I’m interested in looking up some cars that were made to use Low Quality Unleaded (76-octane) in real life. All of my attempts at web searching keep coming up with Union 76 gas stations. 
Does anyone know of some of these cars?
I can’t remember what places we found, but I think there were some eastern european countries with fuel that poor, also possibly (not relevant to Automation though) world war 2 era when all the octane booster additives were being used for high boost aircraft engines.
Well, according to an old, 1970 book I have on servicing and repair of an FSO Syrena, they ran on 78 RON fuel (or 74 AKI).
FSO Warszawa, Nysa and Żuk (which were based on Warszawa) used 78 too.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSO_Warszawa
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZSD_Nysa
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSC_%C5%BBuk
Thanks! I’ll go look read what it says now.
Interesting… It appears that the older models you listed were actually designed for low octane leaded gasoline. The Wikipedia article for the Warszawa says it was a copy of the Russian Pobeda, which managed 50hp on 66-octane fuel, as of the end of 1949.
Oh that’s right, they did use leaded gasoline, I kind of missed that part of your post.
I know that in Egypt that 80 RON fuel is sold because some cars “can’t cope” with higher octane fuel, so they must have been designed to run on the stuff
Huh?!?
I’d imagine many an old Nissan and Toyota pick up truck could run off of fuel that low quality
Yeah, but for how long?
I once fired up a Subaru on gas that had been left in its tank for 7 years. It DID start… but it wasn’t a pretty sight.
All the models designed for 1st world countries are going to use at least 85 octane, which is what you find in Idaho.
I think some cars could hack it for a lot longer then you think, mind you hit the nail on the head with ‘first world’.
You can’t tell me those ‘homebrewed technical’ units (AKA old Toyota truck with a gun bolted on top) that have been running for 25+ years in Sierra Leonne or Liberia off of nothing but hopes, dreams and duct tape have a ready supply of nice high octane gas.
[quote=“np1993”]I think some cars could hack it for a lot longer then you think, mind you hit the nail on the head with ‘first world’.
You can’t tell me those ‘homebrewed technical’ units (AKA old Toyota truck with a gun bolted on top) that have been running for 25+ years in Sierra Leonne or Liberia off of nothing but hopes, dreams and duct tape have a ready supply of nice high octane gas.[/quote]
Hmm… those might be diesel though. Diesels are far less picky.
A lot of the of Toyota were diesel for sure, but i’m sure there are some old gas powered jalapeys out there.