Michigan Performance Company Takes To Crowdfunding For CNG Mustang Concept

Cameron Aubernon
by Cameron Aubernon

Crowdfunding has been used to deliver financing to projects ranging from fashion collections and film productions, to food trucks and the occasional work that ends up bombing while investors are left holding nothing (not even the bag their were promised as a gift for investing).

This project may be a success or failure, but if all goes as promised, Michigan’s Performance CNG will be able to deliver a CNG-powered 2003 Ford Mustang while demonstrating all compressed natural gas can do in the name of energy independence.

Autoblog Green reports the company, headed by founder Daryl Patrishkoff, is attempting to raise $55,000 through IndieGoGo to pay for the battery of emissions testing required by the Environmental Protection Agency, acquisition of high-performance CNG parts, and engine calibration. Currently, the Mustang, which runs on gasoline and CNG paired with alcohol injection, puts out 470 horsepower, with the aim of adding more horses through the fundraising.

And what will the project deliver to its investors (beyond being named a contributor in all promotion material)? The hope others will take notice on natural gas, bringing their investment capital to the table with the goal of liberating the United States from foreign energy resources, adding jobs to the industry, and delivering a wide range of vehicles using CNG to the masses; as of this moment, only 120,000 vehicles use the fuel, the majority of which are buses and trucks.

Cameron Aubernon
Cameron Aubernon

Seattle-based writer, blogger, and photographer for many a publication. Born in Louisville. Raised in Kansas. Where I lay my head is home.

More by Cameron Aubernon

Comments
Join the conversation
6 of 13 comments
  • 69firebird 69firebird on May 19, 2014

    Energy independent? Hell,we have enough that companies here are exporting it and still we are paying as if demand was as high here as it used to be.All this while they claim to not have the refineries to keep up with it all.

    • APaGttH APaGttH on May 19, 2014

      Ugh. Lets go over this again. If the price of a barrel of oil drops below $80 a barrel (roughly), it is no longer cost effective to frack, or do much oil production in the USA. Production would stop due to the unprofitably. Supply would tighten. Prices would go up, and then US production would restart. It wouldn't matter if the spigots were wide open (metaphorically speaking) and there was a refinery in every backyard. The refineries would sit idle and the wells would stop if there was no consumers. Do a search about the fleet of oil tankers anchored off of Iran filled with their heavy sour crude no one wants because its so hard to refine (and sanction). We are now, outside of third world Hell holes and Banana Republics enjoying some of the lowest fuel prices in the world. Other nations are willing to pay more, and because a global commodity is commanding a higher price - we all pay more. It's that darn simple. This is supply and demand. If supply increases production at more expensive operations (extreme deep water wells and fracking) will stop because of the cost involved. It isn't profitable. The only entity that would keep production artificially high would be above mentioned third world Hell holes and Banana Republics to manipulate the market. We have to accept we don't call the shots on the price of refined fuel products anymore - as long as we are using crude oil based products.

  • Jpolicke Jpolicke on May 19, 2014

    CNG-fueled vehicles are hardly cutting edge technology, they've been around for years. What's novel here is that Daryl Patrishkoff is trying to get investors to finance his hot rod by sticking a CNG tank in the trunk.

    • Daryl Patrishkoff Daryl Patrishkoff on May 21, 2014

      Jpolicke, We have done several other Bi-Fuel (CNG and gasoline) conversion on passenger vehicles to automotive engineering standards. We are demonstrating the practicality of using CNG as a daily fuel that costs less, US provided energy and spews 25% to 35% less emissions. We did not compromise cargo space. Go to http://www.addnaturalgas.com to view 4 of the vehicles we did for ANGA. This CNG Mustang is an internal R&D project I have personally funded and we dramatically proved you do not lose HP with CNG as a fuel. We have well over $250,000 into this vehicle with all of the automotive engineering technical documentation proving our claims. The crowd funding effort is to fund the expensive lab time it takes to develop the vehicle to actually increase HP over the gasoline baseline. We are automotive engineers that apply our engineering tools, techniques and methodologies to our development programs. We do not just hook up a CNG conversion kit and push auto play, we engineer a solution that maximizes the properties of CNG fuel to the specific application.

  • Agent534 Agent534 on May 19, 2014

    SCAM! I don't understand why any crowd-sourcing is needed for this? It is a straight up engine swap from a factory CNG powered Crown Victoria or F150. Really, there are plenty of them around. 2 examples, just to show they are out there, the prices seem a little high: http://www.cngautosales.com/en/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_images.tpl&product_id=107&category_id=3&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=72 http://www.cngautosales.com/en/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_images.tpl&product_id=119&category_id=3&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=72 Edit: here is an F150 5.4 CNG for $2600. http://hartford.craigslist.org/cto/4476232932.html Buy, swap engine, sell to this guy for big profits!

  • NorCalSmog NorCalSmog on May 20, 2014

    I like the idea, I've been wanting to put together something like he's talking about for awhile. It seems to me that the remaining V8 pony/muscle/sports cars are all excellent candidates for CNG conversions due to the much lower cost of fuel. If there was a retrofit available for 1-2K I could see them being very popular, even more so if any of the manufacturers approved it so it wouldn't void the warranty.

Next