Paraphrased text of interview done with Tom Ogle, June 1977

6/17/1977

     Tom Ogle recently claimed that an exhaust emissions test made at Casa Ford in El Paso proves that his Oglemobile fuel system operate almost pollution free.

     A spokesman for Casa Ford verified that the tests were made recently, although he would not attempt to interpret the test results on what would be near-perfect combustion in the engine.

     Ogle, who has not been available for comment lately, came to the local newspaper with an emissions printout he says support his contention that his system gets 100 mpg on gas-guzzling cars.

     Examining the test results, Ogle stated: "This means the Oglemobile is virtually pollution free, and we've done this on an old 1970 Ford Galaxie, as compared to a 1977 Ford LTD that even uses a catalytic converter."

     He made his point by comparing his car to the LTD at an idle speed of about 1200 rpm. The printout showed some staggering comparisons between the exhaust emitted by both cars. The LTD, for example, which had a 351 cid engine, emitted 221 parts per million of hydrocarbons (HC), and 1.10% carbon monoxide (CO).  Ogle's car, which also had a 351 cid engine, showed zero hydrocarbon emissions, and only .10% carbon monoxide, or more than 10 times less than the CO emitted by the LTD.

     Although the chemical content of leaded and unleaded gas differs, the primary byproducts include unburned HC (composed of hydrogen and carbon compounds), and CO (composed of carbon and oxygen atoms). There is also nitrogen oxide and some sulphur dioxide that are emitted. All of the chemicals are considered harmful.

     "They told us at Casa Ford that if we ran any cleaner we would be running on air," Ogle said. "Just these tests alone mean we would go a long way to solving part of the world's pollution problems."

     Ogle said the analyzer at Casa Ford is the most accurate testing equipment you can get, and that the computer is designed to meet safety standards set forth in the 1970 Clean Air Act as well as air pollution control levels of the Environmental Protection Agency.

     "These tests mean that we're burning everything in the engine we are supposed to," Ogle said.

     Eddie Davis has been Casa Ford's vice president in charge of service for the past 8 years, and has been the service manager since 1954, and a mechanic since 1946. It was Davis who instructed the tests be run on the test car owned by Ogle's partner, El Paso businessman Jim Peck. "Yes," Davis said, "we ran the tests on the Oglemobile." When asked, Davis would not lend his interpretation to the results. "It would take an engineer to say what they really mean." But, he added, "The readings do look very low on the Oglemobile as far as comparing them to other conventional vehicles."

     Davis said he specifically arranged for a car with a 351 cid engine to be compared with the Oglemobile. "We felt that would be most realistic." The tests, Davis said, were conducted on a highly sophisticated, $75,000 emissions analyzer that can duplicate highway driving conditions. "Our roadamatic and computer analyzer is the very latest in the line of equipment designed to read engines," he added. When asked, he did not think the computer had made a mistake. "I don't know whatever is is that Ogle has done," Davis said, "but there was not a chance of an error, human or otherwise. We run tests like this all day long on all our cars."

     Davis said, however, that although the Oglemobile scored such low marks for chemical pollution emissions at idle speeds, the same should not be considered true for actual city or highway driving. "At idle speed there is no load on the engine. I suggested that he run some performance tests on the Oglemobile to see how it compares to later model cars," David said. The performance tests, he added, could also be run on the Casa Ford analyzer.

     Ogle's contention that the exhaust emission tests can be used to determine gas mileage was based on a formula that he said the EPA uses in similar testing procedures. "The Federal Energy Admisistration uses an exhaust analysis," he said. Davis, however, wasn't so sure. "I don't know if you can compute fuel economy from the emissions readout or not. Tom told me that there is a way to determine fuel mileage from the exhaust test information. I had never really heard that before.

     In other matters, Ogle said his Washington patent attorney was in El Paso last week. "He rode in the car, and looked it over real thoroughly. He's an engineer, and knows what's going on." Ogle said he expects to hear additional word about his patent application on his vaporized fuel system within the next few weeks. "Things are looking real good," he said, smiling broadly.

     Ogle was asked about the allegation by a former physicist living in El Paso who claimed there is not enough energy in a gallon of gasoline to get 100 miles per gallon on a 5,000 pound car traveling at freeway speeds. "Naah," Ogle said, as he smoked a cigarette. Shrugging his shoulders as if to ward off silly questions, he added, "The time will come. We''ll have all the facts soon, and then nobody will be able to argue."

     Ogle first tested his car on April 30th, 1977, when he and 3 passengers drove from El Paso to Deming, N.M., a distance of about 200 miles, on less than 2 gallons of gas. The car and its fuel system have been externally scrutinized by mechanics, professional engineers, and one official from the Federal Energy Research and Development Administration. The consensus has been that a hoax was not involved in the El Paso-Deming test drive.

Ogle's Computer Test

Tom Ogle, the 24-year old El Paso inventor who claims to have invented a fuel system that gets 100 miles per gallon, is shown in a picture holding a computer readout from an exhaust analyzer that he had done at a local Ford dealer in El Paso. The results of the sophisticated computer test, Ogle said, proves that his system not only gets good gas mileage, but that the system doesn't produce and HC, and very minimal amounts of CO during combustion.