Lone Star - ya'll said: If you guys only knew how screwed up and unorganized the big oil and big auto industries really are, you'd drop half those theories immediately, like that old one about the 100 mpg carburetor.....
Actually, these exist. There have been 20 or more patents taken out on high mileage carboreators and the dates go back to the 20s and 30s. I have seen two examples and have seen how they work, and they do work. Yet, each patent was bought out by either a major auto maker or a gas company - you can research these to find out who bought them - and then they disappeared. The last one I personally saw was hand-built, as they all are, was installed on a 77 Cadillac DeVille with a 472 cubic inch V8, and was reported to get 77 miles per gallon of gas on cruise control at 70mph. A number of us tried following up with the owner who told us that he had received offers for his design but due to 'constraints' in the language of the purchase offer would take his development no further or sell his technology. He too was bought out.
One of my hunting buddies, who is also a 'car guy' says he doesn't think they were workable and the companies who bought them just dropped them. That's one of the things we disagree on. I think they were bought for the sole purpose of burying them. If people knew they could buy a car that would get 100 miles to a gallon of gasoline they would buy one, especially today and since the 70s.
I think something like the carboreator business is just the big money makers trying to assure they keep making big money. Think about it - if a car can go 5 times the distance on one gallon of gas that so hurts the gas companies that they would do almost anything to keep that from happening. JMHO. Mikey.