On Feb. 20, TopGear.com declared war on oil, poverty and slow cars, all at the same time. We naively proposed that we could build the car that no car company could manage to build themselves. Specifically, we proposed to marry timeless Italian style with thoroughly adequate performance (0-60 in 7 seconds), shocking fuel economy (70 mpg) and humble frugality (you can duplicate it for $7,000). And we decided to build it in 55 days. In retrospect, both symmetry and our own sanity would have been better served if we gave ourselves 77 days to pull this off, but no matter.
In a perfect world, we would have started with a 1974 Volkswagen Scirocco. This paragon of low-rent sex appeal could easily swallow the turbodiesel Volkswagen engine we planned to use, and it's far more aerodynamic than the brick we finally settled on. We rejected that plan because we feared the bureaucratic hurdles involved in registering a car that had been converted from gas to diesel. We have since been informed by countless readers who have easily registered diesel-converted cars that we're complete idiots. That would explain a lot of other things as well…
Having settled on a Volkswagen Rabbit, we really should have shopped for one that was cheaper (we paid $1,700, but should have paid closer to $0), that hadn't been crashed and didn't have a fuel tank full of rust and french-fry bits from its former life as a grease-powered hippy car. See idiot comment, above.
Maybe you have to own wrenches to grasp just how ridiculous is the idea of putting a modern (2002) engine in an old (1981) car. Putting a Jetta TDI engine in a Rabbit is an egregious abuse of the word "put." You can put your hat on a rack, and you can put a head of lettuce in your grocery bag, but try putting an elephant in your trunk. Easy to say, far more complicated to do, and odds are good something will go wrong when you try.
Unconstrained by realism, we drove the car to Canada, where Cam Waugh, owner of CWS Tuning, skillfully coaxed the engine under the hood, along with its turbocharger, computer and hundreds of wires. Surprisingly, things didn't really go wrong at first.
It ran, in fact, for a full 60 miles before we figured out the old fuel tank and new fuel gauge couldn't agree on what was in the tank. The gauge said half full, but the dead Sipster on the side of the road clearly said empty. As soon as we made it to California, the car died again when our new fuel filter filled again with rusty old french fries. Two weeks later, black smoke started belching out the tailpipe, accompanied by a distinct lack of quickness. Another fuel filter — this time a German one — and a new Diesel injection pump fixed it for a while, until, a few days later, it simply refused to turn over. Finally, we figured out that by reaching under the steering column and giving a certain bunch of wires a proper squeeze, the car would start right up. That worked for about a day; eventually we moved on to jumping the starter with an abandoned piece of speaker wire.
Each of these problems took hours — sometimes days — to figure out, and by the time we nailed our 0-60 in 7 seconds goal (that's faster than some 1980s Corvettes) and were ready to tackle the 70 mpg part, we had less than a week left and a lot fewer brain cells to work with.
There are two sides to improving fuel economy. You make the engine more efficient, so it takes less fuel to make power, and you make the car itself more efficient, so it takes less horsepower to move it in the first place. We've already done everything we can to make our horses more efficient — our new TDI engine is incredibly frugal, with tuning modifications that made it more so — now it's time to tune the car.
Which is what brings us to the El Mirage dry lake, Middle Of Nowhere, Calif. Over the past week we've been semi-blindly improving our Rabbit's aerodynamics, hoping to make the barn-shaped car slip through the air. We've smoothed out the nose with a front bumper from a mid-'90s Golf, slapped on the side skirts and fender flares from a late-'80s Volkswagen Cabriolet, installed smooth, flat wheels from an old Honda CR-X, built covers to completely hide the rear wheels from the air, covered the grille with aerodynamic cardboard (we were getting desperate) and made the entire underside of the car perfectly smooth with an under-tray built from quarter-inch plywood, sheet aluminum and rubber floor mats.
We recruited the help of John McNulty, a friendly local aerodynamicist, to help with the modifications, but even to an aerodynamicist, air is a tricky thing. When we made the smooth underbelly, for example, John could tell us that the bottom of the car is the single biggest opportunity for reduced drag, and that for optimum affect our smooth belly should be between 5 and 6 inches off the ground, and the back should angle upward precisely 5 degrees. What he couldn't tell us was if all that work was worth 1 mpg or 10.
The dry lake will tell us that. Miles of uninterrupted flatness in every direction is the best aerodynamic laboratory this side of a wind tunnel. On a calm day, we should be able to run back and forth across the lakebed measuring fuel economy without worrying about traffic, hills or gusty winds. We can install our new aero bits one-by-one, test them all and know exactly what we need to reach 70 mpg.
Unless, of course, it isn't a calm day. Wind makes it impossible to gather aerodynamic data, and as our frantic week of fabrication dragged on, the storm forecast to hit the desert Saturday afternoon loomed larger and larger with each setback. By the time we had our aero bits finished, it was Friday night, and the storm was set to hit Saturday afternoon.
Undaunted, we headed to the lakebed at midnight, slept on the ground, and here we are at dawn, ready for science. Crisscrossing the lake to check for any unexpected bumps or hazards, the Sipster's massive torque and nimble handling prove irresistible. Just a squeeze of the right pedal and a flick of the steering wheel and the little blue box is sliding sideways across the desert at 80 mph. Fuel economy be damned, this is living! Those H&R coil-overs we installed a few weeks ago let us put our undertray exactly 5.5 inches off the ground — but really they make our ex-hippy-hauler turn like a race car (and we're pretending fabulous handling makes up for its lack of airbags). And that efficient turbodiesel? Just feel the torque!
Uh, feel the torque? As quickly as the fun began, it's over. Squeezing the go pedal isn't making any more go. Rolling to a stop, the engine dies, again, and a strange hissing noise is coming from the engine bay. All ears under the hood and the hissing is tracked to the brake master cylinder. Whaaa?
A phone call to Cam explains everything: The hissing is either a leaky brake booster or a bad seal on the master cylinder, which won't kill the car. Making it just die mid-powerslide? That would be g-forces stirring up the old french fries again.
Stupid hippies.
What's that, wind? Just a breeze at first, but within minutes it's gusting to 25 mph. Our science just blew away, the Sipster is dead and we need this baby running for tomorrow's mileage test. Then the driver-side door blows open and slams into the front fender, bending the hinges so much the door won't close anymore. Is this the part where the car catches fire and we get to go home?
Sadly, no. Abandoning the Sipster on the lakebed, we drive into Adelanto, the nearest town-shaped armpit, to get another cheap Chinese fuel filter and swing by the junkyard in search of a less-broken brake booster. Cam tells us we want one from a 1980-1984 VW Rabbit or Rabbit Pickup. When was the last time you saw a VW Pickup? Well, if you're looking for one, there are FOUR in Ecology Auto Wrecking in Adelanto.
One sleepless night later and the Sipster is purring like a kitten with tuberculosis. The website needs its editor back, and there are three hours from the time the car is fixed until he needs to be on a runway.
Our mileage test, then, becomes pass/fail. We'll fill the tank, drive 70 miles and fill it again. If it takes less than one gallon, we've broken the 70 mpg barrier.
Starting at our favorite gas station in Seal Beach, Calif. (which sells diesel cheaper than regular unleaded), our plan is to drive down the freeway to Dana Point, Calif. — exactly 35 miles away — turn around and come back. Getting good mileage will mean driving slowly, between 55 and 65 mph, which is tough to do on a Southern California freeway where the average is closer to 80. Trucks here still have to go 55, though, so we can duck in behind one and let them both push the air out of our way and take the blame for screwing with traffic.
About five miles into the drive we remember an important detail about truck drivers. They apparently don't work on Sundays.
It's ironic how squeezing the most out of every last drop of fuel — a selfless bit of environmentalism, if there ever was one — means driving like an erratic, self-important douchebag: Accelerating like a grandma, coasting up hills, etc. Our apologies to anyone within a mile of the Sipster who actually has somewhere to be. This said, we're complete novices at this hypermiling thing, so we're sure an actual hypermiler nerd could have infuriated drivers with better results.
Exactly 70 miles after we started, we clatter back to the same diesel pump, swipe the card and, with held breath, start pumping. The pump shuts off almost immediately. 0.14 gallons! No, that's not right. That would be 500 mpg.
Diesel is like beer; pour it hastily and it's all foamy head, which shuts off the pump. Slowly, then. It's a painful process, but finally the fuel reaches the top. One more drop and it will start dribbling down the fender.
This is it. If the number is bigger than 1, all the bloody knuckles, all the sleepless nights, all the stress and favors and promises would be for nothing. We turn around and there it is: 0.833 gallons. Covering 70 miles with that little fuel works out to 84 mpg. We didn't just meet our spectacularly arbitrary goal, we crushed it! Eighty-four mpg is nearly double the highway rating of a Toyota Prius. OK, yes, a Prius would probably do pretty well if you employed the half-assed hypermiling tricks we just tried over the last 70 miles, but it wouldn't touch our number. Besides, the Prius is all Dr. Jekyll; at least the Sipster has its Mr. Hyde side.
Sometime next week we'll explain the financial realities of building a clattery, unreliable, silly-looking, fast, nimble and incredibly fuel-efficient Sipster of your own for only $7,000. And after that? You decide. Aside from replacing the fuel tank, what should the Sipster do next? Should we try to set a land speed record? Do the 12 Hours of Sebring without refueling? Hit the forums at TopGear.com and let us know.
Relive every twist, trip up and triumph.
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Touch-freaking-down!
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