Via Kos comes the story of Johnathan Goodwin, a guy who may revolutionize cars: he’s tricked out one car to get 600 horsepower, 60 miles to the gallon, 2,000 foot-pounds of torque, and will do 0 to 60 is five seconds.
Did I mention that car is actually a 5000 pound Hummer?
If this story is true (and it appears to be so) then this is amazing. The mods this guy makes retrofit cars to use biofuel, which is fraught with controversy… but if the efficiencies quoted are accurate, it will still make a huge impact on the car industry.
I have owned American cars in the past, and found them to be far too much trouble. Even when we bought new cars there were bad issues right off the rack, customer service was awful (with one issue we got buck-passed constantly between the manufacturer and the service station, each blaming the other for the problem… once we got them to admit there even was a problem), repair times long, and even minor fixes expensive. I now own a Volvo, which I love. I wish the gas mileage were higher, of course, but I hardly drive it anyway. It’s not hard to imagine a lot of people in my situation, though.
I’d prefer to drive an American vehicle all things being equal, but all things are not equal. I have heard too much whining from Detroit and not enough innovation. Maybe Goodwin can change their attitude. If not, I bet a lot of folks at GM and Ford will be working for him someday.
