Car propelled by water

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33665, 15 October 1974, Page 19

Car propelled by water

(N.Z. Press Assn—Copyright) LONDON, Oct. 14. A French inventor has come up with every motorist’s dream and every oil sheikh’s nightmare: a car propelled by water. Well, almost. The device patented by Mr Jean Chambrin, of Rouen, enables internal combustion engines to run on a mixture of tap water and pure alcohol. The secret is in a four-by-eight-inch box weighing 331 b which is placed between a modified carburettor and the engine. According to Mr Chambrin, the black box “cracks” the water molecules into their components, hydrogen and oxygen, the former being used as combustion gas to drive the engine. Before a crowd of journalists and television men in

Rouen this week, Mr Chambrin started the car on alcohol, and switched over to the water-alcohol mixture. Consumption was the equivalent of eight miles to the gallon using the 60-40 mixture. The alcohol comes from the local chemist, and is pure, but Mr Chambrin said: “The engine loves whisky just as well — if I could afford it — and starts like a bomb on Calvados. Red wine, too, works at a pinch, but it does gum up the plugs.” Reports from Paris say that the invention has caused so much of a stir that the French Government has ordered the Petroleum Research Institute to investigate.