West Philadelphia High School Students Build World's First Hybrid Super Car

PHILADELPHIA, May 12, 2005 -- Imagine a 300 horsepower convertible that gets over 60 miles per gallon. Imagine a car that accelerates from zero to sixty in four seconds and yet creates almost no greenhouse pollution. Well you don't have to imagine - the world's first hybrid super car has just been completed.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the car is WHO imagined it first and then made this dream a reality. It wasn't GM, Honda, or Toyota. It wasn't even geeks from MIT. For the past two years a team of students from West Philadelphia High School have poured their heart and soul into making this vehicle a reality.

On Thursday morning at 9:00 AM, the car and the team departed for the 17th Annual Tour de Sol, a race and festival of alternative fuel vehicles sponsored by the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) in Saratoga Springs, NY.

The team is made up of 10th to 12th grade students in West Philadelphia High School's Automotive Academy. The project is headed up by Math and Science teacher Simon Hauger with technical assistance provided by the school's automotive technology teachers, Ronald Preiss and Clayton Kinsler. The student team members are: Devereaux Knight, 12th grade; Dauwell Sterling, 12th grade; Jacque Baptiste, 12th grade; Arnold Carroll, 12th grade; Christopher Newell, 11th grade; and Victor Webster, 10th grade.

Business and education supporters gathered to send the team off on Thursday morning May 12, 2005 at 9:00 AM from the Automotive Academy at 221 South Hanson Street in West Philadelphia. The team was sponsored, in part, by AFSCME Local 1637 and District Council 33.