Factory Five GTM Wins Green Grand Prix

[Mad Dog]

Custom Built FFR Runs Over 100 MPG & Co-Winner with Chevy Volt!



You may remember Simon Hauger and his team of high school kids from West Philly High School from last year's Progressive Insurance X-Prize Competition where they were one of only twenty-two finalists. The car didn't win the X-Prize, but Simon and his crew didn't give up.

At last month's Green Grand Prix, the team ended on the podium beating all entries. The Factory Five GTM averaged over 100 miles per gallon to win the 100 mile race! The Chevy Volt won the 50 mile race.



Watkins Glen International Speedway kicked off its opening weekend of festivities Friday with the Green Grand Prix. Now in its sixth year, the Green Grand Prix is a competition billed as the only road rally for alternate-fuel vehicles in the United States sponsored by the Sports Car Club of America.

The event drew 45 competitors – from the Chevy Volt and GM’s fuel cell powered SUV to homemade three-wheelers powered by industrial lawnmower engines and everything in between. The competitors were as interesting as their cars. Four teams from the Automotive X Prize showed up, including West Philadelphia High School and Cornell University.

The West Philly Team brought their highly tuned Factory Five GTM powered by a Volkswagen TDI engine running on 100% biodiesel.

“For the past month we worked to get the GTM ready for this competition. In the haste of the X Prize, we had cut lots of corners. We discovered why the car had not achieved the fuel economy we needed for the X Prize and fixed it. Our car is running better than it ever has … just in time for the race,” Stefon Gonzales, the team’s co-captained explained.

After two hours of racing, the results were tabulated. The Chevy Volt won the 50-mile race and West Philly had won the 100 mile. Simon Hauger, the team’s director, was elated. “We did really well in the X Prize but we didn’t win. It feels great to be in the winner’s circle next to the Chevy Volt today. I think we have a compelling car - it’s sexy, it’s fast, and we just got over 100 miles per gallon on a world famous track. Not bad for a high school.”

The custom TDI-powered GTM has been part of a development program for the last two years where we are looking seriously at high mileage, eco-friendly applications in Factory Five cars. In 2008, we built the battery-electric '33 Hot Rod with SolidWorks and Hewlett Packard. We've also looked carefully at hybrid drive and one customer went so far as to built a turbine powered BEV GTM. Click here to read about some of these cars.

This GTM built by West Philly High School has direct applications to Factory Five products and you should see a variant of this technology in the near future.

Click here to read about the West Philly High School GTM build. The car will be at the 2011 Factory Five Open House.

[LCD Gauges]

Holy Smokes, that's beyond impressive! Congrats to the team and all of their hard work. It's nice to see performance cars getting the win is such a competition; the word ironic comes to mind.

I wonder how much better mileage this car would achieve with smaller rims and tires?

[crash]

Not only was it a winner, but also appears to be the best LOOKING car in the competition.

Way to go!!

[Muadi]

Great job guys! Look like it was a lot of fun....

[Mad Dog]

The guys ran special low rolling resistance tires. I think the sizes were 225's all around. The guys also ran the car without the hybrid drive, going only on the biodisel power plant.

[Mad Dog]

The team was also featured in an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Here's the link to the story: http://bit.ly/kcs81i.

[Russ Thompson]

Dave, thanks for this post, great stuff. I love seeing this kind of stuff going on!

[Jeff Collins]

Congratulations guys that is impressive work.

[icefox]

So is the front of the car very un-aerodynamic? Is that why they gave it a new more round front?

[Dave Smith]

The GTM was designed and tested in a wind tunnel to deliver downforce as opposed to low drag. The guys modified the car to make it slip thru the air better.

[crash]

So is the front of the car very un-aerodynamic? Is that why they gave it a new more round front?

Also this car did not require any cooling up front, so I'm pretty sure that they just came up with a cheap, easy solution to closing off the front grille opening, and while they were at it, shaped it so as to possibly benefit the aero.

[Oppenheimer]

OK, so who owns the movie rights to this story? Does anyone recall that movie about a high school entry in some solar powered race? Race took place in Australia, plenty of drama, routing for the underdog, pitted against the best of the corporate world and university level.

Lots of similarities here. kind of a 'Cool Runnings' vibe as well. I think this story could make a good movie. They have some success getting into the second round of X prize, even real potential of a win, but some details hold them back. They overcome that, and win the Green Grand Prix. That the car looks awesome won't hurt either.

[Horn93]

For better or worse, I'm really interested in finding out more about this build as an option for my set up. A new job is going to have me driving open highways in Texas for about 2 hours each day. I can't think of a better way to do it while still achieving some level of economy.

Anyone know how to find out more about their TDI and biodiesel options?

Thanks!

[Dave Smith]

The guys will be here at Open House and the mods they made to the car are very important as they apply directly to part of a larger program and testing for an FFR that can deliver economy in an alternate vehicle. We've built and tested BEV cars, and some other alt tech cars and so far, this seems to be the best combo. Still the GTM may not be the very best chassis to do this in and we'll have more details at the Open House. As far as tech, Simon Hauger will be here to show folks what they did (it is very simple and cool).

[Oppenheimer]

So I check back into this thread expecting to see more about press interest, and nothing.

Some link in here was to a Today Show piece on these students building green cars, but it was before they won the Grand Prix. That video showed the GTM chassis, but not the body. I would think they'd be all over this story, inner-city high school kids build a car, win Green Grand Prix, and the car just looks unbelievable. I think the biggest problem with the story is getting people to believe its true once they see the car.

The Chevy Volt won the 50 mile race, the Philly HS GTM wins the 100. Put them side-by-side, and that says it all. When are they going to make a movie about this story?