- Edited
As my next step in trying to minimise my contribution to destroying the planet, I am trying to use less fuel going to and from work.
A few years ago, I downsized my road car to try to “neutralise” the amount of fuel I used going dirt bike riding. Basically, I aimed for the total fuel usage over a given time period to be:
Work Car + Dirt Bike + Tow Car = Old Car.
This proved to be surprisingly easy and effective, so my next step is to try to do the same with the race cars:
Work Car + Dirt Bike + Tow Car for Dirt Bike + Race Cars = Old Car. (Tow car for race cars will be the next step).
I mean, I could race less, but sod that!
In rough numbers, this means that my work car needs to drop from 7.5 litres/100km, to around 5.
So the goals are:
Less than 5l/100km (but ideally better);
Cheap to buy;
Not totally insufferable;
A car that I want to own;
As not-unsafe as possible- all of the options are terrible in the absolute sense, but things like early 121s are REALLY scary bad.
After a bunch of looking around, I concluded that a CE Mirage or Lancer coupe was the best compromise between cost, fuel usage, safety and my ability to live with it. I would have preferred a WP/WQ 1.6 Fiesta, but my work boot doesn’t fit under the clutch pedal, and that annoys the crap out of me.
Of course, econo cars have been hit particularly hard by Covid Tax, so the cheapies have been shitboxes and the good ones are advertised for way too much money.
A mate had previously offered me her old Mirage that had been sitting in a paddock. It was retired after the motor ingested a bunch of dust - unfortunately she discovered messing with cars and got involved in rallying at the same time - so the obligatory cheap pod filter went on at the same time she started doing lots of miles on dirt roads... The engine is now badly worn and belches smoke.
But the price was right and her significant other delivered it to me a few days ago. ?
It is a factory non-power-steered car, which is a bonus for what I want to do.
Meanwhile, I’d left a note on a white one that’s been sitting under a tree for months.
I dragged it home a couple of nights ago.
The white one is the one to use for a couple of reasons:
White paint and tinted windows means less need to use the air conditioning. It has the better body/paintwork (although neither of them are perfect). I have a white replacement driver’s door.So far, I have cleaned the leaves, twigs, dirt and most of the black mold off the paint. It has been attacked with truck wash twice already, and needs at least one more go before I begin to polish off the remainder.
The roof racks had to go. They were pop-riveted on, which left 12 holes in the roof...
Once I have cleaned up the holes, I will simply stick some white adhesive vinyl over the top to reseal the roof.
I have also cleaned out the interior, which was predictably gross.
It will now be ignored again until I have finished the silver race Mirage, or am stuck waiting for parts for the silver one...
