It’s my impression that people paid very little attention to car MPG until the OPEC oil crisis during the 70’s, can anyone give some insight into what MPG was like for cars in the 60’s, 50’s, 40’s, 30’s etc.? How about the famous “Model T” Ford? How many miles per gallon did it get?
Thanks for all replies
wikipedia sez the model T could turn about 13-21 mpg depending, based on Ford’s estimates.
But your question is a bit difficult to answer. For a given model of car, you could have a fairly economical (for the time) base engine- say a 4.4 liter V8, and a big honkin’ optional engine, say a 7.5 liter V8.
I’d say the safest thing to say is that for a given amount of horsepower, modern cars are a lot more economical. My old boss used to gripe that his '07 5.7 liter Dodge Ram only got slightly better mpg than his 5.9 liter '89 Grand Wagoneer, until I pointed out that the Ram is heavier and has 200 more hp.
In 1967 I had a '66 GTO, with 3 2BB carburetors and geared for drag racing (high RPM). It weighed about 3,500 lbs. MPG was 12-13.
I guess mostly I’m curious about the big heavy, cars of the 50’s, like my late grandfathers 52’ Chevy. I drove that thing a few times and it felt like driving around in a tank. I assume that MPG during that decade was probably the worst overall. I will admit, that while it drove like a tank, it was also pretty much armored like one. My understanding of the workings of automobiles is scant to say the least, however that car seemed typical of the times based on what I see in old movies, nobody seemed to care about MPG back then (it certainly wasn’t a selling point based on what I can tell from old advertisements) but everyone wanted a big roomy car, that could go fast, and nobody seemed to be even trying to make cars lighter and durable, nor were they doing anything like the streamlining we see in modern cars. Mostly the seemed to be selling them based on style (which at the time emphasized things like pointless fins, and other cosmetic features.
I had a 1972 Plymouth Satellite with a small v-8 engine that got about 18-20 mpg.
they weren’t actually that heavy. They just looked big. The '57 Chevy Bel Air weighed about 3,300-3,400 lbs, about as much as a 2010 Honda Accord. Hell, a 2010 Taurus is 4,100 lbs. Go put a 2010 Mustang next to a 1964.5 Mustang. The 2010 is a fucking leviathan in comparison.
This is also a huge misconception. Cars in the '50s and '60s were hilariously unsafe, especially in crash performance.
They didn’t care. Hell, you can make the argument that we still don’t.
this has not changed. Ugly cars don’t sell, in general.
also, you need to keep in mind that the Model T only had 20 horsepower. Yes, twenty. And a 2-speed transmission. And no water pump in the cooling system. And absolutely no safety equipment. Hell, the windscreen was plate glass so good luck if something broke it while driving. So people going all Hillary Clinton about how “modern cars get worse fuel economy than a Model T” need to keep in mind a whole bunch of physics and regulations that make it so.
If you’re going way back, people actually did worry about fuel economy, since in the pre-war era gas cost pretty close to what it does now. Gas didn’t start to get really cheap until the 50’s and especially 60’s (and, interestingly, was the cheapest it has EVER been in 1999, and close to that early last year). But there were no standards for reporting MPG figures and using that as a marketing tool didn’t really take off until the EPA started actually testing new cars in the 1970’s.
In general, believe it or not, fuel economy numbers didn’t really change much until the 80’s (barring the occasional small fuel-sipping economy car or gas-guzzling muscle car). A Model T supposedly got about 20 MPG, which is about what a ho-hum family sedan in the late 70’s got. What happened is car makers almost exclusively used new technology to improve performance instead of economy. So horsepower numbers skyrocketed, but MPG’s stayed pretty much the same. People these days really don’t realize how incredibly slow old cars were, including most cars from the 50’s!
The energy crisis and government regulation changed things a little, but cheap electronic fuel injection was really the breakthrough. It improved performance AND economy, and lead to about a 10 MPG increase across the board. But we’ve now been stuck at around 30 MPG for a while now since car makers are back to increasing power (and vehicle size and weight) instead of efficiency (obviously there are some higher MPG models, but in terms of cars that are not specifically being bought for efficiency, the numbers haven’t changed much since the early-90’s).
So, to sort of answer your question, an average car from the 50’s got around 20 MPG. Even though we think about 50’s and 60’s cars as huge engined behemoths, most cars were still sold with 6-cylinders or small V8’s. A big-block equipped muscle car or luxury barge of the era probably got about 10, but these represented only a small fraction of cars sold.
Thanks Greasy Jack, that’s exactly the kind of insight I wanted. Though I’d love to hear more if people have more to tell
Not a muscle car in the least, but my 1965 VW Beetle got 30MPG on the highway and that was considered good fuel economy. I remember gas wars early in that decade when gas was sometimes 20 cents per gallon (19.9 actually), at least in Missouri, and that included taxes.
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I do not remember a lot of cars in the 50,s abd early 60’s getting 20mpg. My dad ended up buying a used Kiaser and was suprised and pleased when it go around 20 mpg. But it was a light car compaired to most of the cars on the road. Dad also had a 53 Packard with a straight 8 normally got around 11 mpg traveling at normal speeds. But at around 90 mph you could see the gas gage move.
The Buicks that dad had when I was a kid got around 10 mpg.
In 1958 Dad purchased a VW buss. Normally it got about 31 mpg. In a Moble ecconomy run my brother squeezes 46 mpg out of it. He would have won the run but it was judged that because it was a foriegn import and the were so few in the run he could not qualify for the prise. He got an honnorable mention.
**Posted by GreasyJack:
Gas didn’t start to get really cheap until the 50’s and especially 60’s (and, interestingly, was the cheapest it has EVER been in 1999, and close to that early last year).**I don’t remember gasoline prices from the 1940s, but I paid as little as $0.17 per gallon during the 1950s; that was during a price war. My uncle and I owned a Shell station in Santa Cruz, CA during the mid 60s; we sold premium gasoline for $0.329 per gallon while regular was $0.299 per gallon. We were not out of line compared to other stations at the time. I certainly don’t remember gasoline being anywhere near those prices in 1999; if you have figures to show it was the cheapest EVER during that time, I’d like to know—I might have slept through it.
I should have added that it’s 20 mpg highway at the most. If subjected to the modern EPA mileage test I’d imagine most older cars would be somewhere in the 10-15 mpg combined range, which is probably what most people would actually get.
To add my own “anecdata”, I still have a '64 LeSabre with the “small” 300 ci V8 and a 2-speed auto and it’ll get in the low 20’s on long slowish highway trips, but it’s definitely low double digits around town.
Oh, also I left out the key phrase inflation adjusted in my first paragraph!
I think he meant adjusted for inflation.
There was a time then when gas prices really dropped.
According to this site gas was $1.17 a gallon in '99 and $1.06 in 1998.
But I recall paying 88 cents for a gallon of regular unleaded in Madison, Wisconsin in the spring of '98, and 77 cents during the same time of year in Virginia. It was fantastic!
Oh and the source I used for the inflation adjusted gas prices is this handy-dandy interactive chart: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/realprices/index.cfm
Switch the price series to “regular gasoline retail” and then slide the date range back to 1920. Inflation adjusted, 1999 was the lowest they’ve ever been, $1.03 nominally and 1.38 inflation adjusted. By comparison, in 1969 is was .39 nominally but 2.08 inflation adjusted and in 1939 in was .19 nominally and $2.95 inflation-adjusted. The brief sag in prices in 2008/9 was too short to show up in the annual average, but IIRC, it just barely missed being lower than the 1999 price sag.
First car was a 50’s Chevrolet, straight 6, three speed stick. I checked mileage occasionally and it would get 20MPG on the trip to LA to see my girlfriend. My early 70s El Camino, 307 V8, 2bbl 3 speed stick got 13 to14,of course, by then my foot was much heavier.
Are you sure about those mileage figures for a VW Bus? I owned a '68 model and the fuel economy was unimpressive…about 18-20 mpg IIRC. Of course, my driving was mostly highway mileage, the older VW van/busses may have been one vehicle that actually got better mileage in city driving. Reason being that they were so un-aerodynamic and so pathetically underpowered that to even approach highway speeds you had to drive with your foot in the carburator at all times. All old-time VW Bus drivers bear psychic scars from the continual humiliation of having loaded semi-trucks pass them on hills.
“Some” people cared about mileage, hence the immense popularity of the VW Beetle.
Surprisingnly, all of my VW Beetles almost always only got about 26 mpg all the time.
It was supposed to get more than 26, but none of my Beetles ever did. Besides the Beetle, other people who probably were concerned about mpg bought the Nash, Metropolitan, Chevy Corvair, Pontiac Tempest(pre-GTO), and Ford Falcon. There was a small market for economy cars, a visible, a very small, but a small market for cars that got good mileage.
YOu are right though, most people, i.e. the average person, did not think about mpg, those very few of us who cared about mpg were a VERY tiny minority. When gasoline was only 20 cents a gallon (about the same price as a pack of cigarettes), even teenagers could easily come up with 5 dimes or 2 quarters for 2 gallons of gas. It would be darn hard, if not impossible, to use up a dollars worth of gas cruisin the drive-ins all night.
There also was no such thing as “self serve” , for 20 cents a gallon, an attendant would come out, check the air, check the oil, clean the windshield and lights, give us green stamps. If we filled up our tank he also gave us a free set of drinking glasses.
Moreover, I also had a 55 chevy v8 and I consistently got about 16 mpg even though I always ran it hard and fast, or racing, squeeling tires all the time. My own personal concern for mileage was more about range, i.e., how far I could go on 50 cents of gasoline. My girlfriend next door had a stick-6 cylinder 55 Chevy and she only had to get gas every 2 weeks. She always got over 20 miles per gallon in her stick-6 1955 chevy.
I know my uncles 51 Chevy got about 22 mpg.
I had 1 boyfriend who had a souped up bored out customized 51 Ford with a big engine and i know he only got 4 miles per gallon in that one because we once ran out of gas after getting 1 gallon of gas and then driving 4 miles. 4 miles a gallon in his dragrace car meant that his gashog only could go 20 miles per dollar of gas. However, the 4 miles per gallon was not the problem, the problem was running out of gas before we got home.
Re gas prices, I missed the inflation adjusted qualifier; sorry and no offense intended.
My mom’s car drove like a tank: it was a 1958 Pontiac, 4000 pounds with no power steering. However, it was VERY!!! fast!
(OTOH, my 1955 Chevy did not need power steering and it drove and steered just fine)