ALT-1 Tom Ogle and his Environmental Car
When a 24-year old Texas inventor from El Paso, Thomas Hans Werner Peter Wolfgang Dinglestadt Ogle, made the statement, "Once I get to Deming and back I'll have everybody banging at my door!" the young German descent was preparing to drive a reporter from the Times magazine to Deming and back, on only 2.2 gallons of gas for the 231-mile trip. The vehicle was a 1979 Ford Galaxy and the high-school dropout was called Tom Ogle, who was hoping to gain fortune and fame through his invented "Oglemobile" environmental car which may be the answer to the energy crisis.
Instead, in 1981 he was to die at a young age from serious depression and an overdose of pain killers mixed with alcohol. His life had ended as a result of being skinned by pool hustlers, gamblers, and the Advanced Fuel Systems, Inc., from Seattle, Washington, who had not only purchased his invention but was planning on refusing to give him royalties at a time when he owed lots of gambling debts.But at one time he was on top of the world, thinking he had finally made it.
1974-1975 GAS RATIONING
The scene for Tom Ogle's invention actually had begun three years earlier in 1974 and 1975, due to the high prices of oil and fuel which were the result of the Six-Day War in 1967. The Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries had decided to punish any country that had supported the country of Israel during The Yom Kippur War in 1973, with the punishment consisting of ceasing oil shipments to Western Europe, the United States, and Japan.
To help the American citizens, the U.S. Federal Energy Administration had requested that the Federal Treasury Department print 4.8 billion coupons for gasoline rationing coupons at a cost of millions of dollars. Unfortunately, the coupon was no good as it had no value on it, but only said it was good for one gallon of gas which the consumer still had to pay out of his own pocket. The entire numbers of coupons were shredded by the Army under the supervision of the U.S. Energy Department, and the American citizens received no relief for gas distribution.
205 MILES ON TWO-GALLONS OF GAS
When Tom Ogle transported the Times reporter to Deming and back on two-gallons of gas, he had previously been working on his controversial energy-saving fuel system at Peck's Automotive Service during office hours. On Saturday when the trip took place many reporters and interested viewers saw the shop's mechanic empty the vehicle's special tanks that were special-pressurized built and place two gallons of fuel in it. Due to the car's difficulty upon starting it had proved to the crowd that the car's system had no stored fuel in it other than the 2.2 gallons, which had required the car to be primed. "I use about four gallons of gas every two weeks," Ogle said. "But then I drive an awful lot," while he claimed his vehicle actually traveled 160 miles per gallon.
THE OGLEMOBILE
On December 11, 1979, Tom Ogle had filed U.S. Patent #4,177,779 for his "Fuel Economy System for an Internal Combustion Engine." Its object was to present a new energy device for vehicles which would save on energy by cleaning up emissions, with Ogle hoping it would revolutionize the automobile industry. Unknowingly to Tom Ogle, rumors spread that similar patents for almost the same type of device were around, such as with General Motors, even though there had been no evidence of it.
"Engineers said it wouldn't work because without a carburetor there's nothing to vaporize the fuel," Tom Ogle had explained to the reporter during the trip. "They couldn't understand that it's already working on vapors. Instead, everybody kept trying to add something to the carburetor while nobody thought of taking the thing off."
The invention of Ogle's required premium gas in the tank to flow through several filters, which allows it to spread further while being able to store the gas vapors for up to 45 days. The invention also cleaned the environment, while requiring fewer repairs. Using a standard engine, the invention only required a few simple modifications-the area involved was the carburetor where a series of hoses actually fed the vehicle a gas vapor/air mixture into its engine.
DEATH OF TOM OGLE
After his death, it was found that there had been a silent partner who had also been killed when a jack mysteriously fell with a car on it, trapping and killing the man under it. Hiding out afterwards, Tom Ogle had developed a way of life which spiraled downward, as he owed lots of gambling money to certain individuals who would badly influence his few remaining days. He may have committed suicide when he found out the money from his royalties were not coming, or he may have been murdered due to his gambling debts. Or he may have been murdered due to his invention, which in the long run would make someone very rich.
