What's the best SCUBA car?

[Nemrod]

The best scuba car I ever had was a 1968 VW bus. It had a cloth flip back top, room for a fleet of scuba gear, sleep an entire camp of us hippie kids, go anywhere it was pointed thanks to high ground clearance and was cheap to fix which was good because it broke a lot . It got about 16/18 MPG and had a top speed, pedal to the metal, of about 60 to 65 MPH. I rebuilt the engine in the campus parking lot so I could get me and my buddies down to Little River after a cylinder blew off. Toyota makes a similar vehicle today, the Toyota Hi-Ace diesel, but alas, it too is not available in the USA.

I consider, today, 4WD, high clearance and solid off road capability, compact exterior dimensions and the ability to tow 5,000 pounds easy, primary requirements for my "scuba" and adventure vehicles.

Maybe if Toyota continues to be paralyzed by hybrid crap and corporate lethargy and PC BS, perhaps Ford will give us a new Ranger with a HD diesel, 7,000 pound tow capability and compact dimensions. Hey, Ford, wanna sell me a truck? Howabout an all new diesel Ranger HD?

N

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Diesel power rules in the rest of the world. Diesel power is ruling racing right now and nobody can keep up with the Audi diesel, no smoke, and when they come into the pits they shut it off. When they strat it up again there's no smoke and they take off.
The rest of the world runs on diesel and we choose gasoline, WTH?
When I was in Australia we took a tour of the rainforest up in Queensland and we where driven around in a Nissan that kind of looked like an X-Terra but it was bigger and had a snorkel and ran on diesel. It was a tank.
There are so many great diesel vehicles out there in the world that we can't get our hands on. Why is that?

 

[Sik_Z33]

A good scuba car is something I've really considered picking up. Diving in my 350z is a huge pain sometimes, I've managed to fit 2 scuba tanks and both mine and my gf's full scuba gear inside but it was literally packed to the roof.

I vote for the Honda element as the best current dive mobile, it has plenty of space and it comes with factory rubber flooring! I'm really considering picking one up especially because of how cheap they can be picked up for.

 

[natew]

Diesel power rules in the rest of the world. Diesel power is ruling racing right now and nobody can keep up with the Audi diesel, no smoke, and when they come into the pits they shut it off. When they strat it up again there's no smoke and they take off.
The rest of the world runs on diesel and we choose gasoline, WTH?
When I was in Australia we took a tour of the rainforest up in Queensland and we where driven around in a Nissan that kind of looked like an X-Terra but it was bigger and had a snorkel and ran on diesel. It was a tank.
There are so many great diesel vehicles out there in the world that we can't get our hands on. Why is that?

This is not necessarily a bad thing. While the fuel economy is definitely a plus in diesel there would simply not be enough refined diesel in the world to power every vehicle. Not to mention we would be stuck with a crap ton of regular gasoline that no body wants. For every 10 gallons of diesel that is refined there is 20 gallons of gasoline that also gets refined. That is a lot of unused gasoline.

 

[BarrelRoll]

Z-71 4-door Chevy Colorado. The wife and I picked it up for camping and dive trips and the like and it's perfect.

 

[Cougar281]

For every 10 gallons of diesel that is refined there is 20 gallons of gasoline that also gets refined. That is a lot of unused gasoline.

That all depends on the cracking process used. Here in the US, Fluid Catalytic Cracking is more common, and yields more gasoline than other heavier fuels such as jet fuel and diesel. Hydrocracking is much more common in India, Europe and Asia as it yields more heavier fuel and diesel is in higher demand than gas in those regions. I THINK they can also control the lengths of the hydrocarbon chains through the cracking process, thus controlling how much of what kind of fuel is produced.

 

[cloudflint]

I got a Citroen Picasso. Once I managed to get my friends to stop laughing we where able to get three divers + all our kit + Oxygen kit in it quite comfortably with room for more. Also i get 40 miles to the gallon which is nice too

 

[Dyno Bill]

That all depends on the cracking process used. Here in the US, Fluid Catalytic Cracking is more common, and yields more gasoline than other heavier fuels such as jet fuel and diesel. Hydrocracking is much more common in India, Europe and Asia as it yields more heavier fuel and diesel is in higher demand than gas in those regions. I THINK they can also control the lengths of the hydrocarbon chains through the cracking process, thus controlling how much of what kind of fuel is produced.

I'm sorry, you lost me which I'm told isn't really all that hard but what exactly does that information say. Is diesel a good deal or a bad deal and you didn't refer to the effective combustion efficiencies of gas fired vs diesel fired power plants. I drove a Freightliner motor home a few weeks ago with a Mercedes Benz v6 diesel/ It was 163 cubic inches with a 5 speed automatic and it gets like 19 miles a gallon with over 400 lbs of torque. It left the lights as quickly as the cars in the same street and used a newly required exhaust scrubber that emits no detectible smoke. Pretty impressive to drive

 

[natew]

That all depends on the cracking process used. Here in the US, Fluid Catalytic Cracking is more common, and yields more gasoline than other heavier fuels such as jet fuel and diesel. Hydrocracking is much more common in India, Europe and Asia as it yields more heavier fuel and diesel is in higher demand than gas in those regions. I THINK they can also control the lengths of the hydrocarbon chains through the cracking process, thus controlling how much of what kind of fuel is produced.

I'm not expert on the subject but those numbers can be manipulated to some degree using different processing methods but there is still no way to straight up convert the full 42 gallons in a barrel of oil into a full 44-46 gallons of diesel. You're going to be left with a good amount of gasonline still and since cars are about the only things commonly used that burn gasoline for as long as we are using oil we will need some % of gas powered cars around in order to make use of that gasoline otherise it will just end up being stored, tossed, or burnt off in the refining process which will ultimately increase the price of diesel and other fuels.

 

[natew]

I got a Citroen Picasso. Once I managed to get my friends to stop laughing we where able to get three divers + all our kit + Oxygen kit in it quite comfortably with room for more. Also i get 40 miles to the gallon which is nice too

The heck? did you tie the tanks to a rope and drag them behind the car or something? That seems impossible.