Dave Perry of Old School Restorations of North Alabama
had a mystery on his hands. A friend of his had bought this funky Opel
(a 1959 Opel Rekord P1 Caravan) from the Talladega Speedway museum
thinking it was some sort of Bonneville land-speed race car, but had no
interest in it, so Dave picked it up. Oddly, the entire engine was wrapped in some sort
of insulation and the rear wheels are only a few inches apart.
Dave turned to Google, and came up with something strange. Some folks at Shell Oil Co. once wrote "Fuel Economy of the Gasoline Engine", a book which predicted 376.59 MPG with a 1959 Opel in 1973. Read that again - 376.59 miles per gallon of gasoline.
Apparently, as the theory goes, superheating the fuel - essentially
vaporizing it before it reaches the engine - produces such results, but
only if the engine is kept as hot as possible, thus the gobs of
insulation.
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