has worn piston rings, but I use it to commute 60 miles a day, and at my last calculation, it was 34 MPG. The single-cam engines get even more. My dad bought a new Chevy (Suzuki) Sprint in 86 that was still carbureted. It was a 1.0-liter 3-banger that he used to commute over 100 miles a day, and once calculated his MPG to be at 54!