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The Avion: Driving from Canada to Mexico--on just 14 gallons of gas

By Rain Noe - August 30, 2010

in Tech | Object Culture

No one cared about fuel economy in the '80s. I drove a used six-cylinder Datsun that got terrible mileage, especially as driven by a high-school boy, where you needed to see if you could hit 85 m.p.h. on the way to the grocery store. But I was easily able to fill the tank on busboy wages, as gas was 99 cents per gallon, cheaper than soda.

Nevertheless, in 1984 inventors Craig Henderson and Bill Green developed the Avion, a hand-built car that hit an astonishing high of 113 miles per gallon in test runs. It wasn't intended to be a "green" car; the duo set out to build a high-performance sports car, but by using manufacturing techniques "more closely related to small airplane construction than steel stamped automobiles"--composite materials are used widely throughout--the Avion achieved absurdly low mileage even though it used a standard Chrysler four-cylinder engine. Henderson drove it from Mexico to Canada while averaging 103 miles per gallon.After 20 years, Henderson is now trying to break his high-mileage record; he's dusted off the Avion, updated the engine and tires, and is attempting to drive from the Canadian border to the Mexican border on only a single 14-gallon tankful of gas. Henderson departed from Blaine, Washington yesterday, and is Tweeting his updates here.

While he hopes the Avion and his trip will draw attention to just how possible high-efficiency automobiles are, Henderson is well aware of the challenges he faces beyond the drive: "It's one thing to build a car that gets 100 miles per gallon," he says. "It's another thing to build a company that builds that car."

via bellingham herald

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Commandersprocket

14 years ago

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This is essentially Amory Lovins hypercar concept which I had assumed was common knowledge. Bucky Fuller's 1930's Dymaxion car got 30mpg, had a >100mph top speed and carried 10 passengers. Aerodynamics and weight are HUGE for a moving vehicle.
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Kev

14 years ago

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Fantastic concept - Mileage that beats the PRIUS with old technology. There's a question that was missed - what about road safety testing? Can we ignore this design constraint when building from composites like this?

In my product design class, we covered the development of the Think Car (from Norway) which was the world's first electric car that was certified to take a bump on the highway (effectively making it legally a "car").
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Jerry

14 years ago

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Hokie Alum ('01) checking in...

Yep, got to see this in person as well! The funny thing is that Bill is very nearsighted and as Alex mentioned he drove that Avion on occasion. The coolness of the car apparently overshadowed his compromised vision while driving it.

Go HOKIES!
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Craighton

14 years ago

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Bill Green is an industrial design professor at Virginia Tech, who still had his Avion, or at least in the early 2000s he did. As well as a functional Model T!
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Alex V

14 years ago

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Bill Green was my ID professor at Virginia Tech. He still had one and brought it by campus one time, and it's pretty cool. Instead of building everything from scratch they reused a lot of parts from other cars. For example both the front and rear suspension are front ends from a VW Golf. Only difference is the front still has the transmission and engine installed. It also had a sweet carpeted interior with wood-effect dash. Bill also had a Model T he would occasionally drive to work as well. He's also blind as bat, unless he holds whatever he's looking at about 2 inches from his face. Then he can tell what material ANY object is made from.
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