|
No way I could put a number on money saved.
1968, drove my 59 Austin Healey Sprite to school on $1.25 a week allowance. 33 MPG=1 cent a mile in fuel. Later had some 63-67 Valients and Dodge Darts mid to high 20s for MPG.
I learned to drive economically from Pop who hypermiled his B17 to conserve fuel in case it was leaking out from battle damage. Took him 3 planes to finish his 30 mission tour and survive. He used to put water in the air cleaner of our 1950 Dodge, his idea of a primitive water injection.
In the 70s I tried to start my own business and started rebuilding collision damaged cars. My favorites were the early 70s Toyota Corollas, especially the SR5 versions with the 5 speed transmission. Pushrod hemi 1.5 liter, one sweet little engine and about 35 MPG average. Bought a 77 Accord the first year they made them. Pop drove it down US1in the Florida keys working for the American Cancer Society. He averaged 39.5 MPG in the Accord which had a 1.5 liter engine and weighed about the same as my 94 VX.
Last car I rebuilt before we closed the shop was a 1973 Alfa Romeo GTV. 2 liter 138 HP and 2080 pounds. What a machine. I drove it 100k miles then sold it for more than I paid for it wrecked. Hit in the rear, no parts just some Kansas Jack (early frame machine) work and some bondo and paint.
Bought a BMW 2002 for $300 once. A 1971 model. Found $900 in receipts in the trunk for work done in the previous 3 months. All the cars I bought and fixed, I drove long enough to make sure they were running perfect and then sold them for a profit, but could not make enough money to cover the shop expenses, so I moved to the Florida Keys and went to work for a Mercedes Dealer in Marathon. Later I went to Houston Texas and finally sold the old Alfa and bought a brand new Honda CRX 1.5 for $7k, serial number 1018, built in July of 83. Left Houston for the DC area and after 50k miles I sold the CRX for $5k. Averaged 44 MPG in the CRX for the whole time and I was not trying to hypermile just drove fairly conservatively.
Money was tight in the MB dealership in DC and I left for my home town of Hampton VA to work at the dealership there, still driving the CRX. Later I got another job at a Nissan Z car specialty shop. They were going under and I bought the business and ran it for 14 years. The 76 Z car I built got close to 28 MPG and ran like a scalded cat, flew around corners with turbo rims and a high compression engine, close to 85 MPH at 3k RPM with the .75 OD 83 5 speed anda 3.54 rear end. I started buying Altimas 93-97 models and rebuilt them, usually around 32 MPG but in most cases I made $2500 per car after all fuel and other costs were figured into the cost to fix. Generally I could put a 5000 mile Altima on the Road for $7500 cost, half the price new.
When I sold the shop I drove one of the Altimas for a couple of years, then when I was pursuing my patent and fuel started to get ridiculous I bought the 94 VX with 27,492 miles and drove it until it had 62 k miles and sold it for $5k including a purchase by a friend who sold it back when he had to have back surgery. The VX averaged something like 55 MPG, best tank was 68. Bought a 2002 Insight CVT and drove it close to 30k miles and averaged close to 67 MPG in it.
A year and a half ago I started riding bikes again, maybe 13k miles in that time. Now I drive a 99 Max, maybe a tank of fuel a month and the rest is riding bikes. 84 MPG on the CBR250R and close to 60 on the Vulcan 500. The two Rebels I had earlier did 75-80MPG.
I have driven close to 800k miles over the decades maybe more. Had it been in any average gas mileage vehicle the fuel cost would probably have been double what I spent. The rebuilt cars were probably driven 200k miles basically for free.
I would guess the total fuel consumed over the last 4 decades would probably be in the range of say 25,000 gallons with about that saved. No way I could figure it exactly but at today's prices the savings in money spend would easily go beyond $100k. With interest earned it would have paid me to cost of land and material to buy the house we presently live in and have never owned any money on since we sold the house it replaced 7 years ago.
While it may not be exactly the answer to your question Basjoos, I have been driving for mileage since I first started driving, since before the EPA had mileage figures to use in any calculation.
regards
Mech
|