The Rinspeed Presto is a
concept car from the
Swiss
Swiss may refer to:
* the adjectival form of Switzerland
* Swiss people
Places
* Swiss, Missouri
* Swiss, North Carolina
*Swiss, West Virginia
* Swiss, Wisconsin
Other uses
*Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports
*Swiss Internation ...
company
Rinspeed, unveiled in 2002. At the touch of a button, it would expand it from a 2.7 metre, two-seat
cabrio
A convertible or cabriolet () is a passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place. The methods of retracting and storing the roof vary among eras and manufacturers.
A convertible car's design allows an open-air driving expe ...
to a 3.6 metre, four-seater. It has a Pre-Peg Composite plastic body and runs on
natural gas.
The transformation is made possible by a centrally located electric motor, which stretches the vehicle with the help of two mechanical screw-and-nut gears by exactly 746 millimetres to its full extended length of 3.74 metres. The longitudinal members run on low-friction precision rollers and disappear like a drawer in the rear of the
floor pan. Despite its variable length the engineers succeeded in designing the adjustable floor pan with the
torsional rigidity necessary for a roadster. To ensure absolute operational safety the extension mechanism also features self-locking safety latches. The car lacks a roof and doors.
Conversion: A four-cylinder, 1.7-litre common-rail turbo
diesel engine in dual-fuel configuration, based on a
Mercedes-Benz, runs on a mixture of natural gas and diesel fuel at a 40/60 ratio. Natural gas is a very clean-burning fuel, which consists almost entirely of
methane with
sulfur
Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formula ...
content near zero. However, since a diesel engine has no spark plug to act as an ignition source, operation on natural gas alone is technically impossible. The operating principle of the dual-fuel engine is simple: Natural gas is injected into the intake air of the engine. Just like in the production engine the diesel fuel is injected into the
combustion chamber where it ignites a mixture of natural gas and air rather than just plain air.
To configure the turbocharged in-line engine for dual-fuel operation, a number of modifications are required, including installation of a tank for the natural gas and a gas-injection system. At the heart of the modifications is a reprogrammed
engine management system
An engine control unit (ECU), also commonly called an engine control module (ECM), is a type of electronic control unit that controls a series of actuators on an internal combustion engine to ensure optimal engine performance. It does this by re ...
. Should the system malfunction it reverts to the standard diesel mapped ignition, thus offering the same reliability as the production car.
External links
Rinspeed Presto on the Rinspeed site
Concept cars
Sports cars
{{Modern-auto-stub
Rinspeed vehicles