May I say that I myself would add 250 lbs to the car just by getting it?
60/40 mpg sounds fair !
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Vahabzadeh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <oldsmobile@chebucto.ns.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 7:47 PM
Subject: OT: thoughts on fuel economy
Okay, I meant to ask something about this before, but kept putting it
off....
A recent Hot Rod magazine (Nov 06) had a little blurb on the bottom of p30
that said "100 MPG is yesterday's news", and mentioned the 1982 result of
Project Saturn, which was a 2-seater economy car, 3 cylinder, 5 speed,
that
averaged 105 MPG on the highway and 75 MPG in the city (on a trip from
Warren, Michigan, to New York).
The last sentence: "Since meeting federal safety requirements and adding
creature comforts would have added 200 pounds to the car and required
extra
horsepower to propel it, GM dropped the program."
Ok, now, this isn't exactly a car that would necessarily appeal to us from
an enthusiast's point of view, but for the majority of people, and yes,
myself included, as a car just to get to and from work everyday, it seems
like it would've been a good idea. After all, I've heard/read a number of
stories about people in the 70s and 80s picking up musclecars dirt cheap
because so many of the commuting public in general were discarding their
gas-guzzlers for economy cars.
Alright . . so, how much/little could this car have weighed? So, let's
say
they added the 200 lbs or whatever. What would that have brought the fuel
economy down to? Would it be fair to say, maybe, 60 MPG highway, and 40
city, or a loss of about 40% of fuel economy due to the extra weight?
Wouldn't this have sold well in 1982, given the price of gas then? So
then, why drop the program? I mean, heck, the Honda CRX, HF version,
which
came out in, what, 1983 or 1984, could manage over 50 MPG on the highway.
It wasn't going to impress anyone with its acceleration, but they did it
with a carburetor, and in a car weighing 1900 lbs. I imagine the Project
Saturn car weighed notably less to achieve the fuel economy numbers that
it
did... enough so that I would assume that the 200 extra pounds would've
still had this car under the 1900 lb mark.
And, of course, my further question: If they could do that with the
technology available in 1982, where's the 100 MPG car of today?
Yes, these are the things that sometimes puzzle me at odd hours....
- Joe Vahabzadeh
