KTKA

Jack Talbert loves his 1981 Delta 88.

"Yes, it's a cool car. They use these in rap videos," Jack said.

He especially loves passing by gas stations.

"On the highway on average it's 49 miles per gallon."

And in town Jack of Abilene estimates he gets 70 miles per gallon.

The vintage Oldsmobile used to get 12 miles per gallon on the highway. But Jack did a little tinkering under the hood and converted his carburetor.

"Used a exhaust coupler to make a vacuum canister and what it does is it basically rapidly accelerates the evaporation process of the gasoline - converts it into a true gas," he said.

The process is gasoline vaporization, which uses fuel vapors.

The technology was co-developed by Jack's father, George Talbert, and Tom Ogle of El Paso, Texas in the 1970s.

Jack says the technology can work on any internal combustion engine that normally would burn propane or gasoline.

According to the 2006 Fuel Economy Guide, Two of the Fuel Economy leaders are the manual Honda Insight, 60 mpg in the city and 66 highway. And the automatic Toyota Prius, 60 mpg city and 51 highway.

Jack says getting even higher miles per gallon of gas with vaporization technology is obtainable.

"100 miles per gallon has been accomplished and verified before by Tom Ogle and my father was getting around 80 [miles per gallon]," he said.

Jack says car manufactures have known about the vaporization technology for years. But if consumers are willing to pay high prices for gas, things probably won't change that much.

"We know that there's better technology out there. There's better hybrid technology. There's better fueling systems for cars. There's better cars that can be made."