The Cappuccino Car

A car that runs on coffee is unveiled today – but it certainly won’t take the grind out of commuting. And at between 25 and 50 times the cost of running a car on petrol, the invention won’t please any motor industry bean-counters either. Nicknamed the Car-puccino, it has been created using a converted 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco bought for $538 and chosen for its resemblance to the time-traveling DeLorean in the movie Back To The Future. The car will be driven the 210 miles between Manchester and London powered only by roasted coffee granules. It has been built by a team from the BBC1 science programme Bang Goes The Theory and will go on display at the Big Bang science fair in Manchester to show how fuels other than conventional petrol and diesel can power vehicles. The team calculates the Carpuccino will do three miles per kilo of ground coffee – the equivalent of about 56 espressos per mile.” w/ photos