The Greens Killed Fuel Efficiency

Political legends are filled with wild conspiracy theories about magic cars and engines that got zillions of miles per gallon, but got blocked from the market place by (take your pick) greedy oil companies or greedy car companies.

Well, I've found one that I believe.

As the wild story goes, Chevrolet had a 29 MPG car in 1960 ready for mass production. This fun little car even had a convertible option. GM had every reason to believe this car would sell 250,000 units for a half dozen years or more.

Sound far-fetched? Well, GM did have such a car. They knew it would sell so well because it DID sell 250k units (and sometimes more) through 1965 -- 1.8 million would be on the road before production ceased in 1969.

So, is this a story of GM wiping out a promising technology to protect the oil companies? Or the greedy American consumers selling out fuel efficiency for gas guzzlers right before the oil shocks of the early 70's.

Not quite.

Ralph Nader, future presidential candidate of the Green Party, is at fault. According to the Wall Street Journal...

Corvairs got about 29 miles per gallon on the highway, incredible back then and not bad even today.

And...

In late 1965 this was described by a young, obscure lawyer named Ralph Nader in a book called "Unsafe at Any Speed." The book became a bestseller, Mr. Nader became a celebrity, and the Corvair, within a few years, became history.

So, there you have it. Operatives of the Green Party USA conspired 48 years ago to take fuel efficient cars off the market.

Sound wacky? You probably wouldn't believe that the same secret cabal, led by the same wicked overload, has also been conspiring ever since to crank up greenhouse gases by keeping nuclear power plants off the market, would you?

Of course you wouldn't. Too many facts get in the way of a good story.