William D. Bond
William D. Bond (born January 2, 1931) is an American inventor and mechanical engineer who spent his entire career at General Motors, retiring in 1993. He is best known for his work on intake manifolds, a three-wheeled concept car, and early electric cars in the 1960s.
Bond was born in Winterset, Iowa, to Dale Bond and Myrtle Swedlund Bond. He earned a BS in Engineering from Iowa State University in 1960 and was a member of Tau Beta Pi. In the 1950s he raced at the Bonneville Salt Flats and helped start the Ames hot rod club and the Night Crawlers. He also served as a ballistic meteorologist for the National Guard during the Korean War era.
Bond joined General Motors in July 1960 and worked there until his retirement in February 1993. Early in his GM career, he worked on the Electrovair II, an electric version of the Corvair powered by silver-zinc batteries. The car had performance similar to the gasoline-powered Corvair, with a top speed of 80 mph. Bond served as the project manager, spokesperson, and driver for the press demonstration in October 1966. The Electrovair II is the oldest historic vehicle on display at the GM Heritage Center in Sterling Heights, Michigan.
Bond also worked on the Electrovan, the world’s first hydrogen fuel-cell powered vehicle. It could reach 70 mph, accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in about 30 seconds, and had a range of 120 to 150 miles; it is also on display at the GM Heritage Center.
He earned his first patent in 1968 for a Mounting and Cooling Apparatus for Semiconductor Devices, which helps cool electrical switching devices. He was featured on the August 15, 1972 cover of Automotive Industries magazine in a story about Early Fuel Evaporation, for which GM earned a related patent in 1973. In 1975 he received a patent for a Quick Warm-up Intake Manifold, a system that directs heat to the intake manifold when the engine is cold.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 09:58 (CET).