Originally Posted by
mountaindave
Seller has already sold it and said it was a "Houdaille." Google is not helping much with that one...
I think that is some sort of power cam that the bike has to be custom built to accept it, now we know that bike was a custom built bike to the original owner. However according to what I read it was a gimmick that never worked as advertized.
Here is a mild discussion about it, more can be found if you do a search; see:
Google Answers: Larry Brown the inventor of the Powercam bicylce crank