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What is amazing is how much more power is being made from smaller engines today but there hasn't been really big advances in fuel economy.
Decades ago I had a 1972 chevy van with a 5.7 350 in it and it got about 15 MPG. Today I have a 2002 F150 with a 5.4 and it is upwards to 18 mpg. On the Ford dealers lot are new F150's with gobs more HP and Torque but they are still under 20mpg.
It seems you can have either fuel economy or power but not both and the public has spoken. We want to go FAST !
But modern vehicles are putting almost all (if not every drop) of fuel to use making more power then previously, therefore, making them more economical by being able to get by with smaller engines. And 3 MPG's difference in that range is a considerable percentage increase!
My little 4.7 RAM puts out power that I would have needed to spend lots of money on in a previous life to squeeze something similar from my late 70's ford broncos with 351 and 400 in them. Even the old swapped in 460 didn't have nearly the power of this modern baby 8. And the MPG's are in the range I would have never dreamed of in the past!
This is why I laugh when the Mustang debate comes up and you have people defending the V6 stang by saying it's faster than the 5.0's/V8's from years ago. Well no kidding! Its called technical advancement. My laptop today is MUCH faster than my desktop from 10yrs ago.
Mine isn't.
You're right though. I think one of the things that has Mustang fans defending it is that the cars were using really outdated engines for their time up through MY2010 (still the Cologne V6 and the Modular 4.6), and that was a bit embarrassing. From '11 onward, everyone seems to be happier.
C'mon, even minivans today can beat some muscle cars of old era in both handling and straight line. Modern suspension, chasis, and engine tech already leaped ahead of older tech.
Some high performance cars of the mid 70s to mid 80s were lucky to squeeze out a 7 second 0-60 time. For some, an 8 second time was fast. Some family sedans and economy cars took 14 to 30 seconds to reach 60. Check out what today's family sedans are capable of doing today.
Sure, today's computers are faster than computers in the past. However, computers have always progressed better and faster. Cars from the time they were invented have gotten better and faster up until 1974 when flow restricting emissions regulations went into effect and then acceleration times dropped. The big 3 American companies continued producing large heavy cars with huge engines while consumers turned to Japanese brands that offered smaller cars and engines with about the same acceleration as the big engine sedans, but with better fuel economy. The big 3 didn't go smaller until the 80s. Sure GM brought over some of their Opel cars from Europe and Ford brought over their Festiva also from Europe but the American brands didn't develop their own smaller cars until the 80s and they didn't get it right for about another decade.
What's crazy is my first car was a 1978 Chevrolet Camaro with the 250 cid inline 6 engine and my 2015 Hyundai Elantra 1.8L is both faster and more powerful (in HP, not in torque) than that sports car Camaro. The average daily driver who looks at a car as a tool to get from point A to point B would be happy with a car that gets 0-60 in about 8 to 10 seconds. I like that we have more choices in performance. I also agree with Mazda in offering a balanced approach to performance. Total performance should start with the best suspension (including tires) and then balance it with the engine and transmission that are just powerful enough without causing the car to loose traction or other problems. The Miata is a great track car that can also be a daily driver. In standard form, it won't win at the 1/4 mile drag strip. But put it on a track with both left and right turns and it'll beat many of those straight line cars.
my 84 Camaro has about 150hp from the 305 v8. my 2013 camry has 170hp from 4cylnder. I could easily beat my Camaro with my camry. But the Camaro also weights more and has taller rear end gear which doesn't help it.
SOOOO If I'm reading this right we have faster quicker cars today than in the 1970-80's BUT today we have more traffic which means you can't go that fast and worse is we have all kinds of technology to distract the fast drivers and get into more accidents.
Right, but people shouldn't be driving their cars at the performance limit on public roads anyway. That's why insurance companies charge a lot for inexperienced or accident prone drivers who own performance cars.
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