Featured Remember the Mobil Economy Runs

Do you older readers remember the Mobil Economy runs.

I was taking a trip down memory lane and I went to an AMC website and they were referring to the Mobil Economy Runs. I copied this:

"In the 1964 run, a 6-cylinder Rambler American 440 sedan averaged 27.8336 miles per US gallon (8.4507 L/100 km; 33.4268 mpg‑imp); once again, the best of all the cars that year" This was a 2000 mile cross country event.

I bought a used 67 Rambler American 220 from my dad when I got out of the service in 1970. It was a 199 cubic inch six with three speed on the column, bench seat, no air, manual windows, steering and brakes. If I recall, it was one of the last with vacuum windshield wipers. When I mustered out, I drove it from Ft Dix, NJ to Columbus, Oh and it averaged about 25 mpg. It was a true economy car for the times.

Fast forward a lot of years and our 08 Odyssey gets that kind of highway mileage from a much bigger vehicle with safety additions, better handling, brakes, ride, quieter, audio/video bonanza and the list goes on.

Pretty remarkable progress on safety and fuel economy since that time. Today the Prius may be that economy standard with plug-in's here and electric cars proliferation just around the corner.

 

You are right. Lighter weight vehicle and smaller engines really helped.

My uncle bought a 1976 Chrysler lean burn Cordoba which was a 4500 lb sled with a 400 cubic inch engine. It got about 10 mpg. He took it to a dealer complaining about the poor mileage. They said that everything checked out.

Since I was a hot-rodder, he asked me if there was anything that I could do about the terrible mileage. This car was never going to get good mileage and I warned him that what I proposed would void his warranty but I could swap the distributor for one from an earlier 383 engine that had points, vacuum advance, weights and springs. The earlier distributor would have a performance ignition curve instead of the late curve of the electronic spark control distributor/computer. The mileage increased from 10 to 13 or 14 mpg which he was very happy with. I don't know how you can be happy with that kind of mileage but it was a 30% improvement. "Different strokes I guess"?

Pollution controls like late ignition timing, lean mixtures, lower compression and air injection really hurt mileage. Unleaded gas and the first catalytic converters were introduced about that time. By 1990 fuel injection replaced most carburetors. Electronic ignition and spark control computers became more standardized. By 1995, cars had shrunken and been lightened considerably, ODBII was introduced. 3 way catalytic converters and O2 sensors became commonplace. With computers taking over spark and fuel functions, pollution controls could be simplified and mileage improved significantly.

It has been quite a journey.

 

Interesting. The original Mobil Economy runs were 5 day, 1898 miles drive from Los Angels to Kansas City, Mo. Maybe for the EV version the winner would have the fastest pit stops for charging and then the most miles on each charge.