Driving a Market Force at 113 MPG

Little known subsidiary of GM offers a diesel with phenomenal mileage. We should get this engine as reparations for bailing out the automaker. We should have something to show for taxpayer's money.

It seems like General Motors isn't going to be your daddy's GM anymore, at least if the Obama administration's plan for reorganizing the bankrupt auto giant is carried out.

If Uncle Sam winds up with a majority interest in the car maker, there may be a great benefit for millions of Americans from the deal in the form of a car, or at least an engine, that could possibly make it onto the US market-if enough people clamor for it. The car in the picture is an Opel Eco-Speedster, a concept car that made its debut in 2003. Besides being a flashy, expensive road rocket made from carbon fiber this and high-tech that and money in between, the little Opel has a magic engine; a diesel four cylinder unit of 1.3 liters displacement with four valves per cylinder and a turbocharger that can push the 1500 lb. speedster along at almost 140 miles per hour and maintain an amazing mileage rate of 113 miles per gallon. This yields from a 112 hp engine. It's the result of some thirty years of Opel experiments with diesels and their once-signature GT model car that used to be called the "Baby Corvette".

The Opel has languished for several years while other lesser, dirtier, inefficient engines have been chugging along, adding to the gas crisis we live in, increasing costs to every driver and increasing pollution. GM, Opel's parent company, never bothered to bring the Ecotec-CDT1 engine to market since they had no incentive to; for them, making gashog SUV's was enough to keep everyone in debt.

But now, that's all changed. GM is in the toilet and may need to be rescued by FIAT or the Feds or someone from their own failure, and if that someone happens to be you and your tax dollars, the least you should get for your money is a new kind of diesel that can pass everything on the road, including most gas stations.

The history of the American automobile industry is full of sad tales of better technology that never made it to the showroom because it would have been costly for the status quo. Few people today remember the Erren engine, the omni-fuel carburetor, the push-button transmission or the Corvair air cooled engine with its excellent power to weight ratio and dainty fuel consumption. Those things didn't get far because some people in Detroit and D.C. who were invested in the way things were would have had to go to work for a living if better technology was suddenly for sale. But this time, Uncle Sam may have some horsepower of his own when it comes to bargaining and we the people who lent it to him ought to be in the driver's seat where the Opel diesel engine is concerned.

This time, we the people need to lean on Mister Change, aka President Obama; if our money is going to bail out GM, we need to get something of value for once instead of the crap GM and their political whores are used to selling us. Of course not everyone is going to want a tiny little sportscar, many Americans want the hulking, expensive and road clogging tanks that they think is their God-given right to inflict on the rest of us. But even those would cause less grief for the sane if they were powered with an engine that could deliver something close to 113 miles per gallon.

Bug your Congressional rep or your Senator, or what the hell, rattle Mr.Change's cage at 1600 West Pennsylvania Avenue and demand that GM dust off their stepchild's diesel and get it on the road, pronto. That engine could go a long way toward changing the economy for the better and adding some coin to your pocketbook, too. -Victor Chapman