Boy, did you nail it on the head...

I now drive an ancient '83 Honda Civic FE daily.  42mpg in mixed driving
and it always starts 'n goes. Nice stereo, no "Check Engine" light, no
'puter.

Went to visit Barry in Houston three weeks ago and drove 75-85 mph and
still got 42mpg.  Anything in Deeetroyt do that???

Worse, izzit me or are the new cars getting fuglier than ever? The
Chrysler stuff looks like a giant step backwards...

JT

2 cents worth:

 Chrysler design center:  wasn't their first "clean sheet" product the
Pacifica?.......all that hoopla about......a station wagon!!!! And the
top didn't even slide open!

 mpg:  I just completed a 2800 mile trip in my '06 Ford Five
Hundred......it got 25 mpg overall, including 3 weeks around town at my
destination, mountain driving, etc.  On highway, it got 28 mpg per
tankful.  I consider that pretty good for something with so much room
and comfort, big trunk filled with vacation clothes......especially
since the AWD and CVT are each supposed to eat 1 mpg.

my "toy" is a '06 Mustang GT convert......only 1100 miles in 2 years so
it isn't broken in yet.....but it gets 20 mpg in town, despite a heavy
foot. seems reasonable to me.

on the other hand:  Ford vehicles are individually weighed at the
factory with the weight printed on the window sticker......the 'Stang is
a convert and heavily optioned....but it has an all-alluminum engine,
tranny case, rear axle housing, plastic and aluminum hood and
trunk.......and it still weighs 3816 pounds........gees!!!!!!  (btw,
neither car has been back to the dealer yet because they were both "zero
defects")

 yeah, I've had some real gas hogs in the past......but my first car
was a '56 Packard:  supremely comfortable and luxurious road locomotive:
an engine that weighed 800 pounds, 310 horsepower, fast, dual quads,
handled like a kiddie car despite it's size, all the gizmos available
then and weighed over 5000 pounds.........and got 15 mpg no matter how
you drove it.  How much progress have we really made? (yeah, it polluted
and changing the mufflers every 2 years was a trip to the poorhouse, but
that was in the iron age).

And even tho' gas was cheap back then, Packard/Studebaker/Bendix were
working on electronic fuel injection to improve mileage.  Again, what
if..........?

Why wouldn't they, along with everyone else... I haven't read anywhere where
the plant was shut down for two weeks without pay.  I'm not sure how this is
even newsworthy?  Several large plants shut down the week between Christmas
Day and New Years Day... I don't read about that in the newspaper.