We were just recently telling you about how Neil Young and his LincVolt project crew want to begin making similarly-powered vehicles for other people and now that we've learned more about what makes his '59 Lincoln go, we're back to fill you in. From what we can glean from the information now available, it seems the powertrain consists of a rotary engine from a Mazda RX7 running on compressed natural gas (CNG) which powers a generator that, in turn, powers the car's batteries. The batteries power the motor from UQM. At least, that's how it works for now.

Listening to conversation recorded at last week's Dreamforce conference where the car and crew made an appearance, one can hear Young's partner, Johnathan Goodwin, say, in explaining how they we expand on their currently claimed 50 mpg performance, "...we have other technology on there that will get us past our 100 mpg point..." Oh, really? More listening reveals that Goodwin is working on a small turbine which will be fueled by hydrogen. The hydrogen is to be derived from water via electrolysis with, we suppose, electricity generated from..., well, we're not sure. The Lincoln is definitely a big car but we suspect there may not be enough room under the hood for both a rotary engine and a turbine. In any case, the claims made of achieving "over-unity" (more energy put out than that put in) with this set-up were too absurd to continue listening further and we turned our attention back to the new neat-o stuff on this car that actually works. Hit the jump for more details as well as video of the LincVolt cruising to a concert in California.

[Source: LincVolt.com / Youtube]

Johnathan Goodwin is the patron saint of green cars (although as of yet, this honor has gone unrecognized by the Vatican). Last April, John was the guy behind the Chevy Impala conversion that smoked a Lamborghini in a quarter mile on the Earth Day special of MTV's Pimp My Ride. Arnold Schwarzenegger was so impressed that when he did a guest appearance on the Earth Day Pimp My Ride special, he hired SAE Energy (where John is co-partner) to make his Jeep run on biodiesel. Recently, John made the cover of Fast Company magazine for an article describing a green gearhead's wet dream.

Fast Company visited John's garage and found a 2005 Hummer H3 on jacks. John is going to put a 60,000 PRM, 1985, turbine, jet engine in the Hummer. The turbine engine will run on biodiesel or waste vegetable oil with a hydrogen-injector. John plans to make a series hybrid with this turbine engine. A beauty like that going to waste as a range extender? No, it charges a set of super capacitors in a matter of seconds, giving the car 600 horse power.

That's not all. Jon says "it'll get 60 miles to the gallon. With 2,000 foot-pounds of torque. You'll be able to smoke the tires. And it's going to be superefficient. ... Think about it: a 5,000-pound vehicle that gets 60 miles to the gallon and does zero to 60 in five seconds!" John is not just making drool worthy cars for stars like Neil Young (John is converting a 1960 Lincoln Continental to biodiesel, electric hybrid for him.) John said he wants to make a 100-mile-per-gallon car one day and he is working on a $5,000 conversion kit that make diesels run 50 percent more efficiently and emit 80 percent less pollution. John estimates his bolt-on kit will pay for itself in a year for bigger SUVs and two years for a normal car. He is getting patents hoping to license them to the big carmakers but he thinks automakers can do a lot more right now.

Go below the fold to see how John is using Ace Hardware better than you.

[Source: Fast Company]