Hybrid vehicle from the 1970s
11/24/2012
Anyone who thinks that we have Toyota to thank for the hybrid car is mistaken. Not only were hybrid vehicles built at the beginning of the 20th century (e.g. Woods Dual Power, Lohner-Porsche ) , but there were also interesting approaches in the early 1970s, which were subsequently forgotten.
For example, a car called "Miss Purity" took part in the Clean Air Car Race in 1970- long before the Kyoto Protocol, people were already thinking about resource-saving transportation - and won its class ex-aequo with another vehicle. The somewhat adventurous-looking car was built by a small team from the University of Toronto led by Professor Frank Hooper and was driven by the driver team of Douglas Venn, Steve Baker and Juri Otsason, using liquid propane gas as fuel.
Over the entire 5,800 km of the 7-day race, the hybrid vehicle with its plastic bodywork and gullwing doors was constantly surrounded by press representatives and enthusiastic spectators. The interesting car with the special license plate "UTI" even made it into Life magazine.
