Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

My 53 Cavalier gets 14-15 mpg on a road trip. Driving 55-60 mph. (327 & Ultramatic) I'll check again next year as I just put new tires on. New tires may help a bit, but I don't expect it to get too much better. Have a carb rebuild kit to install as well, which may help. And I don't have the proper vacuum advance on my distributor right now, it's being rebuilt. So many projects!

I had a 1954 Pacific and Caribbean with the 700R4 transmissions installed and went from 13-14 mpg to 21-22 mpg. Acceleration was improved also.

Steve

In town driving eats gas. The OD is of little use in town, and the lower speed axle will reduce in town fuel economy a little, but improve driveability. Over about 30 MPH, the overdrive becomes a decided advantage. Most older cars give the best economy at 45-55 MPH open road driving with no adverse wind.

Tim Cole's right. Packard's ads touting fuel use no more than lesser cars were strictly bolshoi. The '51 200 i had long ago was 288 w/ Ultramatic, 3.9 axle. My understanding is late in the model year they went to 3.54:1 like the big 127" wb, 327-engined (a $50 option in the 200) 300, 400. Don't recall the figure, but it sucked, if Bart Simpson dialog allowed on this family site.

My '40 One-Twenty, 282, 4.09 instead of 4.36 for 2.95 in overdrive, running 32 psi Denman bias plies, once managed, i kid you not, double checked the arithmetic, 22.5 mpg, most of that Bay Area freeway driving, even 65 mph.

The respected Griff Borgeson, then Motor Trend's editor, reported a 4,375 lb. curb weight original, unmodified '51 Lincoln four-door sedan. 336-ci L-head V-8 truck engine, 7:1 compression, not only winning that year's Mobilgas Economy Run with a 3.31:1 rear end, 2.39 ratio overdrive for 25.488 mpg, but being a good performer over 1,000 miles of mountain, traffic, desert driving MT experienced.

1940 Packards were the lightest in Company history, lest you go back to the single and double-cylinder models through 1903.

My overdrive 356-c.i. '47 Super Clipper, as a friend recounted of his '41 Cad conv. after War II, will "pass everything but a gas station."

ps. Agree w/ Tim's earlier post about walking a mile in 22-degree weather to mail a letter. City planners have long used a mere 600 feet-- two short city blocks-- as the distance at which Americans instinctively reach for their car keys. Still wonder why a third of Americans not just fat, but clinically morbidly obese, along w/ what vegan exponent Dr. Joel Fuhrman calls SAD (standard American diet)?
I put more miles on my half-century-old 10-speed bike than my stick Civic two-door, which i only drive when it's raining or serious shopping, or we go in my squeeze's slick little Miata; let her deal w/ the loony drivers.

A lifelong Packard maven who's owned over 70 junior and senior, pre- and postwar since he in high school, i upon tricycle observes that many owning larger Packards of the '30s, '40s, often owned a smaller car for weekday, lesser errands, and i recall wealthy folks commuting on the train into Manhattan, never driving.

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This past summer, I drove through a full tank of fuel cruising on highways and country roads in my 53 carib. 359 9 main, 4bbl carb, overdrive and 4.10 :1 rear axle and was pleased to calculate 16 mpg. Cruising speed around 60 on the speedo, 55 with GPS. Short Trips eat gas.

If your driving situation requires frequent braking, you're dumping fuel every time you apply the brakes. That fuel is gone, unlike going through hilly country, where you usually go down about as many hills as you go up. Driving into the wind at highway speeds eats fuel. If you can slow down 10 MPH, it will pay you to do so. Heaters and radios have little effect on fuel economy, but A/C can cut fuel economy substantially. An exception may be driving at highway speeds. It's been credibly asserted that driving at highway speeds with windows open consumes as much or more extra fuel than running the same speed with the windows up and the A/C on.

Mine averages 10.42 Nautical Miles per gallon.

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US or Imperial Nautical Miles?