Car Looks Dumb, Gets Great Mileage

BangShift.com

We think it will also result in a marked reduction in the amount of lovin’ you receive from the opposiste sex, but imagine the money you’ll save in gas! This modification was worth a 15 percent increase in fuel economy. We’re still not rushing out to do it, though.

The guy who made this aerodynamic boattail and who owns the Geo Metro it’s attached to is Canadian Darin Cosgrove. He’s one of the more well known guys in the “hyper-miler” community, where people modify their cars and driving styles to achieve far better MPGs than manufacturers thought possible. This little car gets about 65 mpg with its new tail, but according to the story on Wired.com, Cosgrove has another car that can average 99 mpg when driven properly.

Parallel parking that thing must suck.

LINK: Wired.com story about Darin Cosgrove’s Metro.

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Posted at 10:29 am in BangShift.com, Brian Lohnes, Ecomodder, Geo, Metro

Comments

74Furyous
Jan 1, 2010 at 9:07 pm

and think of the junk you could store in your trunk!

GTwildfire
Dec 31, 2009 at 4:36 pm

After having seen the mythbusters episode where they proved that golfballing the body of a Taurus clearly reduced drag, I’ve toyed with inventing a universal matting, that can be cut into shapes, conform to body surfaces and conform to curved surfaces. It would be a laminated foam and I WOULDN’T USE IT but I know at least some hypermilers would, most likely.
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But, I’m low on initiative and the drive to make this happen so I’m just tossing the idea out there for someone else to ponder.
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Golfballing the surfaces increased the MPGs from 26 to 29, and it was tested in a manner that provided proof of concept.

glhs0075
Dec 31, 2009 at 7:47 am

It also doubles as a “crumple zone”! LOL
Awesome.

PureBusiness
Dec 30, 2009 at 2:48 pm

I love the sciences of co-efficiency and this is just plain coolness!