Miles per gallon are for many people much more important than miles per hour, a phenomenon coming to motorsports.
Well, sorta.
Volkswagen, pimping its new Jetta Hybrid, hosted the Think Blue World Championship. It's a two-day competition in which 18 people driving -- you guessed it -- Jetta Hybrids must achieve the best fuel economy on a 400-mile drive. The winning number: 49.9 mpg.
We hear you Prius drivers scoffing back there.
Anyway, the 18 drivers started in San Francisco and headed south to Santa Monica and then on to the City of Angels. The run included stints on the freeway and Highway 1’s awesome coastal curves. Frank Zauft from Germany took first place when he crossed the finish line at the L.A. Auto Show on Wednesday.
The nutty part? The race wasn’t just about fuel efficiency and speed. For some reason, participants had to play board games focused on ecological issues. If you want to accuse Volkswagen of hypocrisy for spewing forth untold amounts of CO2 staging this stunt, forget it. The company says it calculated the event’s carbon footprint, including lodging and food, and offset it through a deal with Climate Partner to make the event climate neutral.
This is, of course, nothing more than a showcase for the forthcoming Jetta Hybrid, so we might as well tell you about the car. It uses a parallel hybrid system with a turbocharged 1.4-liter four-banger good for 150 ponies. The 20-kilowatt electric motor bumps total output to 170 hp and 184 lb-ft of torque, and it all goes through a seven-speed dual-clutch box. It is said to be an impressive package good for fuel economy in the 40s, with a zero-to-60 time of 8 seconds. Top speed is governed at 125 mph, but who goes faster than that in a hybrid anyway?
Look for it before the end of the year with a price starting at $25,000.
