Most of the time, when speaking about green cars, people have this image of high-mileage but slow-moving vehicles coasting across the city streets. Of course, that’s not the case when Bernie Towns and the folks over at Speedriven are involved, however. The crew is currently tweaking a 2007 SL 600 Roadster, with a current output of over 800 horsepower and something in excess of 1,000 lb.-ft. of torque produced by the beating 5.5-liter twin-turbo V12 power plant and amazingly running on natural gas.

Towns, who works as an engineer at Houston, Texas based HighMount Exploration and Production, is a green-car enthusiast and a self-proclaimed “horsepower addict.” Hence the aim of the project. “I love speed, I love power, and I love my Mercedes-Benz,” says Towns. It took Speedriven almost one year of research plus development work to get the car where it is at present. Even with the very satisfactory power output, Towns thought that there was something missing.

“In the IT world, we literally spend hours of every day coming up with ways to do business in more efficient ways and (at HighMount) in more environmentally responsible ways,” Towns said. “So there I am, sitting at lunch one day and the people are talking about natural gas cars, and it suddenly hits me: we should convert the SL to run on natural gas!”

With Towns and Speedriven’s expertise, they were able to tune and convert the SL 600. Towns, however, isn’t satisfied with just producing a high-performance vehicle that runs on fuel that produces 80 percent less the amount of harmful emissions gasoline produces. The target is to break the current CNG speed record, which is 364.6 kph set by Audi in 2009 using a tuned 700-hp Audi S4.

“We’re pretty excited. I’m pretty excited,” exclaims Towns. “It’s not everyone who gets to go out and do something really exciting with emerging technology and clean energy and break speed records in the same car they drive home every day and still get to call that ‘work’. This is great!”

When it comes to caring for the environment, Mercedes-Benz never lets itself be left behind. And thus it recently began testing of its latest Econic trucks with natural gas technology in Singapore. The country’s biggest waste management company, Sembcorp, has signed up to conduct the testing with the goal of determining the realistic benefits of the Econic. It’s being graded based on its cost effectiveness and ability to satisfy customers.

Mercedes-Benz delivered to Sembcorp Econic trucks with two engine choices—an inline six cylinder diesel engine and one which is powered entirely by natural gas. The NGT engine, with product code M 906 LAG, has a 6.9 liter displacement and is capable of churning out 279 hp. These engines are equipped with BlueTec diesel technology, ensuring optimum combustion, emission reduction and improved fuel economy.

Other engines are made available on the OM 906 LA and OM 926 LA variants. These engines are capable of anything between 238 to 287 hp and 326 hp respectively, and can consume biodiesel without the need for any conversion.

In case you’re wondering, the Econic was originally created as a waste disposal truck back in 1998. After 12,000 units sold, 10 percent of which ran on natural gas, the Econic is now available in different specialized options.

These environmental friendly vehicles will be used by UPS for daily delivery operations across the United States and will function in alongside their current fleet of conventional diesel powertrain vehicles.

The hybrid-electric power train, combined with a diesel engine and electric motor, drive the FCCC chassis to achieve an over 40% improvement in fuel economy and an over 90% reduction in emissions compared to baseline non-hybrid vehicles.