Is there a fun, petrol car that will do a genuine 40mpg?

[white_goodman]

Does such a car exist? Most diesels should be able to get a real world 40 mpg and I guess something like a Golf TDI is not a bad steer but then driving a Golf GTI kind of puts that into perspective and apart from on a long motorway journey possibly, there`s no chance of getting 40mpg out of one of those, despite it being one of the more economical hot hatches.

So, have you driven anything that meets the following criteria?
Quick enough to be interesting (I guess over 100bhp would be a reasonable figure)
Manual gearbox
Less than 5 years old
Less than 30,000 pounds but ideally a lot less!
Preferably petrol (but maybe diesel if it`s as fun or more fun than the petrol equivalent)
A genuine real world 40mpg without trying too hard (but obviously not driving like you stole it either).

This:



or this possibly?

[white_goodman]

lukefreeman said:

Coming from someone who owns a "sporty" hatchback, 90% of the time I'd rather be in our Elise.

I get that but Elise and possibly MGF, MR2, new MX5 and GT86/BRZ aside, most of the vehicles that qualify will be sporty hatchbacks. Yes, I would love an Elise and not even going to pretend that a FWD hatchback will be as fun to drive but it's not necessarily suited to every occassion, such as ferrying kids, long motorway/highway journeys and large supermarket shops. A good FWD hatch can still be fun (albeit not quite as much fun) and cover a few more bases, which is why I expect you own other vehicles too

[white_goodman]

kambites said:

As above, an Elise will do it.

I get about 45mpg on the motorway and about 35-40 cross-country, depending on how hard I'm driving. I actually average about 33mpg, but that's almost entirely on my four-mile commute so the car is barely getting up to temperature before I get to my destination (for comparison, the Octavia gives around 25mpg on a the same trip).

If you want to get decent economy while driving relatively hard, you need something light.


A Smart Roadster will be very hard to get under 40mpg whatever you do and is still quite fun.

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 3rd March 20:09

Yes, light makes complete sense but I'm actually pretty surprised that an Elise can do 40mpg, as I thought for aerodynamic reasons that open cars were not good in this respect. I was always shocked how poor the fuel economy of my mk2 MX5 (1.8) was given the relatively light weight and slow performance. I guess fuel economy was always a strength of the K-Series though and the Elise is exceptionally light and can out accelerate considerably more powerful but heavier cars.

Good to see you can have fun and economy with respectable power though in the form of a Fiesta ST, Swift Sport, MINI Cooper S etc.

Will the new Cooper S, now it has a 2.0 engine still do 40mpg? More robust than the old engine too?

Genuinely surprised on the BRZ too, as I've driven several boxer-engined Subarus (both NA and turbocharged) and fuel economy has never been a strong point but I guess they were AWD and the BRZ isn't, as well as being lighter.