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There was a Nascar car builder and Indy car builder named Smokey Unick. in his book The Best Damn Garage in Town,it stated that in the 60's Smokey put a propeller on an alternator and mounted it behind the grill,did it work? it worked so well Nascar out lawed it.Smokey discovered that at 60 mph it charged the battery as well as the engine did. Smokey had a real dislike of engine driven components..they steal power ,his next invention was to have the alternator driven by the drive shaft. he put a pully on the drive shaft and made a bracket to hold the alternator. it was belt driven. not as efficient as the propeller driven one it still saved power.he had ideas that the water pump could be electric and driven by his air powered alternator.this was really advanced thinking for the time, when gas was 32 cents a gallon.he made a car that got 78 mpg with air cond, and ran 80 mph,he tried to give it to the U.S. auto makers, they turned him down saying his little diesel car wasn't efficient enough. boy, I sure wish I had one!
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