376.59 MPG Car Found In Museum (It Was Built In 1959)
Think you need a hybrid to get great mileage? Try a souped-down 1959 Opel T-1.
In another tribute to high-mileage car hacks, a man named Evan McMullen rediscovered a 1975 Guiness-World Record-Setting car that got 376.59 MPG.
It was wasting away in a museum in Florida:
That number doesn’t come from some manta ray-shaped, wind tunnel-vetted carbon fiber space car. No, it’s from a chop-top, steel-frame 1959 Opel T-1 (think melting jelly bean, but uglier). And the record was set in 1973 in a contest sponsored by Shell Oil Co.
Unfortunately, that contest-winning mileage number occurred on a closed track at a steady 30 mph. Not exactly highway speeds. Nonetheless, it makes you wonder about the evolution of automobile manufacturing in the last 50 years:
But McMullen’s biggest question is why? Why didn’t this technology find its way into the mainstream? Why did the car sit unremarked, unremembered for so long?
“If this is something they could do back in the 1970s, what happened?” he asked, poring over paperwork, including patents, for the car.
“Certainly in 34 years we could do something to make this work.”
In reality, it’s not that hard to get better mileage: drive slower, reduce weight, and increase aerodynamics. None of this seems to particularly interest Detroit, since better mileage tends to increase the amount of time people own their cars before upgrading.
But next time you shop for a new car, instead of upgrading, you might consider downgrading.
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SeattlePi.com (Feb. 20, 2008): Hybrids, meet your rival — it gets 376.59 mpg
John,
It’s possible, just slow as hell.
I strive for 36-37 combined in my HHR, and I risk making people mad by taking off a little slow. I’m happy with the MPG for now, but I wish others would do the same. I increase my mileage by 25% by taking off slower and coasting when I can (I have a clutch) and I still keep up with traffic. If everyone did it, we could reduce our consumption and in a TRUE free market, that should make prices go down.
Trains run on diesel, but the diesel creates electricity to power the wheels. This makes them much more efficient. I think that will be an alternative powertrain in the very near future. GM is promising a car in a few years that is a plug-in, all-electric, but it has an onboard generator in case you need to go further than your charge will take you.
I agree in principle with JS. Americans haven’t wanted the efficient cars. In a consumer driven economy, the consumers must take most of the blame. Not many people were buying the little VW diesels or the honda hybrids when gas was a buck and a quarter a gallon.
HEY JOHN,SOUNDS LIKE YOUR WORKING WITH THE OIL COMPS. GOOGLE TOM OGLE & HIS 100 MPG. FORD GALAXIE. CIRCA 1970s EL PASO TEXAS. THEY HEATED THE GASOLINE TO VAPOR, & GOT A COMPLETE BURN. THIS CARS IN THE RECORD BOOKS. BUT I GUESS GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS IS WRONG TOO! 3000 MPG, NO It WASNT A CAR, MORE LIKE A TORPEDO, BUT IT STILL GOT 3000 MPG. SEE FOR YOURSELF THEN TELL THE WORLD GUINNESS IS A HOAX. GET YOUR LAWYERS READY!
It is a simple fact America needs to SLOW DOWN. That is the easiest way to pick up 10 or 15 percent or more efficiency in a gallon of gas by simply driving slower..The American public seems to be oblivious to this simple reality…Everyone is in a big hurry to get somewhere Fast when it’s really so unnecessary. They could easly allow for an arrival a few minutes later..This agressive rushing/tailgating is hostile unnerving practice we need to scrap immediately Will it happen? Probably not! The impatient American driver has his/her head up their A–
After 28 mph 80% of energy goes to combat wind resistance not increase speed. You will spend 25% more for fuel running at 75 rather than at 60. A taller highway gear or taller tire aspect ratios on your tire sizes helps in steady state driving. Belly pans to tidy up the airflow under the car helps and you almost never see it done. Rear fender skirts help. Rock hard tires decrease rolling resistance. My van has 10 ply Michelins and they are designed to hold 80 PSI! Guess where I run them? When I shift to neutral at highway speeds anticipating a stop ahead it takes a long tome to slow despite it’s large size. Get creative with aerodynamics. Strip the weight. Salt flat tires can be run rock hard. They come with a concave profile that straightens out with the high pressure they are designed to run with! Low restriction air filters and exhaust systems are worth a good bit decreasing the pressure differentials that eventually wind up on top of the pistons in your engine. High static compression yeilds better efficency. Deck your block or mill your heads. Aftermarket fuel injection controlers can be brought to bare. Some engines are happy with 17:1 air fuel ratios instead of 14.7:1 A/f at steady state driving. I saw a guy improve his Dakota pick up’s mileage by 40% using some of this. 50cc scooters get 125 mpg.
i got a 1962 ford car that gets 33mpg in town.
The engine uses more energy for scavenging the cylinders and compressing air/gas mixture. The flywheel is a point where energy can be stored, but a mechanism must be developed to transfer this energy in a prudent way. The gyration dynamics must be looked into, where two fly wheels run in opposing directions. Also the DAF variable power transmission should be looked into over again. The transmission belt was the weakest link [at the time] but with new materials [PUs]and transmission surfaces without [gear teeth] are a reality. The pneumatic tyre can be improved upon, but who is interested? Can you name 10 engineers [innovative] of the calibre of a the Czech national Porschek. It took 50 years to instal AC systems into the automobile, for what reason I do not know, when push bikes had alternators for as long.
The steering geometry in modern cars are awful. The new cars are a fruit salad.
It’s interesting how mainstream media is completely silent every time a car like this comes along.
Running a motor on vapor is a good start. That’s stuff from early 1900. Force air though a stone on the bottom of a self filling tank and the small bubbles will vaporise the fuel.
But say you take water and some electricity, then you make a hydrogen/oxygen/water soup. If you combust that it will turn right back to water.
The interesting part is that the exhaust will contain oxygen. So if you mix a little bit of the soup with the petroleum fuel vapor the vapor will have extra oxygen available for it to burn.
Then stick a heat exchanger onto the exhaust so that the fuel is preheated before it goes into the cylinder.
Can use the heat exchanger as a plasma reaction.
Pantone Reactor Equipped Lawn Mower
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5238596150388648518
YouTube - Waterauto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FA9wiMkXwE
My car design doesn’t use any fuel.
http://wind-car.go-here.nl
Not even Pepsi.
Really Jim? Nobody will buy a car that gets good mileage? You better tell that to those people who sign up for the several months long waiting list that one has to get on in order to buy a new Toyota Prius.
In European countrys they sell cars that get extraordinary gas mileage. But we cannot get them in the U.S. Hmmm?