Those of you with long-ish memories will recall my ultimately doomed attempt in February 2012 to travel 1000 miles in the UK on a single tank of diesel in a Seat Leon Ecomotive.
The final figure was 925 miles, mightily impressive but it still left me with unfinished business.
So today and tomorrow I'm attempting to finish that business in a new VW Volkswagen Golf BlueMotion, which with a combined economy figure of 88.3mpg, should be enough to beat the Leon and creep over the 1000-mile line.
But then, the Golf's fuel tank is five litres smaller than the 74.3mpg Leon's at 50 litres, effectively wiping out the the economy gain. But then it is lighter and has more power and torque, often benefits to achieving better real world economy.
Why the Golf? Well, it's the flagship for the super-eco side of the new MQB architecture and has the best economy figures next to its Skoda and Seat equivalents. And we want to do this this time, so the best it was to be.
At lunch on day one, we're 250 miles in. There's a smidge over 600 miles of range showing, and the economy is just below 85mpg having shown 85.6mpg at one point.
Will we do it? Hmm. I'm confident, but not as confident as I was at 8.30am this morning as it's been lashing it down since then.
With clearer skies and some more lorries to tow into in the slipstream, we'll hopefully go well past the Leon's 925 miles and get close to and hopefully beat the magic 1000 miles.
Stay tuned...
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Lets see what happens
Will watch this with interest. Not quite sure why the MQB cars have a smaller tank though compared to PQ35 models. I'd be impressed if it managed 1000 but in practice I think it will struggle to top the Leon.
Depends on the weather.... and your right foot
If you're driving from South to North at the moment, you've got a fair chance of reaching the target. But that strong wind from the South will not help if you're going the other way or driving a circuitous route. Neither will the rain, or even the time of year which will no doubt dictate a certain amount of night driving.
It's a pity that no one these days publishes steady speed fuel consumption figures. If nothing else these show what you're up against when travelling at higher speeds. Aerodynamic drag increases with the square of speed and power requirement with the cube of speed, so it's no surprise that fuel consumption rises alarmingly the faster you go. My guess is that to achieve the target, you'll have to cruise at below 60mph.