[
...maybe in a 116 horse open sleigh, RedDevil? 
]
Superstition (me not wanting to jinx the deal) means this thread has lagged real life by about a week.
Which means I actually got to enjoy the car in the dying days of late fall weather before the above pic was snapped (yesterday). I managed to put a couple hundred km on the car before Mother Nature said, "enough of that silliness," and dumped 30 cm / 12" of snow on everything.
Oh, and also the fatally cracked radiator blew up, the day before the snowpocalypse.
First fill: 38 mpg US = 6.1 L / 100 km
That will be my first and only fill (brim-to-brim) of this year. So not quite 50 mpg, eh?
That's what I managed to squeeze from it in 270 km / 168 miles of gentle and very enjoyable motoring.
Not great, but not horrible, considering EPA = 22 city / 28 highway / 24 combined.
Unmodded:
The only mod to the car was tire pressure at ~40 PSI... except I discovered one leaky tire was actually down to ~30 PSI by the end of the week.
Route details:
~70% scenic highway driving, speed limit of 80 km/h / 50 mph
~30% sub/urban short trips
Most (~75%) of this driving was of the smile-inducing, Cd-destroying, top down variety.
Weather: mostly cool but dry conditions (5-10C = 40-50F), with one gorgeous (for late fall) sunny afternoon of 15C / 60F.
Driving techniques:
- Driving with load on the highway (where no following traffic);
- Engine-off coasting where appropriate in the sub/urban bits;
- Driving "without brakes" in the curves/corners is particularly fun in this car!
- No pulse & glide;
- Skipshifting 1-3-5 works nicely because the gearing is ridiculously low. Always into 5th gear, even cruising below 30 mph / 50 km/h.
And all driving was "blind" (no MPG instrumentation). Didn't like that!
The only mechanical surprise
About halfway through the week of driving, I finally discovered the source of the rattle/clunk in the front end: while re-checking the ball joints/tie rods for the 3rd time, I spotted a busted front sway bar end link.
So I popped that off (and may I say, what a joy to work on a car that hasn't been winter driven, where 26 year-old nuts & bolts come apart relatively easily and without the swear words soundtrack), welded the break, put it back on, and the clunk was gone. Also, the taut handling I remembered was back!