Energy: Soaring Gasoline Prices and Raiders of the Lost Ark

Who can forget the gigantic warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark? The ark had been carefully crated and was being wheeled into the bowels of a storage area the size of Rhode Island, never, we are certain, to be found again.

In a somewhat more modest way, I had a similar experience. This time, however, the offending object was not the Ark of the Covenant but a cheap device that doubled or tripled a car's gas mileage while at the same time keeping the engine surprisingly clean.

It was 1978, and I was doing a weekly public affairs television interview show in the Pacific Northwest. As you might imagine, all sorts of unusual folks applied for a place on that show. Those involved in producing it learned to be wary.

I nearly didn't return the call when the caller's message said that he had invented a "miraculous" gas-saving device. This was in the middle of the second great Gas Crisis, and many hucksters had come up with apparatuses that did little but enrich them. Although I was skeptical, something prompted me to return the call.

Bob, let's call him, was very friendly and understood my skepticism, having encountered it many times before. He said that the proof was in the pudding and offered to give me a demonstration. Bob agreed to come over to the television station the next morning for the purpose.

The circumstances of this TV station need to be described. Unlike most television stations, which over the years have moved their offices and studios away from their original mountaintop locations and into town, this station had maintained its entire operation high up next to the transmitter and huge tower. The last several hundred feet--the station driveway taking off from the winding road that led to the base of this last summit--were extremely steep. In fact, when it snowed, it was often necessary for employees to park at the base of the driveway and ride up on station snow cats.

Bob met me in the parking lot of the TV station and showed me what was under the hood of his fairly old V-8 Ford pickup truck. An object perhaps two inches thick sat between the carburetor and the intake manifold. A plastic tube and a wire or two led from the object through the firewall, where the tube connected to a reservoir inside the cab.

Bob explained that the device very simply injected atomized water, which flowed from the reservoir, into the fuel-air mixture that was moving from the carburetor into the intake manifold. He had designed the device to adjust the amount of injected water to match the quantity of this mixture. He claimed that this simple modification would increase gasoline mileage from 100% to 200%, according to his own extensive experimentation. Not only that, but introducing this atomized water had the secondary but very beneficial effect of keeping the inside of his engines extremely clean.

There was no way I could verify the cleanliness of any of his vehicle engines, I told Bob, but we certainly could check his mileage with fair accuracy. Bob produced a witnessed and notarized statement from the head mechanic at one of the area's more respected and long-established auto repair shops. This statement declared that the mechanic had entirely disassembled the engine of the very truck Bob had brought to the TV station. The mechanic found only very modest and even wear characteristic of a well-kept engine with perhaps 50,000 miles. This truck had run in excess of 300,000 miles. He also discoverd almost no "gunk" or other deposits.

I was becoming intrigued, no doubt about it. Bob suggested that before we run a mileage check, he demonstrate the characteristics of the engine as modified by his device. I agreed. We went to the bottom of the steep station driveway. From a dead stop right at the base, Bob let out the clutch (it was a manual transmission) and went up in low gear. This was no great feat, although many vehicles, including some pickup trucks, needed something of a running start even in low.

We went back down the grade, where Bob turned around and did the same thing again, only he shifted after about three or four seconds into second gear. The engine was working to keep the truck pulling up the mountain, but it did it--and with no pinging or lurching. The ride was very smooth, as was the engine.

Back down the grade we went again. This time, Bob gave himself about 50 feet of run-up to the base of the driveway. He started in low, shifted to second just as he hit the grade, and perhaps two seconds later Bob shifted again into third gear. Astonishingly, that engine pulled the truck to the top, pretty obviously straining but not making any popping or pinging sounds or missing at all.

I never would have believed it had I not actually experienced it myself. Much humbled, I suggested that we next do a mileage check. After filling the tank to the cap, we headed for the freeway and drove about 100 miles at highway speed (pretty fast, that is). The engine, I must say, sounded smooth and quiet, not what you might expect from an old truck's engine. The reason for doing the test on the freeway was that it was easier to get an accurate reading on the gasoline mileage that way than to structure representative city driving.

After topping off the gas tank again, I did the simple calculation necessary to determine gasoline mileage. Imagine my astonishment when it came out to better than 33 mpg, over twice what Bob had gotten on the highway before he had installed his invention, back when the truck was new. I double-checked and triple-checked, but the mileage came out the same. Bob said that some vehicles did even better than that, sometimes dramatically better. I believed him.

Naturally, we did a TV show about Bob's invention. Bob told me afterwards that he was in negotiations for the licensing, manufacture, and distribution of his device, figuring that the royalties would earn him untold millions of dollars even as his invention potentially cut gasoline consumption in automobiles by at least a third. He and I both thought that Bob, using that legendary American genius and initiative, had solved a large part of the energy crisis. He promised to stay in touch and let me know how things were going. I thought I'd find out from eight-inch headlines in the newspaper and screaming bulletins from CBS.

How foolish and naiive we were. It was a couple of years later when I was going through my files. I ran across program notes from that show and immediately wondered what had happened, particularly because I had not heard anything since then. It had slipped off my radar, probably because I had been so certain of hearing dramatic news and seeing vast reductions in gasoline consumption. It never happened, as we all know.

I called Bob, who sounded very distant and guarded when he found out who it was. I asked him what had happened; he said that he had lost interest in the project and had let it drop. I responded with, "Lost interest?! Let it drop?! You must be joking!! You had the most significant invention of at least the decade and you just put it away?? I don't believe it!." I guess I was that aggressive because it truly was impossible to believe.

Bob paused, and then said, "Well, I guess I owe you some explanation. Your interest and program kind of launched my public effort to get my invention into production. But it never happened. Not long after your show, I got a call from an executive with the ------------ corporation." Bob went on to explain that this corporation, a very, very, very, very large petroleum producer and marketer, offered him a substantial amount of money for his invention. The executive never told Bob how they found out about it.

Bob told the man he was not interested in selling out but in developing his device. After all, not only would he make far more money that way, he would vastly benefit individual automobile owners and the country as a whole. The executive raised the ante substantially. Bob continued to refuse. The payoff went up again, and again, and again. Finally, the executive, reported Bob, said he had reached the limit and could go no higher.

In response, Bob said that he really did not want to sell out and would continue with his plan to develop and market his invention. According to Bob, that's when the executive turned very icy. Without directly threatening Bob, the executive suggested how expensive and time-consuming it might be for someone who had invented something if an organization with vast resources decided that it's patents had been infringed and took the inventor to court. It might be years--decades--before any settlement was reached, and the legal costs to the inventor could be in the millions of dollars by then.

Bob got the message and sold out for a very comfortable amount. He said he couldn't reveal how much he had received--that was part of the agreement--but that it was in the high eight figures. He greatly regreted it but couldn't see how anyone would have benefitted had he launched a one-sided war he seemed doomed to have lost anyway. Bob imagined that his prototype was sitting somewhere on a storeroom shelf in the bowels of the oil company, attracting brief glances from curious passers-by but otherwise probably to be undisturbed until the end of time. I hardly knew what to say.

A few years later, that great movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, was released. Because of that movie, I have modified the fate Bob imagined for his device. It was not on display on a dusty shelf but wheeled in an unmarked crate to a storage area in a vast warren of crates where it would never be found again. Very likely, other Bobs have developed similar devices over the years and decades. They are probably resting in their own crates not very far from Bob's.

I am certain that you are as pleased as I am that the production and profits of the -------------- corporation have not been disturbed, as they would have been had Bob's invention been made available to us.