Incredible VW Gas Mileage (Apocryphal Prank)

https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/entertainment_life/smiley_anders/article_8e29fbba-b7a3-11e9-8fea-7bbea545abc6.html

The Advocate [Baton Rouge, LA]

6 August 2019

Smiley: Tale of the Magic Beetle

Mike Berry, of New Iberia, adds to our VW Beetle lore: “I was going through flight school in Pensacola in the ‘60s and the following story was related to me by a fellow student. In college, one of his fraternity brothers owned a Beetle and was constantly bragging about its wonderful mileage. Tiring of the constant boasting, the guys bought a small gasoline can, and would steal out at night and add a little bit of gas to the VW’s tank. The unsuspecting owner began to achieve truly spectacular gas mileage, and was insufferable. When the mileage exceeded 100 miles the gallon, the proud owner wrote to Volkswagen extolling the virtues of his miraculous Beetle. The engineers at VW decided to investigate. They came to town and offered the owner a loaner while they ran a complete set of diagnostics on the ‘magic’ car. They quickly decided it was no better than any other Beetle. The fraternity brothers, thereafter, began to periodically siphon a little bit of gas out of the car’s tank, resulting in truly horrible gas mileage. The owner was convinced that the VW people had stolen his engine and replaced it with some sort of factory reject. He probably holds a grudge to this day.”

https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/entertainment_life/smiley_anders/article_694e3680-b85c-11e9-a674-af115afa3a1d.html

The Advocate [Baton Rouge]

7 August 2019

Smiley: 'And in this corner, wearing...'

[…] Ronnie Stutes, of Baton Rouge, this column's unpaid fact checker, says our Wednesday story about the guys who tinkered with their buddy's VW Beetle, adding or removing gasoline to affect the mileage, may be a great story, but it's an often-told "urban legend." It shows up as one of the "Ten Best Automotive Practical Jokes" on the Hagerty automotive website, with the neighbor of a guy named Carl doing the dirty deed.

H. Allen Smith, The Compleat Practical Joker (William Morrow & Co., 1980), 297-8.

Alan King tells of a harmless but hilarious prank which he and a friend played on a neighbor who had just purchased a new Volkswagen. It involved filling the Volkswagen's gas tank with gas each night, making the owner believe he was getting hundreds of miles to the gallon. Then, after a period of time and discussions with the dealer, whom King and his friend convinced that the owner was a bit flaky and needed humoring, they began siphoning gas out of the tank each night until the owner could but drive a few blocks before running out of gas.