What’s your point? My parents owned a simple 1,0 ton car with 60hp, no automatic features, no AC and an average fuel consumption of around 7,5 l/100km in the 80s. I own an 1,4 ton car with 136hp, a huge number of safety and comfort features, AC and with 4,6l/100km. I’m my calculation that‘s far less consumption.

Milage has gotten better. The original EPA numbers have been reduces twice by a substantial amounts. A 45 highway MPG in 1983 would be the low 30's today. . My underpowered '75 Astre (Vega clone) got 24 actual on the highway going 55-60 mph. My modern Accord gets near 40. Much bigger and faster to.

Loved the video. Have a 65' skylark myself.

This will all change after November.

Cool my grand parents had a 82 Buick Regal sedan, it was a good car and served them well .😊

I remember a fuel saving challenge in the early nineties that took place in Hungary, where Suzuki owners covered a long distance, partly on motorway, between Budapest and either the Lake of Balaton or somewhere near the Austrian border. As I remember, the winner averaged 3.3L per 100km. That’s 86 imperial and 72 US mpg. I’ve averaged incredible figures even in my supercharged Mercedes by simply driving in a frugal manner, accelerating gently and by avoiding to use the brake as little as possible. However, ‘modern’ emission control devices make driving frugally very difficult and they damage engines, require major repairs and serve nothing more than sodomising us into buying more and more expensive, more and more complex and less and less reliable vehicles.

Weight is the biggest factor. My 2019 Hyundai Sonata weighs 3200 lbs while my 1969 VW squareback weighed 2200 pounds. The Sonata gets about 20% better milage than the VW. Anyway, I didn't get the point of this video.

The same people who own the car companies own the oil companies. Therefore improvements have been focused on performance. The average 0-60 time of all cars in 2020 was 7.8 seconds and they can handle better than the race cars of 50 years ago. Did the Model T even reach 60? I highly doubt it.

A Model T (15kW/ 45mph tops) at its best achieved 11L/100km, with little traffic and an open road. My (mild hybrid, diesel) Kia Ceed (100kW/ 130mph tops) under both town and highway driving achieves 4L/100km.

Hopelessly encompassing. Loving it

Hopelessly comprehensive.

Not from the US but you did feature an old car of mine, the Mini. At the time is was small but not dramatically in comparison. I saw one on a car park full of modern cars and it looked like a toy in comparison. The size and weight has gone up dramatically with some of the weight justified but much not. The weird one to save weight is you don't get a spare tyre which is crazy to me. I bought one and it has saved me a number of times. I have to say the mpg is better in my current car compared to a Mini has a engine capacity 250% bigger and nearly 600% more power of a Mini and gets 10-15 mpg more. That said if you drive with a heavy foot it will get less as the power is not free.

Wedge cylinder designs had much higher thermal efficiency than pent roof designs. Combined with lower weight gave older cars higher millage especially when combined with more gears and direct injection.but they traded wedge designs for overhead cams with higher rpm tunes .to give them higher performance with higher weights.

Buick lost their minds from 1982 to 1985 with the Regal line killing off a gas V8 option and only offering the 110 HP 231 V6 and optional 125 horse 4.1 liter version up to 1984 and then only the 231 for 1985 unless one opted for the turbo coupe which was not what your average Buick buyer would have purchased at the time or the severally underpowered 85 HP 4.3 V6 diesel! Finally in 1986 they ushered in the Olds 307 as an option to the weak 231 base engine and that engine was a popular option until 1987. The weird thing is that Chevy, Pontiac and Olds all offered 5 liter 4 BBL V8 engine options from 1983 right to the end of their model runs in 1987 to 1988. That was always odd to me considering Buick was supposed to be top of the line.

A clear example of this is my land rover defender, it gets on avrage 10lt to the 100km. Yet a modern hilux gets almost the same. But he has alot more safety featuresthan me

A friend had a 1990s Ford Fiesta that got 40+ mpg. My 1976 Mustang II regularly was close to 30 mpg.

It all went to hell in 1988. GM never fails to screw up a good thing!!!

My first car in 1982 was a 73 and it had 37k and being a dumb ass kid beat the crap out of it and it was the most reliable car I have ever owned to this day!!!

bias ply tires. who knew

2018 Regal TourX owner here. I love wagons and it is a great one!

I have thinking along those lines for a while. Imagine a late 60s full size Cadillac retrofitted with a modern, fuel injected V-8 and an 8 speed transmission! Easy 30 mpg on the highway.

Proof that 60s 70s cool 80s tried harder and 90s sucked

Excellent. Excellent. I liked the images used. I liked how you covered the changes over the years. I like how you mentioned the Buick China connection and the ties to Opel when GM owned the brand. You covered it so well. I say thank you and thank you for doing a great job. The last version was sold as Holden Commodore as well.. I leave you with this commercial: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e4TMpYutm9SibdU

My other relatives owned the 63 models and one was the standard station wagon that was used as a delivery car and personal car.

My great uncle owned a 1959 Rambler Ambassador and he always said that it beat the 1969 Rebel in speed he could never get the Rebel any faster than 90mph. Laughing and said that he shouldn’t be driving that fast when he had poor eyesight. lol 😅

My dad had an 82 regal 4 door. As a 6 year old in 1985, I opened the wing window on a hot day and it fell out. I was holding it by the handle yelling for my mom to stop the car.

My mother had a midnight blue 1983 Regal sedan with velour interior and a thickly padded vinyl roof, a very plush car that she replaced with an equally plush 1988 Lesabre sedan. And I was a little taken aback when you said that Regal became its own line in 1976 because I had remembered it as occurring with the downsizing of 1978. I thought I had misremembered it, but then I looked at the Buick dealership brochure for '76 and they did group Regal under the Century heading, though it was a little confusing. I do know that back at that time we did call them Century Regals.

I took driver's Ed driving one of these, that or a cutlass. Think it was 1977or 78 I think Dad had one for a while

I own an AWD TourX wagon identical to the one pictured in your video, HCG, which was built in Germany. It provides the roominess and utility of an SUV while having the ride and handling of a sedan… plus it is uniquely stylish amid a sea of look-alike crossovers. Great video as always! 👍👍👍

None of the cars you showed was attractive. It was a sucker's car all the way. But I remember family when I was a grad student at MIT, who lived in Newton, the father was a Harvard Biochemistry prof, the wife (from Mobile, AL) basically a housewife with musical and choir interests, a former singer, and I was quite close with their beautiful and athletic daughter Anna, since she was 20 and I 25. The WIFE got one of these POS in 1980-81. brand new, or more upscale Buick model, fully optioned. I Did like the color combination, of a deep maroon exterior and a brilliant white leather interior. The models you show here, even as late in the 2000s, have HORRIBLE interiors, especially the gray plastic dashes and gauges. The above wife paid more than $11k for the Regal or better buick then, A HUGE amount, compared with a colleague who got a new VOLVO for only $9,300 in Fall 1979. But those were years of Carter Malaise and Huge Inflation.

the first used car my dad had when I was toddler was a red 1976 Buick Regal sedan that had been my mums uncle Rico's and then her cousin Tony's before dad had it then we had Uncle Rico's Chevrolet Caprice Classic sedan from October 1993 to May 2000

I'm surprised that you didn't got AWD in the first Opel Insignia based GS or the 2.8 Turbo

Thank you hopeless car guy

Beautiful cars

There have been so many inventions patented for fuel mileage

Today's cars with EFI & EEC systems are just better emissions wise, cleaner, last longer, more powerful per displacement and are more fuel efficient than older cars. Also no lead gas requires far fewer tuneups and other maintenance. But the smaller cars are heavier than the older bigger cars because of all the extra stuff that most people want. Weight and stop-start driving kills fuel economy.

There's a difference between a cars economy and an engines thermal efficiency .

My 89 GMC van with a TBI 350cid would get up to 19 mpg on the highway if I had a feather foot. I’ve never gotten that mileage out of another v8

how about the millions of 4x4 pick-ups and SUV's that might get 15 to 18 mpg on the highway

I had vehicles in the 1970s that got better gas mileage than my new Chevy colorado

I own a 2019 4Runner, a 1988 GMC 1500 4wd pickup, and a 1995 corvette. Best hwy gas mileage if I drive normal? The Corvette. Modern vehicles that the avg American likes has the same gas mileage as cars of the 70s/80s

My father was a genius mechanic. Back in the 70's and 80's we had a 1967 El Camino w/283 and 2 bbl carb. After Dad did some mods to the carb, it would consistently get 25+ mpg, even when driven by a 16 yr old with a lead foot Still wish I knew what he did to that Carb

I have observed that my EV charges for the equivalent price of electricity (either home or a station) as the gas for my '89 Lincoln. It's crazy.

Can you do international Australia . Thankyou

Air Fuel ratios have not changed for gasoline. You need that perfect mix of fuel to create the energy needed for motion. It is basic math and we looked at it in Auto Shop back in the 70s each gallon of fuel can only make this amount of energy, if you need this much energy to move 4000lb car, but a 3000lb car will only need this much energy. People are looking at cars as if they are perpetual motion machines. Basic, are weight and resistance and how much energy is need to over come that.

I wonder why international didn’t put any 100 horse power truck engines in the tractors for the 30s i know they don’t have a large amount of torque but a bull gear will fix that

The laws of physics still apply, to move a given mass a given distance at a given speed still requires the same amount of energy as it always did. 🤔👍🏻🇬🇧