Blast from 1969: GM ad for Stirling-engine hybrid, the Stir-Lec I

We've seen GM's very ahead-of-the-curve Stir-Lec concept before, but BangShift has found another old magazine ad scan to share with the rest of the class internet. As we wrote last time, the Stir-Lec used a Stirling engine (and a helium reservoir) in the rear of the vehicle that recharged a bank of batteries that powered the electric motor. The Stir-Lec was developed using an Opel Kadett body and, while never more than a concept, shows that ICE powerplant alternatives have been considered at the General for a long, long time. The big questions is, how will some of GM's recent ads for the Chevy Volt (the dog licking one, the giant billboard one, the "not for sale" one) feel in forty years? For one possibility, check out the text of the full Stir-Lec ad after the jump.

[Source: Bang Shift via Treehugger]

Advertisement text:

This is the Stir-Lec I.
And if you saw if on a highway, you'd probably think it was a standard Opel Kadett.
You'd be half-right. It's got an Opel body. But it's powered by electricity. The power plant consists of 14 conventional lead-acid batteries that you could by down at the corner. The energy from the batteries is transferred to an electric motor which in turn drives the rear wheels. And the car can tool along at speeds of up to 55 miles an hour.
While the car's running, the batteries are constantly recharged by a small Stirling engine in the rear. It's so quiet that you can hardly tell whether it's on or off. And since the Stirling is an external combustion engine (fuel is burned in a separate chamber from the engine), the exhaust has virtually no odor and pollution levels can be made very low.
Stir-Lec I is still only an experimental model. A project the Engineers at GM's Research Laboratories are working on today, to meet the demands of the future.