Here is proof. Car got 376 mpg in 1973

Kelly C · Jan 31, 2009

So why cant we get a car to do 50 mpg now?

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/351903_needle20.html

Don't choke on your organic soy-double-decaf-fair-trade-carbon-neutral macchiato, but how does 376.59 miles per gallon sound? Makes your Honda Civic hybrid look Hummeresque, doesn't it?
376 mpg car.

Anonymous-0 · Jan 31, 2009

how would the oil company's make record profits?

Larry59 · Jan 31, 2009

Now that was interesting. Did go to site and can't say much about the comfort of it. But like you said.. that was in the 70s they did that.
Now I remember my dad having a 1954 - 4door cad. It was big and long. Yet in 1959 he got 18 miles to gallon around town and on highway he got 21 per gallon. Was there and seen it myself.
So to me all this car talk of milage by car and truck manufatures is a bunch of BS. For if that car made of steel back then and do that. Why is 25 miles to a gallon a big deal now! They make the cars now with plastic these days.

GeneMO · Jan 31, 2009

Econ 101. A business exists to make a profit. If you want to make record profits, form your own oil company, lease the land, hire the well drillers, hire the geologists, hire the receptionist, etc., etc. Then you too can make record profits.

Profit is not a dirty word.

Gene

Kelly C · Jan 31, 2009

Whats a gas internal combustion engine get for efficentcy? Like 20% or less.
That means 80% of the energy is waste.
Has to be a better use of the fuel.
I know its lost as heat. But must be a way to capture that heat and use it. Heating the cabin cant be all its good for.

I liked what it said about preheating the fuel into a vapor. thats for a carberated engine.

Anonymous-0 · Jan 31, 2009

GeneMo its one thing to make a profit but raping people is illegal!!

the tractor vet · Jan 31, 2009

Well Kelly My 68 Plymouth Road Runner with a 383 335 Hp 4 speed transmission and 3.23 gears on a trip would knock down 18.5-18.7 MPG the way i use to drive and i can tell ya this that i could run her out of number on the speedometer in third . I ran the wheels off that car . Bought it the last week in may of 68 just after i got back from Nam and drove it till just before thanksgiving of 1970 when i got the 1971 Duster 340 . The Road Runner would do the quarter in the 13.40-50 and the Duster would do it in 13.23 The duster on a weekend getaway trip out on the open road haulen the mail would knock down 19.7 MPG . Back then vary few people would ride with me because i drove way to fast . Babyed nothing ran it like i stoll it and if it did not run the way i thought it should it would when it came out of the shop.

kyplowboy · Jan 31, 2009

That was what I said back in the summer when every one was yelling about the evil oil companies. There has been a tv add for chevy's new station wagon (I think it's called traverse), any way the add bragged about how it got 8 people down the road at 24 mpg. My old F350, 4X4, 7.3, with a heavy a** flat bed gets 13 mpg pulling 4 bales of hay down the high way. That means the over educated engineers in Die-troit have figured out how to get a fancy station wagon down the road with half the fuel of my old h*** wagon truck.

Looks to me like the big 3 and the oil boys were in bed together, when oil sent the world economy into a tailspin, the big three got left hold'n the check. Then again, we have folks in this country who think they need a 3/4 ton daily driver/kid hauler. Don't know which is worse.

Dave

john in la · Feb 1, 2009

A profit is good but there is a limit or should be.

Case in point...........
The largest seller of on road diesel in the US has 2 stations in my area. One is about 10 miles from the loading rack and the other is about 45 miles. Both these stations are selling diesel for $2.16 today.
There is a large Mom and Pop locally owned station about 90 miles from the loading rack. It would be easy to see this station pays more to transport the fuel in because they are farther away; and most likely pay more for each gallon because they do not have the volume of the big national chain; yet their price is $1.94 today.

That's $.22 a gallon difference for the same product.

DaveS · Feb 1, 2009

There are plenty of cars running in excess of 50+ MPG. Do some research on HHO. My 1996 3/4 ton 4x4 suburban was getting 14 until I added a hydrogen unit, and it went up to almost 20. I've removed it to redesign it a little bit. I expect it to get closer to 25 or 28 when I'm finished.

Oh, and isn't this off topic since it doesn't relate to tractors? It'll probably get deleted.

tlak · Feb 1, 2009

They were talking of making blocks out of ceramic for a while, guess it didn't go anywhere.

TomH in PA · Feb 1, 2009

Interesting piece of history. Keep in mind that car was barely more than a go kart which could barely accelerate, couldn't go up the slightest incline, had no traction or stability because of the hard tires and tricycle configuration, and burned up its lawnmower engine on a flat course.

Make it street legal and you're back to the Geo Metro I drove for a while; that thing was an overgrown lawnmower too, but it got great mileage!

Pair-a-dice farm · Feb 1, 2009

One thing to remember is the 60's and early 70's was before all of the pollution stuff was put on the cars. They also didn't have all of the electrical draining gadgets that are on most cars today.

MarkB_MI · Feb 1, 2009

It is one thing to get absurd mileage with a specially prepared vehicle on a test track and quite another to get that kind of mileage in real-world driving.

For example, in these mileage competitions, it is common to accelerate the vehicle at full throttle to around 45 mph, then kill motor and coast. (Although this article says they ran at a constant 30 mph.) Obviously, you can't drive like that on the highway without inciting the rage of other drivers. The hybrids take advantage of the same principle, however: it is a well-known fact that that a gasoline engine runs most efficiently at full throttle. Hybrids use a small engine that operates constantly near wide-open throttle to get maximum efficiency.

Now, if all cars got 300 mpg, do you think gas would sell for two bucks a gallon? You'd have to buy it in fancy bottles, like Gray Goose Vodka, at 40 bucks a liter!

Spook · Feb 1, 2009

I saw a ceramic block, another one made out of sheet metal - kinda like a master lock, all stacked together. There is always somebody trying something. Two cycles have always been a popular experimental unit. Obviously very few get to production status.

Anonymous-0 · Feb 1, 2009

You notice that nothing is said about how much of the income went to taxes. Buy oil stocks and get the dividends.

ericlb · Feb 1, 2009

well its interesting, but, whats it good for? unless your a yuppie working in a office cubicle close to home its a totaly usless vehicle, not to put down the effort, but chain drive, in the teens mack had chain drive as well as others, the real sterling company produced it on off road trucks into the '50's drivers as well as mechanics hated them, they were second only to a steam locomotive as far as constant mantenence,i'll stick with my old chevy thanks

Walt Davies · Feb 1, 2009

I once drove my 68 Saab Sonett from Truckee, CA to Auburn, CA Some 70 miles on less than what it took to let the engine idle in free wheeling could have shut it down but it didn't burn enough to bother with.
Speeds up 90 MPH and as slow as 70MPH used about a quart or less of fuel.
Now to get back it took a little more about 2.3 Gallons.
Walt

Anonymous-0 · Feb 1, 2009

There was an editorial in the paper here awhile back about that.The pharmacutical and several other industries make much more in profit than big oil and nobodys mad about that.

cbryder · Feb 1, 2009

In the early 70"s I had an AN600 Honda. 75 mph top speed, that gave an honest 56mpg. It made no difference how it was driven. I kept milage records of each tank (6.5gals). They were all within +/-.2gal!

rrlund · Feb 1, 2009

Ever hear the name EJ Potter? Had a motorcycle with a 327 V8 engine. Later pulled a couple of tractors with Allison aircraft engines. He had an electric car back in the 60s that would do 150 mph in the quarter mile. Don't know what kind of fuel economy he got with the Allison that ran the generator though.

Anonymous-0 · Feb 1, 2009

Did anyone ever notice that in the last 5-7 years is when the gas mileage really started down..... the tires on the cars and trucks kept getting wider! Anyone notice this besides me? Tires have been getting wider and wider because everyone wants there SUV or 4X4, 1 ton, diesel pick-up to handle like a 'vette. Wide tires create alot of rolling resistance, which knocks down mpg. I'd like to see someone take stock wheels and tires from a '83 3/4-1 ton pick-up and put them on a '08 3/4-1 ton and see if the mpg goes up!

trucker40 · Feb 2, 2009

This has been going on since the late 60s even before that.Everyone says Auto makers need to get more mpg out of their cars.Alright,they will make a car that gets good mileage like a Pinto or Vega,but nobody wants to drive them or buy them.They dont last,werent made very well,and dangerous because if you are in a wreck in it you probably wont survive.Everybody has heard of somebody that made a carburetor that gets 50 or 60 miles to the gallon,or a hydrogen generator and run off of water,or even a nuclear motor.
Big oil gets whatever it wants.If somebody made a 60 mpg carburetor,and somebody from big oil showed up at his house,either big oil got the patent or the guy that made the carburetor had an"accident"or in a few cases his whole family had an "accident".Maybe thats just rumors,but you would think that a better carburetor or fuel injector could be made to get more mpg.

Here is proof. Car got 376 mpg in 1973

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member

Well-known Member