nationwide test of vehicles based on his design if satisfied with the prototype." Wouk and friends invested about $300,000, and successfully converted a 1972 Buick Skylark sedan. This was the first full-sized hybrid vehicle featuring a 20-kilowatt direct-current electric motor and an RX-2 Mazda rotary engine. This vehicle was tested at EPA's emissions-testing laboratories in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where it obtained more than twice the fuel economy of the vehicle before it was converted. Furthermore, the vehicle's emission rates were only about nine percent of those of a gasoline-powered car from that era. In 1974, the EPA awarded $33,000 to Wouk and Dr. Charles L. Rosen and began its own analysis of the car, but the agency did not make additional cars for the planned nationwide tests. This pioneering work gained Wouk the nickname of the grandfather of electric and hybrid vehicles in the United States. Even though they were not a new idea, mass-production hybrid vehicles aimed at the general market would in fact only appear by the late 1990s. The second modern hybrid car marketed to consumers was the Toyota Prius (the first was the Honda Insight), which was based on principles similar to Wouk's. The Prius became available in the U.S. as a 2001 model, and Wouk leased one. Wouk was also actively involved in the field of electric vehicle standardization, participating in relevant technical committees such as the IEC TC69 and the ISO TC22 SC21 on electric vehicles. He remained an active member of these committees until the early 2000s. Wouk was awarded The Elmer A. Sperry Award for Advancing the Art of Transportation, posthumously, "for his visionary approach to developing the gasoline engine-electric motor hybrid systems for automobiles...." The archives of Victor Wouk are kept at Caltech. Personal life Victor Wouk died of cancer on May 19, 2005, in his Manhattan, New York home. He was survived by his wife Joy (died September 29, 2008), and sons Jonathan and Jordan. His nephew was Alan I. Green, a psychiatrist at Dartmouth College. References External links 1919 births 2005 deaths Scientists from New York City American automotive engineers American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent Columbia College (New York) alumni California Institute of Technology alumni Deaths from cancer in New York (state) Jewish American scientists Jewish engineers 20th-century American engineers 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews