Wauseon plant to open for 110-mpg car engines

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WAUSEON - The man who drove his 20-year-old Mustang from Napoleon, Ohio, to Las Vegas and back last year on 39 gallons of fuel will open his first manufacturing facility Monday to allow others to get 110 miles per gallon.

Doug Pelmear, owner of Horse Power Sales.net Inc. and Hp2G LLC, will hold an open house Monday morning in the idle 100,000-square-foot factory he has leased in Wauseon to begin manufacturing his revolutionary engine.

The factory, on the Fulton Industries Inc. campus in Wauseon, will be tooled to initially turn out 20 of Mr. Pelmear's custom engines per day with one shift of 25 workers.

A Decatur, Ind., specialty car company, Revenge Designs Inc., has contracted with Mr. Pelmear to purchase 2,000 engines for use in a new vehicle it plans to unveil at the end of this year at the Los Angeles International Auto Show. The vehicle is to be called the Revenge Verde Super Car, which will use Mr. Pelmear's 400-horsepower engine and its 500 foot-pounds of torque to travel up to 200 mph and get 110 mpg - though admittedly not at the same time.

"The engine is going to be a really great partnership with the car," explained Emily Levault, a spokesman for Revenge Design. "The idea behind this was to give people what they want while putting people back in their jobs."

Ms. Levault said the Verde will be introduced as both a left and right-hand drive, so that it can be marketed around the world. She said details of its pricing have not been released.

Mr. Pelmear has said that he employs more precise tolerances and manufacturing techniques to decrease heat and energy loss and increase the efficiency of the internal combustion engine. He said he has more than quadrupled the industry average engine efficiency of about 8 percent.

Mr. Pelmear's company employs eight people, and he said he'll "take resumes" on Monday, but won't accept applications, for what would be his first shift of production workers. Depending on how the plant start-up goes, Mr. Pelmear said, "we'll probably add another 25 over the next three months after that." Mr. Pelmear did not say what workers will be paid.