Features

It's not a race.  Neither is it a rally.  Thirty cars on a 350 mile round trip from Basingstoke to Torquay over two days is actually an attempt to save fuel and, crucially, to raise awareness.  Ross Durkin is the event organiser.

Ross writes:

"This will be the fifth MPG Marathon, with 25 cars and six vans taking part. Ruth Kelly has recently announced extra funding for the Safe and Fuel Efficient Driving (SaFED) programme, designed to train van drivers. She has endorsed the event, as have Hilary Benn and Jim Fitzpatrick.

The route is designed to be a fair representation of normal driving with a mixture of A and B roads.

There's an MPV with seven on board going for a record of the lowest CO2 emissions per person.

The aim of the MPG Marathon is to illustrate to both fleet operators and the general public alike that the way in which you drive has a major impact on your fuel consumption and hence emissions of CO2.

There was an interesting article last year saying that they never got anywhere near the quoted combined cycle MPG figures for their long-term test cars and that these figures were pretty much a manufacturer-generated myth.

Best Outright MPG is one category, and Best Percentage Improvement over published combined cycle figures is another.

Best Outright MPG will be won by one of the superminis - last year it was a Toyota Aygo 1.4D which got 83.4mpg. However, as we don't all want to drive an Aygo - wonderful vehicle though it is - we also have the percentage improvement competition.

Outright MPG is largely accounted for by weight and engine technology - laws of physics and all that - whereas percentage improvement is down to the ability of the driver. This is the message that we try to get out to the public through the event - i.e. that by adopting certain economy driving techniques, they can cut their carbon footprint tomorrow.

A 15% reduction in the 10,000,000,000 gallons of petrol and diesel (my own calculation) used by car drivers in the UK last year would make a whopping difference to our emissions of CO2. Interestingly, we have three identical Toyota Aygos taking part this year - one driven by last year's winner, one by a pair of fleet managers, and one by a couple of motoring journos. It will be interesting to see and subsequently understand what fuel consumption each gets and what accounts for the difference.

All of the vehicles taking part are fitted with satellite tracking devices, so we can see what sort of speeds the guys are doing, and one - the Kia Ceed driven by one of our editors - has a gadget that takes reading from the engine and indicates via red, orange and green lights how economically you are driving.

The recent Commission for Integrated Transport report endorsed the concept of economy driving, but failed to explain what it is or where you could find more information. 

I believe that the MPG Marathon carries an important message to a public which, even if it couldn't care less about CO2 or saving the earth, would be happy to cut their annual fuel bill by 15%.  Money talks, at times."