Not half a mile from the just-auto offices this week, a near-new Range Rover shot out of the supermarket petrol station, filler flap wide open, tank cap perched perilously on top of the flap. How long before the driver would notice, we wondered?
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A recent announcement from parent company Ford could soon change all that. It said recently that the venerable petrol tank cap would disappear on its new 2008 Lincoln MKS full-size car model, and eventually all Ford models would be without them.
Replacing the caps will be a flap that opens under pressure from the petrol pump nozzle, the Associated Press reported.
Well, there’s already one in there on most petrol vehicles sold around the world these days; it appeared along with the narrow throat designed to accept only the thinner unleaded-petrol pump nozzles.
According to AP, the new type of flap will fit snugly to the nozzle to stop fumes from escaping.
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By GlobalData“It eliminates the inconvenience of forgetting to put your gas cap back on after refuelling,” Ford executive vice president and president of the Americas, Mark Fields, said as he announced the idea.
The new cap came from Ford’s NASCAR racing experience and has already been used on the GT sports car, Fields said.
Eventually Ford will get rid of the caps on all of its vehicles, although it has no timetable to do that, a company spokesman told The Associated Press, adding that the change probably will be made when models are updated.
