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MPG tests by Consumer Reports in 1973 of cars with V8 engines found Consumer Reports testers complimenting any V8 cars that made 15 mpg or more on a 300 mile trip. Such cars were :
Dodge Dart (318 V8): 15 mpg "gas mileage was respectable for a V8"
Dodge Coronet (318): 15 mpg "best gas mileage of the group"
Chev Monte Carlo (350) 15 mpg "respectable gas mileage"
Pontiac Grand Prix (455 V8) 16 mpg "chalked up the best gas mileage of any V8 tested this year"
would this mean that these cars were moving out of the "gas guzzler" category? or do you still consider them gas guzzlers back then? I know today these figures would obviously be considered gas guzzlers
Back then if you wanted good fuel economy and enough room for family trips you got the inline 6 sedans. Think Ford Falcon, Chevy Nova, American Rambler for examples. Besides offering good fuel economy for it's day, they were easy DIY repairs and maintenance. Some of the Japanese cars back then make the Mini Cooper and Fiat 500 look roomy. Look at the original Honda CVCC and Datsun B-210 coupe for examples. The Datsun 510 wasn't much bigger than an 80s Cavalier. The original Accord was nearly the size of a Cavalier. When the Big 3 went 4 cylinder, they were big and thirsty and underpowered by today's standards. Some were horrible like the infamous Chevy Vega oil leak engine. For cars, look at the large V8 sedans and station wagons. 440 cubic inch engine without fuel injection was about as thirsty as a Ford Excursion or worse. Muscle cars were really bad.
318s were small V8s in those days, there were 440, 455, 400, 460 V8s that got single digit MPGs back then. I remember when the Volare/Aspen came out (Duster as a family sedan) it got 17MPG with a 225 slant six which was considered good then.
The cars we had then:
1969 Pontiac Catalina 400 V8 - single digit MPG
1969 Mercury Marquis 460 V8 - single digit MPG
1977 Chrysler New Yorker 400 V8 - 9 MPG
1978 Plymouth Fury 318 V8 - 12 MPG
My 69 Camaro averaged about 15mpg, but with a worked 327, headers, 4.10 0r 4.11 rear, hurst shifter, holley 4bl carb, who cared...the Cam moved and that's all that matter.
woxy was your 77 New Yorker smooth and quiet like the Fords and GM's or did you hear and feel the road more? i think by 77 or so the Mopars were just about as quiet as the competition
The Impala with a 2 barrel 350 was rated at 12 mpg average fuel mileage. The rating was for overall driving not separate town/hiway like they are today. I know a few folks that bought the 73 Impala and not one ever saw that good of mileage even on the hiway. The car had a 21.5 gallon tank and you couldn't drive one from San Antonio to Corpus Christi on one tank of gas. That's a little over 160 miles AT 55 mph. I had a 73 2 ton Dodge that would beat most any Impala of the day. The truck had the 318-3 engine in it. The term Gas Guzzler was not even around back then. It came in as a tax in 1978. Most of the cars of the era were gas hogs and it was due to sloppy carbs, engines strapped with lousy designed emissions systems, and engines pulling gear ratios far, far too tall. Standard axle under that Impala was a 2.73. Most cars that ran the quarter mile usually never changed gears for the entire length of the strip. ET's were in minutes...okay, it wasn't but it seemed like it. They were tin cans at best. I remember that prior to that you could sit on the hood of any car. Do it to a 70s era car and the damage would be in the thousands. You couldn't hardly lean on a fender without doing damage. But we had the HUGE 5 mph bumpers strapped to the front ends and back sides. There wasn't much "quality" in the assembly of the car. Fit and finish were not a term used by the auto makers back then. If it didn't fall off during assembly, it was fine. That's one major improvement the imports brought to the game. By 1973 we had gas companies advertising that by 2010, we would be out of gas. We had to stop driving and conserve where ever possible. There were long gas lines WHEN you could find it. Price meant nothing, available was everything. All in the name of politics. It was not "the good times".
Just found this. Thought this was correct but I didn't post it. That 73 Impala on the quarter mile........20 seconds at 72 mph. That's slightly faster than a Ford Falcon 1963 model with a 4 banger automatic. Acceleration from 50 to 90 mph was 29 seconds.
I owned a 70 Caddy Sedan DeVille that got 10 mpg regardless of if it was towing my boat or going downhill. I just considered it normal because gas was pretty cheap back then.
My one current car is a hot rod with 4.30 gears and it gets 10 around town and almost 19 on the highway. At today's prices I am not so forgiving about the mileage that one gets.
Don
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