Kincaid, The Strangeseeker - The Dobsky Engine

The Dobsky Engine
Written by Jim French
First Broadcast: 08/23/98
Kincaid uncovers a fabulous invention smuggled into the country from Russia.
Cast:
Terry Rose, Kathryn Shield, Dean L. Smith, Frank Buxton, Phil Harper Stephan Weyte, Larry Albert & John Gilbert

This is one of my favorite Kincaid stories because in my headcanon this is one of the times Kincaid was mistaken and becomes an unreliable narrator.

Since this is theatre of the mind I can imagine the con artist positioning himself so that his hand on the trigger of the hose isn't clearly visible to Kincaid. With a modified car just some light pressure on the hose so that a controlled amount goes into a tube and around into a secret secondary tank while the real fuel tank is already full. There are plenty of "free energy" devices on YouTube that have batteries hidden on them. The car is just a blackbox Kincaid can't examine. Kincaid was already distracted by the grill so he was in a suggestible state. Because it's Kincaid he was already primed to fill in the gaps for himself that this impossible technology might be possible. Add to that the con artist could find a delusional and highly suggestible foreigner prone to false memories who may or may not have had some technical background as part of the scam. That's probably where the con artist got the idea for the water-powered car scam. If law enforcement hadn't shown up the con artist would have probably shown up again later to offer to sell Kincaid that amazing water-powered car or offered Kincaid the opportunity to invest in the technology. That piece of paper with the Dobsky name and number was probably given to past victims as part of the scam but since law enforcement showed up the con artist got rid of the incriminating evidence so it wouldn't be discovered during a frisk by giving it to Kincaid.

So, yeah the story is because of Shelly Mars but because her grilling instructions caused Kincaid to be distracted enough so that he would skip his usual first step of being at least slightly skeptical.