Graduate and undergraduate engineering students at UC Davis have worked all year in redesigning the fuel efficiency of a Ford Taurus so that it gets 65 miles per gallon. Based on the school's superior performance in national vehicle design competitions, UC Davis was selected as one of 12 schools in the nation to compete in a Future Car challenge, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. "The objective of this project is to reconfigure a car that will satisfy President Clinton's challenge to get a car on the road that gets three times the fuel economy of a standard-size automobile," says Andy Frank, professor of mechanical engineering and project leader. Starting as a class project in Frank's mechanical engineering design course, students are putting the lessons learned in theoretical concepts about planning and design into practice in the laboratory. The Ford Taurus is in the process of being put back together for road tests that will begin in mid-May. The national competition is June 17 in Detroit, Mich.