A Company That Locates (& Adapts) Diesel Cars to Biodiesel

Here is a very interesting article from the Saturday, September 29, 2007, Toronto Star, "Wheels Section," page W21:

BIODIESEL HELPS KICK THAT OIL HABIT
California-based company develops niche finding cars that adapt to the alternative fuel

Linda McAvoy
Special to the Star

These days, we shouldn't be so quick to judge.

Take a closer look at the SUV you're tsk-tasking and you might realize it isn't a gas-guzzler at all; rather, it's running on 100 per cent biodiesel.

Okay, so here in Canada that might still be the exception to the rule, but not in Culver City, Calif., where Colette Brooks can be spotted behind the wheel of a big, black Chevy Tahoe which, as her licence plate proclaims, is OFF OIL.

If you somehow miss the plate, you're sure to notice the back window cling, which reads: "Time To Kick Gas" and sports the logo for a company called Biobling.

Biobling is the car brokerage company Brooks founded three years ago with the aim to match environmentally conscious car shoppers and biodiesel-friendly cars.

It's based in California, one of five American states that ban the sale of new diesel-powered passenger vehicles -- Maine, Massachusetts, New York and Vermont being the others.

Biobling fills a niche by locating, for a fee, used diesel-powered vehicles that owners can then run on locally-sourced biodiesel with few, if any, modifications.

Clients can also opt to add a little "bling" to their purchase, perhaps in the form of faux fur seats, video screens and tinted windows, or even just a simple chrome BIODIESEL emblem.

"Biobling is fun and it's got a hip factor and I think that's really important, particularly when you're looking at altnerative technologies that can be dry and scientific and kind of unsexy," says Brooks.

Brook's enthusiasm for environmentally friendly transportation began years ago when she bought a Toyota Prius Hybrid. That purchase ultimately led Brooks, through her primary business -- a marketing and communication firm called Big Imagination Group, to arrange for celebrities to arrive at the 2003 Oscars in the chauffeur-driven Priuses.

Soon after came the discovery that purchasing a diesel-engine powered vehicle meant it could run on 100 per cent biodiesel and get off oil altogether.

"Then I found this 1979 Cadillac El Dorado Biarritz, which truly was blinged off of the assembly line. It had, and still does have, burgundy fur carpet and white leather interior. A stainless-steel roof. It is definitely pimped out, but again, off the assembly line. I didn't do anything to it, and that was a diesel. I saw that and said 'You know what, there's a business here.'"

Thus Biobling was born.

Garnering about 20 email inquiries a day, (www.biobling.com), Biobling has filled client requests for everything from a Volkswagen Passat to a Mercedes and to the rare late '90s diesel Tahoes and vintage Cadillacs.

The latter being more in line with Brook's own taste in cars. Though her personal car collection does harbour a gas-guzzling '66 Torononado and a '61 For Econoline, which she calls her "dirty little secrets," the rest are biodiesel-powered, including a 1968 220 D Mercedes, 1964 190D Mercedes, an '87 Mercedes 300 Turbo wagon and a 1984 Lincoln Continental gold-on-gold Mark VII Bill Blass edition.

A purist, she runs them all on B100.

That's 100 per cent soy oil, which as Brooks points out, makes the word "biodiesel" a bit of a misnomer.

"There's no petrol in it. It has nothing to do with diesel other than that's the engine that biofuels work in. It happens to be a really efficient engine. Now we're using a renewable clean fuel to power that engine.

"It's 100 per cent soy, or walnut oil, or rapeseed oil, or whatever the feedstock is, so it's 100 per cent renewable agricultural stock that reduces emissions off the tailpipe, CO2 emissions, by 78 per cent."

And while today Brooks can pull up to any of the three gas stations on the west side of Los Angeles and fill up with biodiesel ($3.25 U.S. gallon; 86 cents/L), that wasn't always the case.

After initially having biofuel delivered to her home, she became one of 15 investors in the Los Angeles Biodiesel Co-op, which started out in 2005 with one trailer, a 1,000-gallon tank and a pump.

Today, the co-op boasts 100 members with four filling facilities and is credited with being the catalyst for making biodiesel more accessible at bricks-and-motor stations.

And accessibility is, for Brooks, the key to public acceptance of biofuels and other ecologically friendly technology.

"If you can make it a little bit more accessible, and a little bit more fun, and a little more community-oriented, then it too becomes adopted into the mass culture."

Reflecting on the consumptive culture in the U.S. where "bigger is better and more is better without regard for our footprint that we're leaving on this earth," Brooks points to her big biodiesel-fuelled Tahoe.

"This car demonstrates that you can have your cake and eat it too. You can have your SUV but you know what? Get a diesel, get off oil, and drive it responsibility."