Oh look, it's EcoMotors International, some new greenie-car startup company with a "revolutionary" engine design. I bet it'll save all the polar bears while running on a blend of hemp oil, wildflowers and moonbeams. So what automotive genius is running this company? Let me guess: Al Gore? Ed Begley Jr? Henry David Thoreau?

Uh, well as it turns out the President and COO of EcoMotors is John Coletti (image at left), former director of Ford's skunkworks performance division, SVT. Coletti is the guy who pushed for the Mustang to stay a rear-drive V-8 performance machine instead of becoming the forgettable front-drive that Ford sold as the unfortunately named Probe.

So if you think it's nuts that a guy like Coletti has signed on with an outfit called EcoMotors, you're really not going to believe the engine they hope to bring to market. It's called OPOC (Opposed Piston Opposed Cylinder), and it's a turbocharged two-stroke, two-cylinder, with four pistons, two in each cylinder, that will run on gasoline, diesel or ethanol. The two pistons, inside a single cylinder, pump toward and away from each other, thus allowing a cycle to be completed twice as quickly as a conventional engine.

Read the Whole Article