When the OPEC oil embargo of 1973 began to cause nationwide gas shortages across the United States, the first-ever Symposium on Low Pollution Power Systems Development seemed rather fortuitously timed.

Yet, as the very name of the symposium stated, its aims were less to reduce oil consumption by making vehicles more fuel efficient and instead were more to promote cleaner vehicles – what we would today call "greener" vehicles – going beyond simply adding emissions controls to existing gasoline/diesel engines.

Fortunately for us, not only did the EPA assign a photographer, Frank Lodge, to cover the symposium on what appeared to be a blustery day, but the U.S. National Archives also held on to Lodge's photographs and posted them late last year, giving us a glimpse of the vehicles and technology presented at the symposium.

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