Autoblog's Most Boring Post, Ever?
Be still my beating heart. Autoblog’s Sam Abuelsamid is about to live blog (nearasdammit) Audi’s Mileage Marathon. Yes, he’ll be in one of 23 diesel-powered Audis that will “roll out from Manhattan’s Tavern on the Green on a trans-continental trek to demonstrate diesel efficiency.” While I respect anyone with the patience and anal retentivity needed to hypermile for at least three days– in the same sense that I respect anyone who can conjugate Latin verbs– I predict this won’t go well. And I don’t mean “won’t go well” as in something exciting will happen. More like how can a hypermiler do his or her stuff with 22 other vehicles surrounding them? Not to mention the quandry of achieving high mileage when your 23-strong fleet must accomodate over 200 journalists. And what of Justin’s suspicion that the TDIs don’t really count, as they’re Euro-spec ringers? Anyway, who cares? As we’ve reported here ad infinitum, the diesel engine thing is on the wane in Europe, and hamstrung stateside by fuel prices and an oil burning engine price premium. The most important question here: will Audi be flying Sam and his mpg-seeking cohorts back to the East Coast in coach, business or first? And how much fuel will that burn?
More by Robert Farago
Comments
Join the conversation
I find myself agreeing with Joe, Baron, Chuck, and Other Joe, if only because I feel a need to keep the trend going. No, seriously, right now I'm on the fence between believing you should be able to post whatever the hell you want, not just because it's your website but because you've been part of the force to make TTAC my first stop on the computer, and marvelling at how often other blogs come up. Then again, as the watchdog of the car-internet community, I suppose you're sort of obligated to keep an eye on your fellows. Especially when they do something as monumentally stupid as this. I mean - wow. Hypermiling CAN be interesting - if it's 3AM and you're deep in rural Alabama on your last half-gallon of gas. A three-day marathon? Not really the sort of thing that justifies a play-by-play account. I would think the last twenty years would have demonstrated that Americans feel the same way about diesel as they do about soccer: lukewarm, at best.
23 Audis driving across the US means one thing: The probability that there is at least one breakdown is damn near 1.
Robert Schwartz: "Didn’t Mobil Gasoline (Socony Mobile Corp) have a mileage contest back in the old days?" Our historian friend menno must be busy, so I'll answer this one. Yep, Mobil held the Mobil Economy Run from 1936 to 1968 except the war years. In the 50's the event was a big deal. Ramblers and Studebakers were among the er, champions. By today's standards the cars of that era got awful mileage (the top car in '59, a Rambler American, got only 25 mpg). And this was with all sorts of tricks, like keeping all windows closed and not playing the radio. But at least the cars were unmodified, unlike today's NASCAR space-alien "stock cars". Trivia: Socony (for Standard Oil Company of New York, one of the pieces of Standard Oil upon the breakup) later became Socony-Vacuum, then Socony Mobil.
It's pretty cool actually. I'd rather see this than the usual reveals of dumb concept cars or "Brand X car goes to the 'ring" posts Needs video though