Jefferson County Clerk’s Office Summer is the time to plan quality family outings or get-togethers with friends. If you are traveling or enjoying our local parks and attractions, take extra precautions to ensure the safety of your family. It continues to be my goal to provide warm, friendly, VIP service throughout every area of the Jefferson County Clerk’s Office. For those who patronize our Westport Motor Vehicle Branch, I hope you find the recent renovations pleasant and the service to be a more efficient flow. We are continuing to freshening up other areas within the Clerk’s Office. Look for changes in our Deed Room and Professional License areas. You may want to save yourself a trip to one of our Motor Vehicle branches and consider the convenience of renewing your motor vehicle registration by phone or online. If you have any questions or suggestions as to how the Clerk’s Office can better assist you, please contact us. We look forward to serving you. Have a safe and enjoyable summer. Bobbie Holsclaw Jefferson County Clerk action lawsuit left diesel cars with a generally bad reputation in the 1980s. However, electronic controls and turbo- charging eventually made small diesels viable for more cars and the engine became increasingly popular in the demanding large SUV segment. Still, with increasing emissions controls regulations, and the problem of soot particulates, diesel cars were never big sellers in this country. In Europe, looser emissions laws and expensive fuel made small diesel cars largely popular. In 2004, the US implemented a much tougher standard for diesel fuels, and the big car makers thought this was the opening they needed to bring in their diesel car models. Most of these diesels use a urea- injection system to clean their exhaust. Mercedes calls this BlueTec. Volkswagen elected to go with an innovative exhaust recycle design, similar to the Navistar Diesel engines in big trucks and locomotives have been around since the 1920s, but only in the late 70s did they become accepted in light trucks and automobiles. The ruggedness, fuel economy, and simplicity was paid for by the extra weight and poor acceleration. Typical pre-1980s diesel cars were strange, slow imports from Europe that belched black smoke, smelled, and weren’t for anybody in a hurry. Still, the technology had massive potential in the auto industry, and automakers around the world spent years funneling billions into developing cleaner, faster, more powerful diesel engines. Mercedes introduced the most successful diesel of that era, the 1978 North American 300 SD, based on the full-size S-Class sedan. The SDs were pure luxury, with fuel economy in the mid-20s, and with diesel cheaper than gas, a popular choice for the well- heeled in the waning days of the gas crisis. The Mercedes diesels of that era were so well-built that 40 years later, thousands of them are still on the roads. Not so well built was the 1979 Oldsmobile Diesel, that returned 30 mpg, excellent for a full-size sedan - but at the cost of a 20 second zero to 60 time, 90 horsepower, and clouds of black smoke. GM rushed the model into production without fully testing the engine for the extremely high compression of diesel. Thousands of blown engines and a massive class- A Message from the Jefferson County Clerk Diesel Car Era Ending By: Frank Friday, Government Relations continued on page 2 Summer 2017