[Leica] Decidedly OT: Gas Mileage

[msmall at aya.yale.edu (Marc James Small)]

My '84 Audi 4000S generally gets a gas mileage in the high 20's around town
and around 40 mpg on the highway.  (That would be around 12 km/litre and 17
km/l, or 23 and 33 miles per Imperial gallon.  (The best gas mileage I ever
got was on a downhill, wind-assisted run of some 120 miles from Winchester,
Virginia, to Lexington, Virginia, in a 40hp VW Beetle with its 28 Pci carb
in the "maximum condition", with the venturi tube removed and, I recall, a
145 main jet.  I topped up at a favorite station of mine, Veterans' Texaco
in Stephens City, and did so again when I pulled into Lexington, and I got
48 mpg -- but, again, I had a stiff following wind, and that VW was a
lightweight car.)  

My wife owns a 2005 Hyundai Elantra, a straight-shift one.  This is one
hell of a magnificently designed and built car, and I am, for once, really
taken by an Oriental car.  The car is solid, well thought out, and decently
constructed.  Its engine is a bit smaller and of less power than that in my
Audi, but it only gets about 80% of the gas mileage of the Audi.  Part of
this can be accounted for by the Audi's anemic air conditioner:  it
certainly cannot be drawing much power from the engine, given its lack of
output, while the Hyundai does have a decent blower that allowed me to
enjoy temperatures which afforded me a frosty breath today during three
hours of road traffic while the ambient temperatures were in the lower 90's. 
 

Marc

msmall@aya.yale.edu 
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!

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