trump's EPA wants to turn back the clock

Get rid of mileage and emission standards, great idea from the administration. Great for the oil companies, do you understand why? Because you'll burn more gasoline, that's why. That and you'll dirty the air more than it already is, that's just the bonus.

Since the original emission standards were issued a million years ago in the 60s, the cars we drive have gotten more efficient. How have they gotten so much more efficient, engineering that's how?

Out here on the left coast, there are a lot of well preserved old cars on the road, you see them everywhere on the weekend. When you stop behind one, let's say its a beautiful 57 Chevy Belair two-door hardtop, maybe a sharp black with a white top or better yet a red example. As you admire the perfect 63-year-old car in front of you, you begin to notice a smell, it's nasty, a bad smell. What you're smelling is unburned gasoline and the by-product of inefficient combustion. When the old Chevy pulls away from the light, you'll see a trail of transparent black smoke, unburned gasoline, and other bad stuff. If you're like me, you roll up the windows and turn on the AC, it's that bad.

American automakers fought the new rules, they kept adding air pumps and filters to knock the emission levels back. At the same time, they were trying to get the EPAs rules relaxed. The Japanese said, "Okay we'll just design some clean and highly efficient engines and play by the new rules."  Guess what? they sold millions of cars.

In the bad old days, gasoline engines used around 40% of the energy in a gallon of gasoline, today's engines use over 60 percent. Racing engines utilize close to 90%, that's why small-displacement Formula 1 engines can produce 875 to 1,000 horsepower from 1.6 liters.

Gas was cheap in the old days (not really, but that's another discussion) even though our 57 Chevy V8 was sucking gas to the tune of 13.1 MPG at a nice steady 60 miles an hour, only 16% of 57 Chevy owners complained about mileage. If you stepped that shiny Chevy up to today's Freeway speed the MPG dropped to the low 12 range. Was the Chevy quick? Nope, it did do 0-60 in 9.7 seconds, making it very sluggish by today's standards, and it clocked the quarter-mile in 17.5 seconds at 77mph. A base model 2020 Honda Civic sedan, 4 cylinders with an automatic can lay waste to the Belair Power Pack and it gets 37 MPG on the highway. The Turbo Charged 4 banger Civic is faster than all the vaunted 60s muscle cars and gets almost 3 times the gas mileage.

If you review all the muscle car road tests, you'll find that the plain jane, everyday family car Toyota Camry sedan with a V6 and automatic transmission is faster than any of the muscle cars of the 60s and early 70s. Even my V8 powered 4900 pound, 4 wheel drive Grand Cherokee is faster than a Camaro Z28. and my Jeep gets better mileage. I can pull and Airstream Sport trailer with the Jeep -and get better mileage than the Z28 or any of its sister ships.

A BMW 330 will kill the much toted "Factory Experimental" cars of the era and do it with the air conditioning on.

Things are much, much better today than in the good old days. I had a 57 Chevy with a Powerpack 283, not only was it a slug by today's standards, it needed a tuneup every 4,000 miles and the brakes were worthless.

Why are things better today, simple, efficiency forced on the manufacturers by emission regulations by the EPA. The smart people at the carmakers went to work gave us better mileage, cleaner air and one hell of a lot more performance.

It is not a time to go backward at the behest of the fossil fuel industry.

One last note, my 57 Chevy couldn't do a 200 mile round trip on one tank of gas. The oil companies loved cars like that, they wish we all drove them again.