Gertrude's Last Tank

In conversation with my friend Ben sometime last year after we got Gertie, he expressed no small measure of surprise that our >35 year old car could easily best 20mpg. And given that the EPA considers cars getting high twenties per gallon "fuel efficient', his surprise was warranted. I mean, has the technology come only ten or so miles per gallon in forty years? (Hybrids and diesels notwithstanding; I'm talking straight gas engines here.) 

The Type III was a very advanced car for its time. Electronic fuel injection made its worldwide production car debut in the 1968 Type III, a good fifteen or more years before it became the norm on passenger cars. And they get decent mileage, relatively. Detractors might say that it's easy to design a car that gets good mileage--just make it tiny and woefully underpowered. But Gertie's no slouch. She's not going to win any races, but she cruises all day at 70mph just fine and will pull 90 in a pinch (and probably faster if the topography is forgiving). And while she's pretty small, unlike today's cars she's made of metal, not plastic--loaded up she weighs about as much as an unloaded modern Honda Civic.

Anyway, I got to thinking that I should keep closer track of Gertie's mileage, and maybe brag about it a little. So I made that little thing over there on the driver's side of the blog, which I'll try to update at every filling.
As Tater Tot likes to say, "Go Gertie, go!"