High Mileage Claims Mostly False
Inventors and their Mysterious Inventions Feed Conspiracy Theories
Apr 9, 2009
The Pogue Carburetor (1930), the Dobbs Carburetor (1934), and the Schwartz Carburetor (1966) are a few of a long line of contraptions that were claimed to get amazing gas mileage.
Carburetor Claims Fail Close Inspection
Charles Nelson Pogue of Winnipeg, Canada built a carburetor (U.S. Patent # 1,750,354) that he claimed would let a car travel 200 miles on a gallon of fuel. Mr. Pogue said his invention completely vapourized gasoline before it got to the cylinders of the engine. The vapour burned more efficiently and delivered incredible mileage.
“Incredible” is the correct word, because the Pogue Carburetor has been thoroughly debunked by Snopes.com and others. However, this does not discourage true believers. One of these is Simon de Bruxelles who writes on his website: “…The carburetor was never produced and, mysteriously, Pogue went overnight from impoverished inventor to the manager of a successful factory making oil filters for the motor industry. Ever since, suspicion has lingered that oil companies and car manufacturers colluded to bury Pogue’s invention.”
This is the common theme among enthusiasts; that dark forces want to keep world-changing inventions from getting to market.
Not Even a Carburetor Needed
Tom Ogle, an El Paso, Texas auto mechanic did away with the carburetor and fuel pump and replaced them with a secret black box he called a filter. The black box was claimed to deliver huge distances on a teaspoon of fuel.
The abstract to his patent (4,177,779, filed in 1979) reads, “A fuel economy system for an internal combustion engine which, when installed in a motor vehicle, obviates the need for a conventional carburetor, fuel pump, and gasoline tank. The system operates by using the engine vacuum to draw fuel vapours from a vapour tank through a vapour conduit to a vapour equalizer which is positioned directly over the intake manifold of the engine.”
As with Charles Nelson Pogue, Tom Ogle has his fans. One of them is Frank L. Reister who posted the following on a blog called PickensPlan on October 4, 2008: “Overnight Tom became a millionaire, and the American people, and the world for that matter, became the big losers. Incidentally, Monica Ogle, Tom’s wife, and their two-year-old daughter became losers as Tom was mysteriously murdered less than six months later.”
Mysterious Disappearances
None of these devices ever get on the market and there are lots of people who think they know why. The urban mythology industry claims that the big oil companies and carmakers buy up the patents in order to suppress these inventions.
Some go further, suggesting that dark forces have the inventors bumped off. It’s true that some inventors do disappear. But, this is more likely because people who invested money in devices that don’t work come looking for a refund.
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