Grasslakeron
Explorer
My LJ was an apartment building as far as drag goes.
Look at the gas mileage posted in this old Ford ad!
- Thread starter AbleGuy
- Start date
calicamper
Expedition Leader
Haha
In 1980 we had a oil embargo VW Dasher 5spd manual 1.2ish liter non turbo diesel. We would take that car up into Fort Jones area Northern Ca 6ish hour drive each way, on back packing trips. I-5 we could tuck in behind a semi both directions. Do the whole trip there and back on 10 gallons. Typical mileage was 45-50mpg. Drafting we probably were doing 80mpg. Ypu could lay a full sized Subzero refrigerator in the back of that car.
However!! It was slower than that fat bottomed girl riding her beach cruiser up a hill. I remember my dad getting pulled over at the base of the Shastina I-5 climb doing 70 down hill so we could make it up the climb without doing 30in the truck lane. No joke the CHP officer walks up, looks at the car again looks at my dad and says Oh man I’m sorry. Then tells my dad he’ll escort us to the top.
My dad was laughing as we pegged that beast at 15mph all the way up the climb with Mr CHP behind us running all his lights to keep truckers from mowing us down. ?
I recall looking it up at one pointI think it was 62hp, non turbo diesel.
Todd n Natalie
OverCamper
VW Dasher. I had to google that one. I'm pretty good when it comes to cars. But, can't say that was one I was familiar with.
calicamper
Expedition Leader
Long hatch version of the VW Rabbit ?
calicamper
Expedition Leader
87’s were still bricks?
The 05 first gen of the F1 styled sleek clean front end, even the mirrors are shaped into the fender for a super smooth aerodynamic aspect. Its beea long time since I read the design sheet but at the time I recall its drag coefficient was stupidly low for vehicles at that time. Add the 7spd the thing does 32mpg at 75-80. Drop down to 55-60 and it drops to 28ish mpg. Have done a few long road trips with it. Its actually a pretty awesome road trip car 18 gallon tank and a near full sized spare in that tiny thing! Old school heavy iron block 3.5 just shy of 300hp. It doesn’t like to be pushed hard in the twisties. You hit a point where the iron block just decides to continue going strait with little warning ??. Kinda the opposite of the old 911 that likes to swap ends when pushed to the limit. Only the SLK you get to see where it’s taking you vs old 911 you get to see where you once were while exiting the road backwards ?
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Grasslakeron
Explorer
Ya. But I miss mine. Would love to have her back.
The history I had with Ford trucks is how I ended buying my '04 F150. To be honest the build quality of the 80s trucks simply is not there in my '04. Most notably that stupid Triton engine. And the matches everyone else's independent front suspension. I miss the old pushrod V8s and twin traction beam setup. I'd probably be looking at 200K on my trucks odometer by now instead of looking at an engine swap at 116K.
