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further to Mike's posts on oils, the amount of Group I additive carrier oil used in Mobil 1 was pretty tiny. These days they use esters and alkylated napthalene's instead as a carrier. So, Mobil 1 has always been a synthetic, and their base oils always were 100% synthetic, it's just that the additive package used to use a very small amount of Group I mineral oil to mix it with.
Most euro oils that use Group III oils (eg Motul, Fuchs, etc) use terms like 'techno-synthese' or 'molecularly-converted' to differentiate from their full synthetics, which are usually PAO/ester blends.
In the scheme of things, it appears that what is used in the base oils only tends to have a bearing on the oils life, far more important is the overall package, particularly the addditives, which these days are exceeding 25% of an oils total volume. eg, talking to heavy vehicle operators, Caltex's Delo 400 gives similar results to Mobil's Delvac 1, except that they can take Delvac 1 to around 100,000km before changing it, saving on service costs/downtime. The oil Shell blends for the Ferrari F1 programme uses a blend of oils to give the desired results, including those 'pretend' synthetic Group III oils, so they work pretty well.
Oh, and to stir the pot further, most peoples favourite oil brand on this forum calls Group III (hydro-cracked hydrocarbon ) oils 'synthetic'.
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