Greetings All,
This week I want to discuss a marketing approach that has taken our attention away from what’s important to us and shifted to what the manufacturer thinks is important.
Some of you may have noticed an obvious sell point for the better part of the past 5 decades. Drum roll please.... Horsepower! This has been the biggest thing next to safety all manufacturers have been guilty of pushing on us as a major selling point. Why you may ask would we put such an emphasis on something such as this? I believe it dates back to when guys measured their muscles by the amount of rubber they could lay down. Now I'm not knocking the evolution of the muscle car but that was an era when pollution was not yet a concern in this world. Or maybe it’s something else, maybe it’s the fact that it takes less time and money to cram more horsepower in a car than it does to make it more fuel efficient? I will let you decide what to make of these questions. So let us look at what has changed by using a standard automotive measurement of miles per gallon or "mpg" as it’s known. This effects all of us as it helps us figure out how much we may spend at the pump before we buy a car.
Now let's see how far we have come in twenty years starting with 1987;
Just 2 years after the Yugo graced our shores with its presence (insert chuckle here) we find the popular GV model to come in with a window sticker stat of 28city/31 hwy. Likewise in 1987 the popular Toyota Camry with a 2.0, 4 cylinder motor coupled with a 4 speed automatic came in at 25city/31hwy. Even the top selling truck from Ford came in at 17city/21fwy for the F150 4x2 equipped with a 4.9 liter 6 cylinder with 4 speed manual transmission.
Now, “let’s do the time warp� to 1997... just yesterday it seems, yet it was ten years ago.
Let’s look at the mileage of a few cars listed above and compare.
The 4 cylinder Toyota Camry which has bumped up to a 2.2 litre from a 2.0 yet still has a 4 speed auto transmission. The Camry comes in at 23city/30 hwy which means an actual decrease of 2mpg for city and 1 for highway?! The Ford F150 came in with a lower engine displacement (size) of a 4.2 litre and is now teamed with a 5 speed manual transmission to give 17city/21 hwy estimated mpg. The mpg is the same but is obtained out of a smaller motor. Since Yugo by this time is no longer an import in the U.S., I chose the Hyundai Accent to take its place.This is a little over 10 years after Hyundai is first spotted in the US and they are here to make a difference one “econo� car at a time. The Accent pulls 28city/37hwy with their 1.5 litre 4cylinder matched with a 5 speed transmission.
Here we are in the now of 2007, already 7 years after the millennium new year. We have seen a few makes such as Oldsmobile and Plymouth take a bow and depart from our local dealers. We also saw old friends rejoin such as the Mini, now owned by BMW.
So what’s the rundown? The Toyota Camry, now boasting a 2.5 litre 4 cylinder coupled with a 5 speed manual lists 24city/34hwy, not impressive. The Ford F150 shows 16city/21hwy with a 4.2 6 cylinder and 5 speed tranny. Lastly our Hyundai with the same size engine and 5 speed transmission comes in at 32city/35hwy! Good job to Hyundai for pulling more mpg out of your cars.
All of the above mpg stats are derived directly from www.FuelEconomy.gov . This is an excellent site that can be used to look as far back as the mid-eighties for vehicle fuel economy stats.
Note: the standards for finding these stats have not been changed in decades thus the reason for your actual mileage to be considerably different at times when comparing.
As always,
Happy Motoring!
-Lance
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