Incredible efficiency and lower emissions – the genius of Jonathan Goodwin

“Johnathan Goodwin can get 100 mpg out of a Lincoln Continental, cut emissions by 80%, and double the horsepower. Does the car business have the guts to follow him?”

I had this article from FastCompany.com passed on from the Blogfather and it is still blowing my mind.

Jonathan Goodwin is a self-taught gear-head who is creating a stir in the automotive world by taking production cars, using almost exclusively parts that are widely available, and modifying these cars to create incredibly high efficiency vehicles that run on a variety of fuels (diesel, bio-diesel, hydrogen, recycled cooking oil, you name it).  Oh yeah, and all his mods also produce ridiculous improvements in horse-power!

Here are some excerpts from the article.

In reference to the H3 Hummer he is working on:

“Conservatively,” Goodwin muses, scratching his chin, “it’ll get 60 miles to the gallon. With 2,000 foot-pounds of torque. You’ll be able to smoke the tires. And it’s going to be superefficient.”

He laughs. “Think about it: a 5,000-pound vehicle that gets 60 miles to the gallon and does zero to 60 in five seconds!”

On the big three:

Goodwin is doing precisely what the big American automakers have always insisted is impossible. They have long argued that fuel-efficient and alternative-fuel cars are a hard sell because they’re too cramped and meek for our market…

Goodwin’s work proves that a counterattack is possible, and maybe easier than many of us imagined. If the dream is a big, badass ride that’s also clean, well, he’s there already. As he points out, his conversions consist almost entirely of taking stock GM parts and snapping them together in clever new ways. “They could do all this stuff if they wanted to,” he tells me, slapping on a visor and hunching over an arc welder. “The technology has been there forever. They make 90% of the components I use.” He doesn’t have an engineering degree; he didn’t even go to high school: “I’ve just been messing around and seeing what I can do.”

So the question is, does Goodwin’s work offer a way for the Big 3 to achieve remarkable improvements to their dismal fuel efficiency, compete with foreign automakers, and jump-start the shift away from non-renewable fossil fuels?

That all depends on the willingness of the Big 3 to move away from tired excuses and tired thinking.  Goodwin shows us that the technology already exists, the skills already exist, and the “bad-ass-ness” Americans seem to crave can co-exist.  The only question is, will the Big 3 adopt these ideas before it’s too late – for their companies, for Americans, and for the planet?

Oh, and a great video of one of his mods featured on Pimp My Ride destroying a Lamborghini:

And an interview with Jonathan Goodwin: