1959 Opel gets over 350 mpg

It's hard for me to buy it, but there it is in the 1975 Guinness Book of World Records, a 1959 Opel T-1 with a documented fuel efficiency of 376.59 miles per gallon. Now, let's all ask, "if we could do it in 1973, why can't we do it now?"

First, the car is efficient because it's extremely light. In fact, there's nothing inside it. One tiny plastic seat, no dashboard, no passenger seat, no back seat, no trunk. There aren't even headlights. The rear wheels have been replaced by a single, ultra-hard wheel and the drive-train is just a bicycle chain.

All of this weight saving does wonders for a car's gas mileage, especially at relatively low speeds. Aerodynamics really only start to matter at speeds above 30 mph, which is why the Opel drivers stayed constantly at 30 mph throughout the entire test.

Push this thing up to 60, and I guarantee you'd see sub-30 mpg ratings. But the conditions of the test also leave something to be desired. Driving a car at a perfectly constant speed for 300 miles is a lot different than actual driving.

The one bit of technology that could be transitioned into modern cars is heating the fuel before it's injected into the cylinders. This guarantees a more complete burn of the fuel.

Indeed, we have no idea where that technology went and why it wasn't incorporated into today's vehicles. Anyone with any insights on that, I'd love to see the comments.

Via TreeHugger