SuperMID revisited

[Mighty Mira]

Several factors favor this. When fuel becomes a major expense, people will aim to figure out how to economize without it affecting their lifestyles. The thing is, when fuel becomes a major expense wrt their income, then there are other factors automatically at play.

Since fuel is used in all of the economy, higher crude prices inflate all other costs. Higher inflation means that lenders have to raise interest rates to have the same quality investment they had before.

When there are higher interest rates, people have higher incomes and therefore less discretionary income. Thus the fuel (and everything else) looms larger in their budget.

Such people will avoid buying a new car anyway - why spend $16,000 on a new yaris (or more on a prius) when an old car for $3000 might do the same thing? So what will happen is that the older cars will get channeled into the hands of those who care a lot about fuel economy. This will also help when there is a price premium on the most fuel efficient cars.

Amongst those people will be a decent contingent of technically minded people who know how to use google. They will find this site (and others like it). They will want to perform the modifications on their own cars and be able to test things.

In fact, I can actually see it becoming sort of an "in" thing to do among the boy racer crowd. For the first car, perform go-fast mods. For the daily driver, perform go-cheap mods. And in this day and age, we have the tools (mpg meters, ECUs, widely available materials such as coroplast) to fix the problems. We also have the means (google and gassavers.org) to widely disseminate the know-how used in modding a car for fuel economy.

One thing that might rise out of this is a focus on top speed rather than fuel economy. You can't compete easily with raw acceleration in a gas saving car; but a top speed competition would make more sense. But that is more speculative than the other stuff, as you still need some power for that.

Of course, this all is all based on high and rising oil prices. Remove that, you remove the stimulus.

[Matt Timion]

Originally Posted by Mighty Mira

In fact, I can actually see it becoming sort of an "in" thing to do among the boy racer crowd. For the first car, perform go-fast mods. For the daily driver, perform go-cheap mods. And in this day and age, we have the tools (mpg meters, ECUs, widely available materials such as coroplast) to fix the problems. We also have the means (google and gassavers.org) to widely disseminate the know-how used in modding a car for fuel economy.

It has already started. A few of the members here have their race car and their gas saving car. A year ago I mentioned I was going to build a gas mileage monster on a popular honda site and I was laughed at. I mentioned the same thing the other day and I received nothing but praises.

[Mighty Mira]

Originally Posted by Matt Timion

It has already started. A few of the members here have their race car and their gas saving car. A year ago I mentioned I was going to build a gas mileage monster on a popular honda site and I was laughed at. I mentioned the same thing the other day and I received nothing but praises.

I believe it.

In fact, one of the people who had another mira to sell told me specifically that this was his commuter, and he had a "chick magnet" type car for the weekends.

The only thing that separates what he is doing and what we are doing is the next logical step, modification. Most people don't know that:
1) It's easy
2) It's cheap.

Once they start seeing oddball cars on the road with interesting mods, they will first laugh, then start asking questions, and then perform modifications themselves. (Another thing that would help this process is to reduce the licensing for these cars, especially as a second car. Because let's face it, they have minimal impact on either environment or roads.)

Then there will be a whole series of cottage industries spawned around them, everything from aftermarket mpg meters to bolt on front and rear skirts, undertrays, custom front grilles, deflectors for windscreen wipers, deflectors for front wheels, the list goes on.

What will come eventually is higher geared gearboxes and things that need to be produced in bulk as people compete to be the biggest tightwad.

And eventually auto makers will see this market and cash in.

I was thinking that an excellent way to sell it would be to produce a long car with everything designed around a low Cd. Put in an engine that will give it a higher top speed than anything it's class, or perhaps even sportscars. It pays to remember that if you have a 350Hp sports car with a Cd of 0.35, you can have a 100Hp car with a Cd of 0.1 and it will have the same top end speed.