Going green doesn’t have to mean you have to throw out the old and buy a new, expensive vehicle, the UK’s biggest eco-motor show, Ecovelocity advises today.
Ahead of the opening of the show at Battersea Power Station, Ecovelocity has taken two iconic vehicles from the 1980s and stuffed them full of the latest green technology to vastly reduce their carbon emissions and improve fuel efficiency.
Taking an original petrol-powered 271g/km CO2 Ford Escort RS2000, organisers behind the show dropped in a new modern counterpart engine (Ford 1.6-litre Ti-VCT) to replaced the original one. They also added thermal management technology and stop / start technology to the car, which increased the CO2 saving up 5 per cent CO2 and used hybrid engine technology to increase the CO2 savings up 25 per cent.
Meanwhile an original 1980s Volkswagen with emissions of 338g/km, gained a new modern counterpart engine (Volkswagen 1.6 TDI 90) and benefitted from exhaust gas systems for efficiency. Again a combination of stop / start technology and hybrid engine technology increased the CO2 saving up 30 per cent.
EcoVelocity founder and organiser, Giles Brown, said: “Both of these vehicles, although iconic in their own right, had monstrous CO2 emission figures by today’s standards.
“With a potential price tag of tens of thousands of pounds to undertake all this work, you’d have to be very serious indeed about going green. But what we want to show is how it is possible to make both cars eligible for free road tax (VED Band A), increase their performance and even enhance their safety features.”
EcoVelocity runs from September 8-11th at Battersea Power Station, and is an interactive festival of green motoring, showcasing the latest electric, hybrid and low CO2-emitting cars. Market leading brands attending the event include Citroen, Fiat, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Peugeot, Renault, SEAT, Toyota, Lexus, Vauxhall, Volvo, Volkswagen and Mia Electric.
