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When I turned 16, my parent gave me one of there old cars and now that I have gotten into hypermiling I wish now more than ever I had it still. It was a 210,000 1979 Datsun 210mpg, A horrible mint green metallic paint job(that immediately faded straight to the primer coat), tan vinyl seats a 5spd manual trans and I got 50 mpg out of that thing!

I finally got rid of it after a few years of pizza delivery and cross country road trips working as a sound/light tech for bands. The rust was so bad I could reach under the dash - through the firewall and touch the engine!

Still 50mpg without even thinking about it - and rock solid reliable, wow I really miss that car.

Anybody else got a car they wish they had back?

There should be quite a few of those on here. ;). I had a 2001 dodge stratus that was netting me 30mpg daily. Those were previous to my hypermiling days. I lost it in '06 due to falling asleep from exhaustion after a 16 hour drive that was also post 8 hr night shift.

I really miss that car. Never had an issue with it...I replaced it with my current car that got 22mpg.

We/I had a 1969 Toyota Corolla SW that would get an honest 28 mpg wide open at an indicated 84 mph.It weighed just 1800 lbs I think with a 1000 or 1100 cc motor 4 speed MT.
I drove from Denver to Baton Rouge in 20.5 hours in 1973-1300 miles.
Naturally it eventually blew a head gasket, but it soldiered on another 5000 miles with the blown gasket-Eventually we had it repaired.

It steered like a boat, and braked like a boat also.
Driven normally it would get 35 mpg or so-absolutely spectacular for 1969-carburetor with points of course. A tiny car like that-Smart weight- would get 50 mpg now.
Charlie

I miss my 1969 Chrysler Newport. A giant hwy tank of a car good for 28 mpg hwy all day long with the power to light up the rear wheels at 65 mph. It had a ram air induction setup on it with dual AFB Carters with a LSD rear end. A over sized rad and a A/C that would blow snow flakes at you when you hit real humid air. I put over 300k miles on that car. Never had the engine, tranny or rear end out out of it.

I also miss my 1992 Festiva. The best new car I've ever bought. Only $7k OTD, great mpg! It even auto-ex'd well. My mistake was letting my daughters drive it.

PSYSHACK,

Whoooo- you got 28 mpg with a -440-with 2 4 barrel carbs??? With a 4500-5000 lb car?

It didn't come stock with that system, did it-2 4 barrel carbs??
We also got very good service-exceptional service- from a Mopar of that vintage- 1965 Fury III SW with a 318. My brother and I would drive it wide open-indicated 111 mph- on Airline HY(the road Jimmy Swaggert frequented, but we did it in rural areas).

Needless to say, it didn't get 28 mpg-more like 13 mpg when driven normally.It was about as heavy as your Chrysler.The motor had very little wear when it was rebuilt at 131,000 miles. You no doubt remember that back then a car was considered "worn out" at 80,000 miles. A 100,000 mile car was very, very unusual then.Folks just didn't drive as much.
Charlie
PS I'm not saying you are exaggerating-just that it was a very exceptional car to get 28 mpg.

Well, I kinda wish I could have kept my 2001 Toyota Echo AT. I traded it to a dealer when I got my creampuff 2006 Insight. Dealers don't really give you much on trade-in, so I felt that it was a bit of a loss. Had just under 130,000 so it was no infant, but the drive train looked good for another 130K. With no stick home and no place to keep two cars, it had to go.

For those wanting a "cheap" gas hypermiler, a MT Echo would be hard to beat. There are a few that are a bit better, but hard to find. It has decent room, will seat four, and can be found in 4 door version. Check lamebums fuel logs for an indication of what can be done with this car :woot:

I had a 58 Plymouth Belvedere 2 dr hardtop that looked like the car from the movie 'Christine" It would sure be a collector car worth big bucks now, should have kept it!

for MPG, I had a 78 honda accord 5 speed, back then they were tiny little coupes.
i never figured out the mileage, but i don't remember ever putting gas in it and I drove it a year or so on fumes I guess ;) i had a 80 chevette four speed that didn't need much gas either, don't know if I wish i had that one though ;)

Guess I'm a bit younger than a few of you - first car 82 Civic 1.5L Engine FE Edition!!!!!, 3 years older than I am, car would do over 40 without any effort at all. Top speed was only ~80mph, on a good day. Towards the end it topped out near 65, with tailwind. Had a 50!!! HP engine. Then I put subs in the back and was the most ghettofabulous teenager in town.

My first was a 64 Plymouth Valiant. Slant 6 170 CI that was good for about 18 mpg. It was a simple car to work on.

Mine was a GMC Suburban. Not the most fuel efficient thing out there.

'75 Malibu Classic.
350 engine
3 speed auto tranny geared for the highway

At 76 mph I got 26 mpg.

I keep wondering what I could do with it now.

1997 Ford Escort base. 5 speed. I never even knew that I hypermiled the tar out of it....I was pushing 36-38 MPG tanks (mostly all in-town) on a regular basis.


http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/500/P1010198.JPG

1966 Shelby GT350, 15mpg on the road, 4mpg on the track (one gallon every three minutes).

I know where it is today, the current owner investigated the history of the car from the time it was being modified by Shelby in their Southern California shop. He interviewed every owner of the car, I was number three. First owner was Gary Lewis (Jerry Lewis's son), there is a picture of him sitting in the car on one of his record albums.

Went from one extreme to the other with my current car, 2000 Honda Insight.

Nope,
only have had a '98 MPV all sport (got me in to hypermiling, one day I put $20 in and the needle dropped)
'92 Lincoln Continental ES (very smooth ride)
'03 Honda Civic LX Sedan (best tank, somehow was 63mpg all highway)
'04 Toyota Prius package #9 (BC) (I miss some of the tech features sometimes, like HIDs and proximity key [smart key] stealth mode)
'09 Honda Civic Hybrid Leather Navi (this might be a car I'd miss, good riddance to all but these last two entries though the '03 wasn't bad)

PSYSHACK,

Whoooo- you got 28 mpg with a -440-with 2 4 barrel carbs??? With a 4500-5000 lb car?

It didn't come stock with that system, did it-2 4 barrel carbs??
We also got very good service-exceptional service- from a Mopar of that vintage- 1965 Fury III SW with a 318. My brother and I would drive it wide open-indicated 111 mph- on Airline HY(the road Jimmy Swaggert frequented, but we did it in rural areas).

Needless to say, it didn't get 28 mpg-more like 13 mpg when driven normally.It was about as heavy as your Chrysler.The motor had very little wear when it was rebuilt at 131,000 miles. You no doubt remember that back then a car was considered "worn out" at 80,000 miles. A 100,000 mile car was very, very unusual then.Folks just didn't drive as much.
Charlie
PS I'm not saying you are exaggerating-just that it was a very exceptional car to get 28 mpg.

It was a 383 2 barrel low compression mill stock. The 4 barrels were the small carters 400 cfm afb's. Primary's were the same size as the secondary's. Thus I leaned out the primary's as much as I could and limited the throttle pump stroke. Also the operation between the primary's and secondary's was a mechanical cam affair. Allowing me to set the carbs up to crack open the secondary's ever so slightly to let in a bit more air, but not opening up the fuel jets. Thus allowing lean burn in certain hwy and city driving scenario's. It took me a solid month to get this tune down and repeatable. Because there was another tune used on the car from time to time the made good money on sustained high speed I-40 runs. The car made me a lot of money when I was young. :D

Of all the cars I've owned in my life. I miss the Chrysler a lot. When it was time for it to leave my life I popped the Chrysler letters off the rear of the car. I then mounted them on a piece of ash that hangs in my living room.

http://www.purehonda.com/ezine/May/stillen.jpg
Looked like this without all the parts laying on the ground...until it was...STOLEN in 2005.

My 99 Honda Civic Si. 134mph highest speed I ever wanted to take it up to. 9500 rpm redline, launch at 5500 rpm. Replaced tires every 25-30k miles. It got 22mpg dogging it everyday. I imagine I could have gotten 30mpg if I knew what hypermiling was back then. I'm still not over it. :mad:

If I still had it I wouldn't have bought the real FSP. The 2006 Dodge Magnum SXT - Dale

Guess I'm a bit younger than a few of you - first car 82 Civic 1.5L Engine FE Edition!!!!!, 3 years older than I am, car would do over 40 without any effort at all. Top speed was only ~80mph, on a good day. Towards the end it topped out near 65, with tailwind. Had a 50!!! HP engine. Then I put subs in the back and was the most ghettofabulous teenager in town.


Are you sure it was 1.5?
I had the 1983 1300FE model, with the 1.3 liter. I was unaware there was such a model with the 1.5.

My car was quite posh. A/C, aftermarket cruise control, top end dealer installed stereo (for the day). The upholstery in those cars didn't hold up, so mine was redone in a cushy velour. bought used with 101,000 miles on it, and regrettably traded it at 205k miles for a 91 Civic- which was crap.

My god those were good cars, no matter what engine.

Strati don't get a lot of recognition. I had a 97 with the 2.0l and a 5-speed manual and I got 40+ on many trips, with usual weekly in-town commuting netting about 30. Roomy, and excellent handling car.

There should be quite a few of those on here. ;). I had a 2001 dodge stratus that was netting me 30mpg daily. Those were previous to my hypermiling days. I lost it in '06 due to falling asleep from exhaustion after a 16 hour drive that was also post 8 hr night shift.

I really miss that car. Never had an issue with it...I replaced it with my current car that got 22mpg.

Psyshack,
OK, got it. My 1971 383 Cuda came with a Holley 4 barrel with vacuum secondarys. I immediately made it less good by putting a 650 Holley dual feed dual pumper on it. I think the accelerator pumps would put out a good 1/2 ounce each when I hit the throttle. Needless to say, it got poor FE with us driving.

Your Chrysler probably had tall gearing also. So you used 8 small venturi and leaned it out-kept the flow velocity high-good mixing etc. A sort of DIY primitive multi port fuel injection- not bad-interesting !
Thanks,Charlie

Strati don't get a lot of recognition. I had a 97 with the 2.0l and a 5-speed manual and I got 40+ on many trips, with usual weekly in-town commuting netting about 30. Roomy, and excellent handling car.

2.0l 5spd is really decent on mileage. I constantly net 35+ around town hypermiling, and 50 on the highway with the 2.5V6 AT. I would love to see what the 2.0 with a 5spd would give...

Meh, don't really have a car from my past that I want, I have the vehicles I want now and don't plan on changing them anytime soon. I wouldn't mind having my Dad's old daily driver Mach 1 back though, with the 351 Cobra Jet motor and a Tremec 5-speed...

I miss my 86 Civic 5MT. It even had A/C. Eeven with me beating the snot out of it, it still returned about 35 MPG. I can only get that out of the Hyundai if I really work for it.

My first car was a '64/5 Mustang convertible with a 260 V8 and a 3-speed. I got it used, and included with it was a list of intractable problems too numerous to list here. I don't miss it at all!! I was looking at a '65 6cyl 4-speed one at the same time and I wish I had bought that instead, it was in much better shape.