Urban legend? Have you heard this one? Can you verify/debunk?

For years I have been hearing about a Popular Mechanics article claiming that some guy in the 70's had invented a carburetor that gave the small block Chevy more than 50 mpg, with some loss of power.  The story states that the patent was bought by "big oil" or one of the "Big Three" and then hidden away to prevent the release of this technology to the public.  Any truth to this?  

mpg isn't figured in the carb...a poorly tuned carb will hurt mpg...a finely tuned carb will maximize mpg for the engine/car combo...the size/type of carb will not change the weight/frontal area of the vehicle...it will have some effect on the power but not enough to go from 10-15mpg to 50mpg  
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i did love my chevette (first car) more than my first wife
my 94 4.3L Astrobrick would outrun the 99 5.4L f350 i had to drive for work

i just ran across a huge pile of popular mechanics from the 70's... they are really cigar smoke covered.. so its a nasty thing to turn a page..    there is at least one web site that publishes scans of some of the past articles from PM...

when i was a kid growing up here in la.. there was a nice pair of seniors who lived in our building..  he had one carb that he would move from car to car..  he drove checkers..   i never got to see the carb.. but it was something he talked about  all the time...   a wrong way drunk driver on the freeway put him and his wife in the hospital...  the carb was destroyed in the crash.....

there were carbs called a fish carb...  a single barrel carb...  

now.. there have been a few cars that could do that..    the geo metros got great mileage...

the worst problem today is the amount of fuel needed to keep the cat hot to properly burn and convert the hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen to  oxygen and nitrogen...

why not start with this...

http://www.sandyblogs.com/techconnect/2009/07/improving-internal-combustion-with-direct-injection.html

this is going to work...   and keep the excellent drivability.....  

some of the hybrid cars are so well designed...  the brake rotors rusted.. while you were driving... the all the braking forces were used to regenerate power for the batteries..  the brakes were never applied..

there have even been after market battery packs for some... that plugged them in...  allowed you to get 150mpg for the first 150 miles or so...  but you had to buy the expensive battery packs and charger..

there have also been several posters on the various magazine forums... .. who removed the feed back carbs from their gm cars..   and just cannot understand why they could not put an aftermarket carb on... and a vacuum advance distributer  and cannot match the 22 to 26 mpg that a 305 chevy could get with a factory system..

there is a lot more useful information at the link above..  for those who fix cars and for those who need to know about them...