Was your 1st car good w mpg's???
 

This is probably an easier question for young people? How far down your automotive path, did you change, and want to save gas?

My first car was a '67 Chevelle Malibu w 283/4-spd. that even w 60 series tires would get 22mph. at 70 mph.

2nd car was '65 Corvair 4 door bought so Chevelle wouldn't get messed up in freezing rain/ice storms.

3rd car was '55 Chevy 2dr post w 283/3 on column getting 21/22mpg. around town.

Had 3 different cars that got 7-9 mpg., but they were specialized in that I always had like 2 other normal cars for everyday use!


The very 1st car, that I bumped up the tire pressure for a mileage run was a '62 VW bug. I put 50psi all around, did a mostly flat freeway round trip run of 70 miles or so at 45mph. and got about 45mpg.

Later came 2 other bugs, a Datsun 510, b210, orig. Fiesta, Honda 600 Coupe, and finally 1st gen. CRX; but these were mainly all mixed w other vehicles not so mpg worthy all at the same time.

That 1st bug experiment I did in the mid- 1970's. and that car was probably about my 7th or 8th car. I was about 20 yrs old then!

1970 Nova SS. Speedo didnt work so no idea on the mpg's. But at 16 I really didn't care. I have had cars that were good on gas for winter cars for a long time, but I didn't really start to pay attention to it seriously until about 3 years ago. So 15 or so years of not caring. Bleh that's dreadful!

My first car was a 1984 Civic DX hatchback, got 42.2mpg, I was happy with it at the time but of course I didn't realize what else was out there.

Spitfire with a Toyota engine in it was 1st; then came several VWs, a Nova with a 283, Corvair, etc. with most able to get about 30. And back then I did just about everything on a CB450- you wouldn't believe the stuff I hauled on that rack!

I've always owned a good stick shift fuel economy car. First was a '63 Rambler American 220. Second a '70 Datsun PL521, both capable of 25 mpg. Third was a '76 Datsun B210 capable of 36 mpg. Fourth an '82 Nissan Sentra that got up to 45 mpg.

I've also owned several AT FSPs concurrently with the fuel misers. The FSPs included a 12 mpg '59 Buick Electra, a 5 mpg (winter - 11 mpg summer) '77 IHC Scout II, and a 15 mpg '87 Chevy Astro van. Once I started hypermiling, the Astro got 20-22 mpg, but was still a FSP.

2000 Oldsmobile Silhouette-minivan- 3.4L V6. My parents had me drive it my senior year cuz it was the safest car. Didn't pay much attention to mpg then, but it got like 16-17 mpg.
Then I got the car I'm driving now, 1996 Chrysler Sebring Convertible. 2.5L V6. The power and acceleration difference is incredible haha, man could that minivan accelerate! :D
The Sebring gets about 17, but with mpg in mind I can get almost 20 and that's mostly city driving.

1984 or 85 Audi 5000 diesel. Got about 30-35 mpg, but was offset by the horrendous oil consumption ( the rering job by the PO was not the best ).

First VAG diesel, but not the last.

larrybuck -

Thrifty 4-bangers, one and all. My current SW2 is probably the heaviest of the bunch at 2400+ lbs. First car was my (Dad's) 1972 VW Karmann Ghia.

CarloSW2

...when gasoline was 24.9¢ a gallon, NOBODY worried about economy; you got four gallons for a buck!

...my car at that time was a very 'well-used' 1953 'flathead' Ford Crown Victoria with 3-speed manual transmission with overdrive.

Some people must have worried about it otherwise the Beetle and the little Asian cars wouldn't have found success here.

When you worked 40 hours for $.625 per hour, even 30 cents a gallon gas meant something.

My first car was a $52 57 Chevy that was purchased at the Newport News Va abandoned car auction, serious piece of junk. The second car was a 59 Austin Healey Sprite (bug eye for you old folks). It got 32 MPG and I drove it like a nut. You could smell the rubber going around turns, but the tire was only 3 feet from your nose!

regards
Mech

first car was an AMC gremlin with a 302 (or 305, cant remember) 4 spd manual trans, didnt even bother caring about mpg with that car, all I cared about was smoking the tires and other drivers. :)
2nd car was a 1985 mercury lynx 5 spd manual that got excellent mpg, but I didnt have it long as I tried teaching a g/f how to drive stick and she ran into a tree...
next car was a 1985 sunbird, 4cyl 5 spd and got pretty darn good mpg, I dont actually know what it got, but it had a super small tank (maybe 12g) and i could drive from Naples, FL to melbourne, FL and back without having to stop for gas with 3 people in the car and 4 surfboards on the roof with board racks that attached to the rain gutters.
after that, I own a toyo AE86 hatchback, got really good mpg, but I didnt own it long as I lost my license (not for DUI, for other misc things that happened all at once).
then I rode a bike for almost 15 yrs.
a mazda mx6 LS that I avgd 27mpg hwy
a ranger that netted me 24mpg hwy most of the time, that I could push up to 27 occasionally.
a toyo 4runner, horrible, simply horrible mpg
subi outback, not much better than my ranger, and cost WAY too much to fix.
eagle talon good mpg (avgd 35 hwy) but got an offer on it I couldnt refuse (paid $900 and someone gave me $2100 for it 7 mos later)
94 protege, gas miser, that isnt running at the moment :(
traded the ranger for the Xterra, unbelievably horrible mpg... 15/17 EPA and I probably got that, no matter what I tried....
now I have the protege5, the 94 protege and another mx6 LS.
yes, I am a Mazda Man :)

87 pontiac sunfire was my first. no idea what mileage I got. I drove for 10 years before discovering the joy of better than average FE.

304ci V8 for the Gremmy.

My first economy vehicle was a 1984 Nissan 720 pickup truck. 2.0L, 5 speed 88hp truck. It didn't look nice or go fast, but it got great mpg's on the highway below 55mph. I drove that truck through some minimum maintence roads and into some fields that my friends wouldn't touch with their 4wd pickups.

I actually kept that truck around the farm until last year when I tore the engine completely down and rebuilt it. Got it running like a top in no time! Unfortionately I got rearended by a loaded semi with only about 60 miles on the motor...

I've actually always kept an economy box around to suplement my low mpg toys, but that was my first.

My first car was a 1972 toyota corolla 2-door 1200cc {1.2L) 3-cyl.
3 cyl. because it had a burnt valve on the #4 cylinder:p effectively canceling it out. bought that car for 150 bucks when i was 15, insured it 6 months later and did my first hypermiling trip out to the lake with $ 2.50 in the tank! that's well before it was cool to be hypermiler:D

Poverty~ the fire beneath the hypermilers butt
at least that"s how it started for me!

:)

But back then I was making maybe $2-$3 per hour (or even less when I was in the military). Now gas costs $4/gal, but I make closer to $50-$100/hr.

The first car I actually owned - '66 Pontiac GTO with the 389 & triple carbs - wasn't all that good on gas. Second and third - an Austin-Healey Sprite and a Toyota Stout pickup - were real good. And there were some motorcycles - Honda 305 & 350 IIRC - that were good, and the old Volvo...

I had a '72 VW squareback that got 40mpg, and a '76 Honda Civic that also got 40mpg. But then I got a '70 International Scout II with a 304 V8 (gutless), that only got 17 on the highway, but it was better than any of the other Scouts with a 345 V8. Sure wish I'd picked up a diesel....

I did replace the Civic with a '78 Datsun 280Z (still have it); that car returns 30mpg, and it can run a 12.8 second quarter mile...

Every car was driven for economy. Some just got better numbers than others.

First one was a 1966 FORD LTD Country Squire with every available option. Including the 4V-428 engine. 10-mpg city, 12-mpg highway.

.

When I was 21, I hitchhiked around the country for about 1 1/2 months..... in between jobs, wondering what I wanted to be in life.

Got tired of it and wanted my own ride to go home. My cousin who lived in Rockville, Maryland, loaned me $400. for gas, expenses, AND buying a '65 Ford LTD 4dr HT. w 390! It had been his recently deseased father's car. He had recently downsized to a '72 Dodge Colt. We tuned it, and changed the oil. At a 40mph cruising speed (low rearend gears), I averaged 24 mpg on slightly bumped bald tires.

This was in '75. I don't remember one time that anybody ever honked, or had any issue w my 40mph on interstates drive! Wish it was still that way!

Apart from a couple of "play" cars (classics mainly) my every day cars have usually been ones with economy in mind. I described my first (Austin Metro 1.0) in the "Rose Colored Goggles" thread, but it was cheap - group 1 insurance (the lowest group), 45 MPG daily which when you're 17 and make the valves bounce in every gear isn't bad.

On the couple of occasions where I had larger (for me) cars such as a Honda Accord or a Ford Mondeo for every day use I felt limited in how much I could use them by a fear of the cost.

They were company cars, not my choice, and they stayed unused on the drive in my spare time. This was more a mental fear than a real one, the alternative car (in this case the GFs Escort) was not much more economical. My first time filling the Mondeo cost me £35 which was a good £10-15 more than my previous Peugeot 205 ever took. And that £35 took me fewer miles.

When I did swap the Accord for a Diesel Rover 220 (~50MPG imp, 0-60 10.5 secs in 1997) I was finally able to use the car more or less as much as I liked....

...just in time to get married, move to Scotland and have to hand it back ;)

My first one was a 77 Sedan DeVille. I've never bought a car for mpg, this one I got for the power and cargo space. The last car I bought was a 96 Suzuki Esteem, which I am proud to say I hypermiled even though I didn't know what that was. It was rated 31/37 (33) and I was getting 42 out of it.

My first car was a 1960 ford falcon 4 dr I inherited kind of. It got about 28 mpg running flat out when the carb hadn't vibrated in two pieces, then 10-15 with the 144 engine and 2 speed auto. Got a 57 olds super 88 when i got married, came with the wife, her father had bought it for her. It got about 17-20 at hightway speeds. 61 Olds I hated as her father sold the 57 while I was in VietNam. Then a 62 1/2 Ford Galaxie 500 XL in 71. Don't know about mileage on it, gas was 24-28 cents a gallon. several beat up cars after that. Bought a really nice 76 Pontiac Astre wagon in 76, it got arounf 28. Then in 77 bought a junker 72 Vega wagon and played with it, had the 3 speed opel tranny and 1 barrel carb with home made water injection, 2 liter bottle, aquarium hose and valve to a vacuum port on the carb it got 44 mpg. had to change the rear spark plug every 150 mi or so, did a re ring on that cylendar in my front yard for $20.00. Now I have a 91 lincoln towncar with 230,000 mi that gets 24 mpg on the hiway, a 91 jeep cherokee sport with 225,000 mi that gets about 18, and my DD a 92 suzuki swift gt I bought for 300 and have spent 1400 on fixing that gets 37+ around town and on the road. I just pulled my 10 ft boat to Arkansas to my dad's with it and took 12 gal of gas in a boat tank in the back and averaged 35.4 for the round trip. Never had the boat over 75 and only hit 80 once on the way home. I still haven't forgiven my dad for not letting me get my dream car when I was 16, A 53 studebaker 2 dr sedan someone had swapped in a 318 poly engine and had traded in at the dealer in town they wanted 350 for it and I would have NEVER sold it. He said I would have killed myself in it. Just jealous I think.

I was thinking about the costs back then. My first Metro had a 5.5 gallon tank - yeah, I know - and the challenge was to get over 200 miles to a tank. My dad ran the 1.3 version and the best he got was about 210, I got to 230 once but it did cough as it rolled onto the forecourt.

Cost wise though a £5 note would take it from 1/3 to full on the gauge, £7 was probably enough to brim it from empty - this was ~1985-87.

The Mondeo had a 40 litre tank but a fillup could cost £50 if it was really empty.

My last car, the Fabia, I could squeeze 50 litres into it (by venting the reserve) and the cost was ~£60-70.

Scaling the range of the Fabia to the Metro the cost seems to be round 4x as large since then. I am comparing petrol to diesel though.

My first was a 1972 Toyota Celica sedan. It got about 32 around town and 39 on the highway the way I drove it. My second was a Corolla hatchback that got me about the same mpg. Then I got a house and started playing in rock bands and needed cargo vehicles, like trucks and vans. So, since about 1985 until last year, my vehicles have been averaging about 21 city, 25 highway. I'm now driving a much more efficient pickup, but still not getting what I got with my first two vehicles.

There's an old networking saying: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." Cargo vehicles exist because they are the most efficient way to move a bunch of stuff, and if you have to do that then your mileage isn't anything to be ashamed of.

I forgot I had a 60 model Country Squire ford wagon that was totalled by hurricane Camille. The faster you drove it the better the mpg at 75 it would get 21-22 not bad for 7 1/2 cyl it had a burned exhaust valve.

The first car I owned ... my dad bought for me, and he wanted something safe, somewhat reliable as indicated by "Consumer Reports" and devoid of postadolescent coolness. So ixnay on the Firebird ... (grin) and hello to a used 1976 Olds Cutlass Supreme in that weird "fleshtone" beige. It got mmmmaybe 20mpg.
First car I bought new was a Honda CRX in '85. That returned mid-to-high 30s. It saw me through the balance of grad school and a coupla years following.

Then I got a real job and had to have an Acura Legend, the 2-door with a 5-speed. Honestly don't remember the economy on that one. i drove it gently but with emphasis on being nice to the machinery, with good mileage being a welcome consequence. I rapidly tired of that car's miserable clutch ... and replaced it with a '92 Civic VX.
THAT was the car that kicked me from ordinary "sedate driver" to rabid hypermiler. It also had an uncanny knack for educating me in California's gas formulation (oxygenation) foibles. It was a very sensitive instrument for measuring fuel energy density.
Then the pendulum swung again. Spouse (who is no longer Spouse) didn't want the VX because it had the Wrong Tranny (sigh), so she got a '96 Accord slusher and I procured me the best car I ever owned - a '98 Bim M3, four doors, five speeds, sunroof delete. ~long sigh~ I miss that car. But fry me for a porkchop if I could ever exceed 22.x mpg mixed cycle, and that was with my VX driving style transplanted intact. I blame rolling resistance, specifically of the wide gummy low-profile Michelin Pilot Sport "puppy paws" on which that divine chariot addressed the tarmac. The ownership experience ended soon after my destructive career makeover ... another story for another six-pack.

Now I am 'miling it in my rapidly-aging minimalist Poop Wgn. I am old enough now to be primarily interested in mileage machines, even if my tastes tend toward non-diesel and non-hybrids. If something to match or exceed that late great VX comes along, I will stand right up on my hind legs and pay attention. A Prius with a small gas engine, no electrics and a 6-speed manual? Mr. Toyoda? (waves frantically) Hhellloooo?
cheers apo

My first "car" was a 1973 Jeep J-4000 360 quadra trac. Fuel gauge and speedo didnt' work but I'm sure it didn't get any better than 10 mpg.

Second vehicle was a 79 chevy luv, it got pretty good fuel mileage. At the same time I had a 86 Yamaha xt 350 that got 65 mpg without trying.