The 1972 Porsche 911S kept its fuel filler flap in its traditional place, which is in the front of the car because it’s a rear-engine vehicle.
Porsche also decided to give the S an external oil filler flap on the right rear fender. I think this was supposed to be for racing purposes, but I’m not sure.
With 1972/3 still being the days of the full-service gas station, you can imagine what happened. The result is that if you can find a '72 911S today, you’ll pay a premium for it.
My vote for worst placement of fuel filler caps would be the older Jaguars which had one on each side. You’d think this would make it more convenient because then you could fill the tank from either side. Well no, it had two separate gas tanks and you had to fill them separately!
I thought I had heard once that certain auto manufacturers put the fill hole away from the driver to reduce the possibility of interaction between gas fumes and cigarettes.
International Harvester Scouts were the same way at one time. There was a little valve by the seat to switch gas tanks, and a little switch under the gas guage to set which tank the gas guage was measuring. There’s an obvious problem there …
Qadgop, you’re welcome - I’m actually a bit surprised it preplexed the pump jockeys of the time - an enormous number of '56 Chevys had to have been on the road then, and you would have thought they’d be used to it.
Your Probe was designed in Japan, where it was called the Mazda 626. Ford did do more than a usual amount of new fascia for the Probe version, but it was otherwise a 626.
I remember someone on this board saying that Germany requires gas caps to be on the right, so that if you run out of gas you can refill the tank without standing in traffic.
Most of the cars I’ve driven have been left-side capped. This is so much more convenient than right-sided vehicles when you pull into the gas station. I wish that GM, Ford, and Chrysler would get together and standardize this.
