2002 Ultimate StreetCar Challenge: Fuel Economy

We're perverse bastards. Day One began at our offices, a few miles from Disneyland, and Day Two was to begin in Palmdale, in the high desert on the other side of the San Gabriel Mountains. We could have driven around either end of the mountains via freeways, but the most direct route cuts across the middle on the legendary Angeles Crest Highway. It's a less crowded, more scenic route, better for photography, and it's the one we always take ourselves.

We chose to measure a fuel economy on this 85.7-mile route. We filled everyone's tanks at the Shell station down the street from our office, taped the gas caps in place and wrote all over them. Competitors gently drove off in what must be one of the most impressively slow convoys of modified compacts ever assembled on a Los Angeles freeway. At the end of the route, split about evenly between freeways and the twisting two-lane, everyone regrouped at the Chevron station up the road from L.A. County Raceway to have their tanks refilled--a fairly accurate measurement of the amount of fuel used.

Some cars (not owners) tried to cheat by refusing to swallow enough gas to fill their tanks, but we tried a little harder and found believable results for everyone. The Hyundai had to wait for its chase vehicle to arrive with the methanol. Sticking together made it easier to follow the route instructions, but the Integra and Ferrari still managed to get lost. Their scores account for the extra miles traveled.

That night, at the Chevron we were kings. Fourteen-year-old kids on bikes thought paradise had descended in their neighborhood. Women, as usual when it comes to cars, seemed oblivious. Local sport compact enthusiasts pulled alongside to ask, "Y'all goin' racin'?" Nope, just going to dinner. Tonight, anyway.