Basing a turnaround on existing patents was mind-boggling! At least half the company's problems were based on pursuing bad engineering designs that were fixed in stone after they took out patents and sold these to investors as an unbeatable core product. Anyone suggesting that they build off these patents was either insufficiently technically savvy or they failed to either conduct or launch a study of the situation. Ohio State University's Center for Automotive Research (OSU / CAR) did precisely that and recommended a test program just to verify some of the underlying assumptions, such as water lubrication. But that was back around 2012 or something and the Cyclone narrative is to usually never look back more than 3 or 6 months.