ECONOMISER

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33446, 30 January 1974, Page 25

ECONOMISER

We are, we must confess, unworried about the inevitable rise in the price of petrol for according to our calculations we should be able to save even more money as the cost climbs.

It comes about like this. When the Arabs reduced oil supplies to the West, the motoring correspondents from all over produced a remarkable flood of advice about how to save petrol without really trying. We read what they had to say, we took it to heart and we practised what they preached. We have come up with the startling finding that without too much difficulty we can easily save a fraction more than 100 per cent. We own a vehicle which cannot, with grace and dignity, foot it in

drags at the lights or irV jousts on the motorways/ We save, therefore, a/ least 5 per cent of ot» fuel by the use of acca erator moderate. O? tyres are as inflated / our ego and that saj another 5 per cent, t had planned to go touf with a caravan du/8 our vacation, but dedM against it, thus savinf 5 per cent of fuel. Trf*' - ternative was to camping gear in a t/* er ’ but that was rule/ out too, saving, accor® to the pundits, anott 25 per cent. We remoP the roof rack and thaf ave “ another 5 per ci E n " suring that the h/“ ra^e is off saves 5 f 5- ent and since ourr'ehicle doesn’t appear t/have a choke which IMld be used too much/ e again save 5 per centf

Then there’s planning. Using the car is a little like undertaking military manoeuvres these days. Maps are consulted, itineraries drawn up and routes defined before the car is backed out and we have calculated that brings up at least a 20 per cent saving. The combination of all these measures gives us a saving of 95 per cent and we crash the 100 mark by taking the car in for what the garage boys cheerfully refer to as a tune-up. Now a tune-up isn’t done for a song and the bill will cut our holiday motoring very considerably indeed. It’s rather a pity really for the statistics show that the more we use the more we save. As the price rises we are sure to become millionaires,