I remember our 3 months in the UK and Europe in 1974 Phil, and still think about driving past a fuel refinery where the natural gas flame burned brightly above because it wasn’t considered of any value back then.
My dad hired a Hillman Avenger (not sure what it was “Avenging” but it was a typical British car of the time, a shapeless box on wheels) but Dad was ‘rapt with it’s fuel economy, because fuel was so expensive in Britain compared to Oz, where like the US, we drove bigger cars with bigger engines as fuel was cheap.
It’s funny how economical vehicles have become though, my (US built) 1998 V6 petrol Ford Explorer (recently gone to God with a terminal transmission) was good for 19 miles to the imperial gallon, whereas my 2015 (Aussie built) Ford Territory with its V6 Turbo diesel gets double the fuel mileage of the Explorer.
And then of course there’s the wife’s little Hyundais, (she’s got two, she wouldn’t let me get rid of the old one when I bought her the newer one 12 years ago, and the damn thing just won’t die) I drove her and her mum to our favourite bistro for lunch yesterday (a round trip of approx 60 miles) and the needle on the fuel gauge didn’t move from a quarter full.
I drove the old one to Canberra and back with a boot full of CB750 parts in 2009, averaging 70 MPH and returned around 50 MPG. I think that after a nuclear holocaust the only things that would survive would be cockroaches and Hyundais. I really hope that infernal combustion engines aren’t phased out in my lifetime though, electric cars and bikes just don’t do it for me at all.
