Nation: Not to the Swift

Like Hopalong Cassidy sipping sarsaparilla in a riotous saloon, the entrants in the Clean-Air Car Race picked their way across the nation inhaling volumes of exhaust from other travelers. Their own machines were ingenious contraptions of varying degrees of purity powered by gasoline, batteries, propane gas or even steam.

Thirty-six of the 44 entries last week completed the trip from M.I.T. to Caltech in Pasadena. The winner: a 1971 Ford Capri burning unleaded gasoline and outfitted with an air-injection afterburner, an exhaust-gas recirculating system, and four catalytic mufflers to clean up exhaust partially...

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