<VV> Fuel Mileage

[rbuckridge at comcast.net]

I bought my first Corvair in 1964 from the local Chevrolet dealer, Shea Chevy in Hackensack, New Jersey. You can Google Hackensack, NJ and see it is in north Jersey just a split from NYC, which will give you an idea of the area. Even at that time, most of the driving is city driving. 



The car was a 1963 Monza Coupe, 102 with a 4 speed. I ran "high test" AMOCO gas and always got 22 - 24 mpg. At one time I tried to run the regular AMOCO gas and found the fuel mileage suffered and the car just didn't run as well. Went back to the "high test" gas and got the 22 - 24 mpg again and the car ran a lot better. Also bear in mind, this is a young kid with a heavy right foot and gas was cheap. 



One thing you need to keep in mind when thinking about today's fuel, it's crap! 



Our regular gas, back in the '60's, if I remember right was 92 octane and the high test was 96 or 98 octane. To find fuel over 100 octane was very easy. 



I don't want to search for the info, I'll leave that to someone else, but what did GM recommend for fuel octane for a Corvair? Then bear in mind, that was 1960's fuel, not today's fuel octane. And before we get into a octane rating discussion of now vs then and I guess regardless what GM said at the time, this is how it was, plain and simple. 



Roy in Bayville 08721