WATCHING THE WORLD DASH VS. DEDICATION IN CNG CARS

Italy, is the spiritual home of the performance car.

So it was no surprise to see a squat, powerful, shiny blue machine on the Snam SpA exhibition stand at the 19th World Gas Conference in Milan last month.

What was surprising was that the car, which I was told was a Bugatti EB 110 GT, ran on compressed natural gas (CNG).

Giuseppe Cacudi, natural gas vehicle department manager at Snam, said the company is involved in two CNG vehicle ventures with car makers.

A development project with Bugatti came about because of unique characteristics of the limited market for Bugatti cars.

"A Bugatti costs about 800 million lire ($500,000)," Cacudi said. "You can get two Ferraris for the price of one Bugatti."

California holds the world's greatest concentration of people who can afford to pay that much for a car. Hence, Bugatti decided it must develop a car that complies with California's strict vehicle emissions standards.

CONVERSION OOMPH

Bugatti's electronics division developed Ecogas 2000, an electronic fuel injection system that allows any gasoline engine to be converted to CNG.

Snam and Bugatti mounted an Ecogas system in an EB 110 for trials, the engine was a 12 cylinder, 3.5 1. cylinder capacity, turbocharged unit.

Fueled by gasoline, the engine delivered 560 hp at 8,000 rpm. This took the car to a top speed of 342 km/hr. It also could accelerate from a standing start to 100 km/hr in 3.46 sec.

"In a few weeks the engine was generating 650 hp running on CNG," Cacudi said. "Usually, with a converted engine there is a loss of power. Ecogas helped give almost 100 hp more, so the car actually went faster."

Although Ecogas was developed by Bugatti, Cacudi said it is suited to all types of vehicles. However, a twin fuel engine is a compromise: Bugatti's engine has a compression ratio of 7.5:1, best suited to gasoline.

An engine designed specifically for CNG would need to take account of the fuel's different speed of burning, Cacudi said, and hence have a higher compression ratio. This was the object of Snam's other CNG venture.

CNG ENGINE

While the dashing Bugatti drew crowds, a prim white Fiat family car standing alongside was more impressive in a way. It was powered by a prototype dedicated CNG engine, developed during 5 years.

Fiat's CNG engine has a compression ratio of 12:1. The prototype is said to emit 25% less carbon dioxide than an equivalent gasoline engine car and almost 100% less aromatic compounds.

Cacudi said it will be a few years before manufacturers mass produce a CNG engine car, but there is a growing market for low emissions urban transport. He sees electric vehicles as the main rival to CNG for that market.

Urban driving is unlikely ever to figure among many Bugatti owners' concerns. Cacudi said 80% of Bugatti owners do not drive them on roads. One Japanese owner was even said to keep his on the 15th floor of his office building.