Joe771476 Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 Check out #3. I had a repair garage owner customer of mine who told me the same thing back around the same time about an Oldsmobile that needed a carb and nobody listed the OEM number. He called GM in Detroit. Two guys in suits reportedly showed up and confiscated the carb! 9 "Lost" Inventions That Could Come In Handy Today - Tested#!/science/weird/489527-9-lost-inventions-could-come-handy-today/i... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fordmantpw Posted May 28, 2015 Share Posted May 28, 2015 You mean, kinda like this story in the comments: was stationed in a western state and I met a man who was about in his eighties and he told me he bought a Cadillac direct from the factory. He drove it to Texas and then he said that it got over a hundred mpg. This was back in 1979. about a week later factory reps were at his home and took the car back. So I believe there is some validity to this story. Seems that story keeps repeating itself in different forms... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpd80 Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 The old 100 mpg carburetor myth keeps going round and round. If indeed GM did have a 100 mpg carburetor, they would have never switched to fuel injection. The problem wasn't so much the fuel mixer, it was the rest of the inefficient car design. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 Not to mention physics. Given a specific engine, it requires a certain volume of exploding air to create enough hp to move the vehicle, and that air requires a specific amount of fuel to ignite it. There is nothing you can do to the fuel that would allow you to use 80% less fuel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoonerLS Posted May 29, 2015 Share Posted May 29, 2015 Back in the '90s I knew a guy who was a research engineer for Ford. He said that there was, in fact, a 100MPG carburetor, and you could find it on a lawnmower, because that's about all the power you could get out of an engine that was using it. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atomcat68 Posted May 31, 2015 Share Posted May 31, 2015 If there was such a thing as a car that could get 100 mpg and drive like a normal car, I'm sure somewhere along the line GM would have made it instead of watch their market share plunge to half of its highest level. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RangerM Posted June 1, 2015 Share Posted June 1, 2015 The fact that a lot of these inventors died "taking their secrets with them" adds a level of conspiracy to many of these stories that makes them persist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grbeck Posted June 1, 2015 Share Posted June 1, 2015 If there was such a thing as a car that could get 100 mpg and drive like a normal car, I'm sure somewhere along the line GM would have made it instead of watch their market share plunge to half of its highest level. Bingo! Even GM management in the 1970s and 1980s wouldn't have been that stupid. It's hard to believe that a GM facing intense competition from Toyota and Honda, and heavy pressure from the U.S. government to boost fuel economy, would have sat on a simple device that could have quintupled the fuel economy of existing vehicles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edstock Posted June 1, 2015 Share Posted June 1, 2015 Reminds me of the Pogue carburetor . . . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Nelson_Pogue It didn't work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe771476 Posted June 8, 2015 Author Share Posted June 8, 2015 Back then the auto mfrs. and the oil companies were in bed together. They both had stock in each other. Well they probbaly still do. But anyway, gas was cheap and nobody was complaining about the price, fuel conservation or fuel mileage. Fast forward to present day and you have a different story. And I bet you that when the last drop of fuel has been sucked out of the ground, miraculously electric and propane power sources and others will have had all the bugs worked out of them! But don't expect that your wallet will be fuller. They will price those so that you'e still not saving a dime! These electric companies serving your houses tell you to conserve. And you do, and they didn't even have to tell you to do it, you just do it to save money. So they see their revenues drop. So what do they do? They raise the rates! The states have been telling motorists to conserve fuel and try to use public transit. So we do, and now they want to raise the fuel taxes! They tell you to stop smoking. And every year more and more stop. Then they want to raise the cig tax! The only reason why they tell you to stop smoking is because they don't get any sales or income tax from a dead person! Well let me rephrase that: They don't get as much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
probowler Posted June 9, 2015 Share Posted June 9, 2015 A few years back up here in Alaska, our government got rid of IM testing because our smog levels had been reduced to safe levels, and doing so would save motorists money (eliminating testing fees) A few months later, a new "SERVICE FEE" appeared on our registration renewals, which ended up being about $20 more than the previous cost of Regestration+IM.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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