06/09/2002
FEATURE BY MIKE LAWRENCE
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One story catching the attention of British newspapers is the CityCab, a car which runs on compressed air. According to the story, a small cylinder compresses air and heats it. This hot air is then transferred to a second, larger, cylinder when the piston is at Top Dead Centre. The new air heats the air in the second cylinder which expands and forces down the piston. The whole process is set under way by nothing more than compressed air from an outside source.
The result is an engine with zero pollution since the only propellant is compressed air. According to the claims, the car can be 're-fuelled' from the air line in the forecourt of your local garage. Since your local garage will not put up with that for long, you will probably have to have your own compressor at home. Still, it is claimed, enough compressed air can be generated in four hours (while you go zzzzzzz) to give a range of 140 miles and that will cost you just one pound.
It sounds too good to be true. The only fuel needed, apart from air, will be whatever fuel is used at a power station to generate the electricity to drive the compressor. There is nothing going bang. There is no creation of carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide. There is nothing smelly. Not even the smallest mouse will be disturbed. Are we talking green, or are we talking green?
We are talking green so green that pale girls who wear floral frocks and who listen to recordings of whale-song will be yours for the asking. You will be offered nut cutlets, horoscopes and aromatherapy and you may even receive personal introductions to very old, and wise, trees. Play your cards right and you might even be allowed to hug a poplar.
The inventor has found the backing to set up a factory in France. The parent company, Moteur Development International (MDI), claims that it has found a further 23 partners all over the world. To give an example, there will be a factory in Mexico producing zero-emission cars and cabs for use in Mexico City where the air is notoriously polluted. Vehicles will be made close to point of use so while the CityCab is an international project, it is not part of 'globalization' because local jobs will be created.
We speak here of a smiling face and what else would you expect from someone with a track record in Formula One?
The project, which invites further partners to invest money, emphasises that its founding genius has designed a successful Formula One engine. Who this great person? Keith Duckworth, mayhap? No. Mario Ilien? No. Brian Hart, John Judd? No. Step forward, Guy Negres.
The official website tells how Negres was involved in Formula One with a 'successful' engine which was let down by the fact that he could not find an investor because, so runs the story, M. Negres is an inventor and not someone skilled in marketing.
Twenty three paid-up partners to produce the wonder engine in 23 factories around the world when not a single CityCab has been observed to run under its own power, is quite a feat of marketing, I'd say.
Some of us can remember, just, the foray Guy Negres made into Formula One in 1990. The team was Life (the team's principal was Ernesto Vita and 'Vita' in Italian equates to 'Life' in English). Despite the claims of Guy Negres that his engine could not find an investor, his design was made by a company called Life Racing Engines, not Negres Racing Engines.
Okay, he did find an investor and now he says that he could not. Do you feel your nostrils twitch?
You cannot remember the Life F190? That is not surprising since, though the one car made was entered in all but two races (twice with a Judd V8 engine) and, in Gary Brabham and Bruno Giacomelli, had decent enough drivers, the Life W-12 did not get beyond pre-qualifying.
Negres' engine was a W-12 with rotary valves but, while his website claims that the engine was 'successful', it was actually a special occasion when it completed a lap.
Some weird and wonderful devices can be found in the history of Formula One, but not one comes close to the Life project when it comes to the wild and wacky world of 'No Way'. It was not uncommon for the Life F190 to be 20-30 seconds off the pace in pre-qualifying. Bruno Giacomelli might as well have turned up at Hertz and hired a Ford because there were times when he didn't even record a time.
Life made the Andrea Moda team of 1992 look like the white heat of the technological leading edge. At least Andrea Moda managed, once, to put a car on a grid and it did take part in qualifying several times.
As part of its marketing campaign, MDI is presenting Guy Negres as a brilliant innovator with the implication that he was even too good for Formula One. Be honest, do you recall his name? Do you recall the Life F190? 1990 was a year when many jostled for prominence, teams of the order of AGS, Coloni, Euro Brun, Leyton House, Lola-Lamborghini, Onyx, Osella and Subaru-Coloni. How long ago that all seems.
If you have a few million clam shells to spare, you could buy into this eco-friendly project which is fronted by an inventor whose portfolio includes a 'successful' Formula One engine.
Call me an old cynic if you will, but I seem to remember that we've been down this route a few times before. In the early 1970s there was an attempt, aired publicly, to revive the Stirling engine, a respectable concept which also uses the expansion of air though with an external heat source. That has been known for about a century, but nobody has been able to turn it into a viable proposition and I am prepared to bet that every major manufacturer has looked at it.
I think also of 'The Car That Runs On Water' which has been revived every so often by a con artist. Henry Ford himself was duped into backing such a scheme, which is dependent on a cunningly hidden petrol tank. In the mid-1980s, a guy in Spain was gaoled for operating the scam which involved investors parting with their money. I am prepared to bet that it has occurred more often had been victims prepared to come forward.
I am personally acquainted with someone who designed an H-8 Formula One engine so compact that it is almost exactly one cubic foot - it is no more than 12 inches (30 cm) long, deep or wide and was computed to produce at least 900 bhp. I was put on the case by an F1 team owner. I have seen the drawings. I have visited the engineering company persuaded to develop it and, I am told, it received government grants. Do you recall hearing of an H-8 racing engine actually running?
Incidentally, the designer of this engine was the guy who came up with the Lion GP car. It was never actually made, but it had twelve wheels, all of which were driven, which took braking and which steered.
Think about that, a 12-wheeled F1 car, turbine-powered, of course. You think I'm joking? I own a proposal document for it, in fact, I suggested improvements to the proposal. Doug Nye wrote a piece in Autosport on it, circa 1979. I know a former F1 team owner who took his driver to heavy-duty meetings with potential sponsors and I speak here of internationally famous automotive brands, if that is what you can call, say, Dunlop.
I have not told you all. The driver would sit cross-legged and all the major functions would be operated through the steering column, as on an aircraft.
There is more, since a turbine engine is so quiet, the Lion GP car would play advertising slogans for its sponsors. Believe me, this was a serious proposal, you do not get through the front door at Dunlop unless you at least appear to be serious.
In this case the design was done by a maverick thinker, not a con artist. I know the guy, I have held in my hands prototype components for a revolutionary transmission system in which Williams was interested. He is no con artist, he is a person with a different approach and his transmission finally found an application on military vehicles.
When I read about 'The Car That Runs On Air' created by someone who once made a 'successful' F1 engine which could barely complete a lap, I do not know whether I am looking at a scam or at somebody carried away by his own dreams, either way it is someone who has found other people who want to share the dream.
I have to say that something deep down within me always hoped that the Life W-12 engine would succeed, but that is the romantic in me. I'd love to see the CityCab live up to its promises, but I know that it will not.
To check out Mike's previous articles for pitpass... click here