Growing up, Mr. Thrifty would occasionally check out Car and Driver magazine to read about all of the different cars that Mr. Thrifty would never own.  One of the stats that it the magazine had on every car was the 0-60mph time.  WOW!  The Porsche goes 0-60 in 4.8 seconds!  Double WOW!  The Ferrari goes 0-60 in 2.9 second!  While that is fun, it is not fun when you calculate the 10 miles per gallon you got with your last tank (ok, like Ferrari drivers really care about how much it costs to fill up their tank).

Another childhood memory of Mr. Thrifty’s was the family cars growing up.  One such car was Mr. Thrifty’s father’s big brown Oldsmobile with a brown crush velvet interior.  It was big pimpin'.  When Mr. Thrifty’s mom first rode in it she said that she felt like she was riding in a “casket” which subsequently became the nickname for the car.  On feature that the “casket” had on it was a gauge that showed instant fuel miles per gallon.  It was kind of fun.  It you really punched it off of the line, you could get the gauge to show that you were getting “0” miles per gallon.  Drifting down hill on the highway you could get it up to “50” miles per gallon.

Not only was it a fun game, but also it is true.  If you accelerate hard, you are going to have much lower gas mileage.  In the Edmund.com study on the Mustang and Land Rover, they found that not punching the gas but rather accelerating gradually resulted in a 27% and 35.4% savings respectively.  That is some serious change!

Total Savings: 30% better mileage.