Just How Efficient is a FORD on Gas

First a disclaimer; I don’t particularly have any hard feelings against Ford but for today, they shall serve as the guinea-pigs in this debate.

When it comes to being fuel efficient and to some extent Eco-friendly, it seems to be quite the trend to have Ford's being the easiest to convert to Liquefied Petrol Gas (LPG) dual fuel systems. I will not dwell too much on the science of Eco-friendliness although I am aware and rightly acknowledge that there is also debate around just how Eco-friendly LPG cars are.

The bone I'm picking today is with Ford's fuel economy. My simple argument is based on the fact that Fords are generally regarded as 'big' cars  and rightfully so. Big here is in the sense of their base 4L engine capacities, for instance in the case of the champion common modern Falcon for instance. Noticeably as well, these cars tend to have taken the leading trend having been designed to be LPG conversion-friendly. Generally, engines with greater capacities are usually more powerful and provide greater torque at lower rpms but also consume more fuel. Even though you argue that most Ford users buy their cars for the towing power, almost about half of Fords I spot on the road today don’t even have a tow bar installed. Clearly Ford knows that consumers want to feel 'big' but in my eyes, I can speculate this to be simple green-washing? I use that word deliberately because common sense would have led one to think that before even thinking about converting or making the Ford's easy to convert to LPG, one would have wanted to reduce the engine capacity in the first place. What saving does burning gas on the same 4L engine bring as compared to the previous system's petrol economy even taking into account the fact that petrol is doubly priced?
I call foul on the way Ford manages to get so much embrace from the Australian Taxi industry yet I'd have imagined that a 3L LPG-converted Toyota might bring a bigger bang for the buck. There is not much of a power loss if you asked me (trust me on that, I drive a 2L engine myself and I'm a pretty happy camper). After all, Subaru's, although turbo-charged, only come with a basic 2L. I reckon it's time we, as Australians, looked to Japan as to how we develop Fords for the future. America I don’t think is near enough to borrow such trends from. My guess is that a litre of water costs less than a litre of petrol in the US which is unfortunately not the case for us in Australia. (And that simple data has nothing to do with the fact that Australia is mostly desert, it's simple comparative economics).

The exception can be made for the good-old towing multitudes out there but then again, I think the car market has in recent years added a lot of awfully close substitutes and a switch from Ford I wouldn't hurt all that much. As a matter of fact, I'd assume the bigger engine would require an LPG refill twice as fast as it did with petrol when new.

So if you happen to churn a 4L machine out of your factory, Ford, I think you should make it standard to have tow bars on it. At least then, we will feel 'big' for one right reason and all that muscle some day may be of some use. As Machiavelli simply put it, "whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times".