Wagons in vintage Street scenes

I have two words for Chrysler engineers back then: Bull, and S#!t.

 

Notice the fine print - "Six-cylinder / manual transmission. Also notice the BIG disparity between the 30mpg highway and the 18mpg city. They're obviously trying to get you to focus on the 30mpg that can only be obtained from the 4-speed manual, after you got it in overdrive 4th.

In the EPA tests the manufacturers were allowed (IIRC) to pump up the tire pressures to maximum allowable. Not sure, but there may also have been some 'massaging' of the test vehicles before they got to the EPA as well.

So do I believe the rating? Yes.
Do I believe the rating was repeatable in the real world? No.

 

There were a few things the EPA allowed, and a couple things the car companies pulled. The one about the tire pressure was that the tire pressures could be taken up to the max sidewall pressure, which at that time was 35 PSI. However, GM and American Motors had gotten things set up so they used their own air gauges when showing the air pressure to the EPA rep. Trouble was (and I got this from a GM engineer years ago), the GM/AM gauges read 3-5 PSI off, allowing 38-40 PSI for the test. Another one I found out was dividing the gas tank so that even though they were to have a set number of gallons, the actual amount was 1/2-2/3 of what the EPA required. I can't remember if vehicles were tested with full tanks or 10 gallons, at 6.5 lbs/gallon, it shaved more than a few pounds off the car's weight, helping to make it look like it went farther than it really did. Or something like that. Smokey Yunick wrote the book on cheating governing bodies, and I'm sure he had a hand in all this.

 

^^^^^^LOVE IT!

Now why can't the BIG THREE make cars like that nowadays, kids like my Daughter with 4 of our Grandkids are limited to an SUV or Minivan, and then you are limited to 7 passenger.........that IMO just SUKS!!!

 

^^^

Two big clues (other than the license plates) that you can tell this pic was taken in Canada:

1. The little LHD Ford Anglia coming at you, and
2. The Mercury P/U going away........