Peugeot Goes Dddde Extra Kilometre

The U.S. has its hypermiling. Europe has its hyperkilometreing. In a European orderly fashion, of course. Germany has its Sprit-Spar-Meisterschaft, formerly sponsored and dominated by Volkswagen, now sponsored and dominated by Toyota. France has the Peugeot Eco Cup.

This is a competition in which different Peugeot (surprise, surprise) models are driven by everyday drivers to see if they can meet or beat official fuel consumption figures. The cars were driven 1000km on French and Swiss roads in wintery conditions (that must have been a picturesque drive). The results of the 2010 Peugeot Eco Cup are in (via The Auto Channel).

The Peugeot 308 (which is the size of a Ford Focus or Toyota Corolla) achieved an impressive 89.95mpg. In close second was the model down from the 308, the 207 which got 87.10mpg. The third and fourth positions were the biggest surprises. The Peugeot 5008 (which came third) 84.77mpg and the Peugeot 3008 (which came fourth) got 79.10mpg. Both of these cars are big CUV’s. But these figures are small in comparison to the mpg figures which John and Helen Taylor from the UK got in their Peugeot 308. They achieved a world record breaking 126mpg.

Naturally, Peugeot wanted to extol the virtues of these figures, and Jon Goodman, MD of Peugeot UK did just that by saying “This project has proven two things; that there are a lot of people out there interested in doing their bit for the planet by stretching fuel economy to the max; and that this can be achieved in standard Peugeot … cars”

You may notice I’ve deleted a certain word from the quote. In case you are wondering, it starts with a “D” and ends in an “iesel.” All of these cars which achieved very good mpg figures all ran on diesel, that fuel which the U.S. isn’t overly keen on. And now that PSA and Mitsubishi aren’t tying up, there’s probably very little chance of them going stateside. For the history buffs: During the VW regime, the Sprit-Spar-Meisterschaft was always won in a Diesel. After Toyota took over in 2009, the winner’s car remained a closely guarded secret. All we know is that Klaus Wolter, the 2009 Sprit-Spar-Champ, received a Prius as a first prize. How he won it seems to be under NDA.