November 14, 1991 Letters to the Editor The Washington Post 1150 15th Street Washington, DC 20071
Dear Editor,
This letter is in response to the "Fairness and Efficiency" letters of Mr. Noack and Mr. Hanna.
I can not understand how decades old facts concerning very high MPG automobiles were not brought to the attention of Mr. Noack and Mr. Hanna before now. For example, these facts:
* The 1977 Shell Oil Book "Fuel Economy of the Gasoline Engine" ( ISBN 0-470-99132-1) states; "No less a person than Charles Kettering when General Motors President in 1929 predicted '80 mile/gal by 1939" (Page 42). Additionally, pages 222 and 223 have photographs of a 149.95 MPG 1947 Studebaker, a 244.35 MPG Fiat and a 376.59 MPG Opel. The MPG results are from Shell Oil mileage marathons in 1949, 1968 and 1973. Page 223 also contains this statement; "Driving style was not restricted, but the extent to which a normal production car could tuned was limited to changes in carburation and ignition timing. The event was run on a closed airfield circuit with a minimum average speed of 30 mile/h (48 km/h) enforced.".
* The book "Secrets of the 200 MPG Carburetor" has photocopies of three 1936 test by Ford Motor Co. of Canada on eight-cylinder engines. The cars were equipped with a gasoline vaporizing carburetor patented (#2,026,798) by Charles Pogue. The worst case test produced 25.7 miles on a pint of gasoline.
* A 1900 book "Gas Engine Construction" (Lindsey reprint ISBN 0-917914-46-5) contains this statement concerning engine fuel; " Gasoline will be found to answer this purpose admirably, but some apparatus is necessary- to convert the gasoline into a gas before it can be used for combustion in the gas engine cylinder.".
* Tom Olge patented (#4,177,779) a vaporizing device, this statement is on his patent; "I have been able to obtain extremely high gas mileages with the system of the present invention installed on a V-8 engine of a conventional 1971 American made automobile. In fact, mileage rates in excess of one hundred miles per gallon have been achieved with the present invention.". Argosy Magazine, August 1977, published a five page article concerning the media witnessed test of the Ogle device on a 4,600 pound vehicle.
* The U.S. Government, NASA, also was granted a patent (# 3,640,256) for a vaporizing carburetor. Additional vaporizing carburetor patents were granted, General Electric Co. (#3,926,150), and at least 250 more patents to other inventors.
* The Steven R. Reed Automobile Manufacturing Corp., New Port Beach, CA, displayed a 200 MPG, two passenger, Diesel electric automobile in February 1983.
* Several patents have been granted for completely sealed engines with no inlet or exhaust. A Papp 1968 patent (3,670,494) contains this information; "2. to provide a two cycle reciprocating engine which does not use fuel intake valves or exhaust valves, does not require an air supply and does not emit exhaust gases. 3. To provide a precharged engine of the character stated in item 2 capable of generating power for a period of from 2,000 to over 10,000 hours continuously or until mechanical breakdown) without the addition of fuel, injection of air or discharge of gases.". The test engine, as I recall the patent application file, was a modified VOLVO that produced 70 HP, another Papp patent is #4,428,193. Mr. Britt patented (#3,977,19l) a similar device in 1976.
* At least 11 patents exist for devices that break-down water into the two gases, Hydrogen and Oxygen for use as an engine fuel. Mr. Horvath's 1976 patent, #3,980,053, contains this statement; "This invention relates to internal combustion engines. More particularly it is concerned with a fuel supply apparatus by means of which an internal combustion engine can be run on a fuel comprised of hydrogen and oxygen gases generated on demand by electrolysis of water.". A French patent, # 75 06619 (1976) also exist for this process.
There are many other devices that could be applied to automobiles, such as a permanent magnetic motor, U.S. patent # 4,151,431. Tom Moray produced a device in the late 1920's that could sit on a kitchen table and produced 50,000 Watts of electrical power from an energy field surrounding the earth. Mr. Moray's son published a book, The Sea of Energy in which the Earth Floats, concerning his fathers work.
Gentlemen, I suggest that some of your staff members visit the U.S. Patent Office or any public library for additional information on how to increase MPG without "downsizing" an automobile. I hope that copies of the Shell Oil book, Argosey Magazine and the Sea of Energy can be found. Unfortunately those references were "missing from the files" at the Library of Congress.
Byron S. Wine III Manassas, VA. {The Post did not publish this registered letter. 95 pages of documentation were sent with the letter.}
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