TANK GOODNESS

The Audi A2 is a frugal old thing, but just how efficient can it be? MATT PRIOR finds out by slipstreaming his 22-year-old diesel to 100mpg

- PHOTOGRAPHY JACK HARRISON

Given that my Audi A2 was returning 75mpg in normal use, I had idly wondered what I could get out of this 1. 4-litre diesel hatch if I tried.

It was a bank holiday Monday, I was in no rush and I was driving from Bicester to Petersfield and back to visit family. So I had a go.

Traffic was light, I found the odd van to slipstream and nobody had binned a BMW M3 into a hedge on the A272. The answer, without trying that hard, because I don't like being a 40mph menace, was 94mpg.

I figured I could do better than that. In fact, I thought I could get 100mpg out of it.

Which is why I'm on the A34, again, with nearly a full tank of fuel, again, and slipstreaming a truck, again - not so close as to be a nuisance but not so far back that there's no benefit. This time, though, I have a goal, and a Morgan Plus Four with a cameraman hanging out of it for company.

I'm driving from a filling station near my house to the seafront in Lee-on-the-Solent. Snapper Jack Harrison wonders if it's because that's where the hovercraft museum is and hopes we will have time for a visit. Alas, no (and it's shut on weekdays): it's just precisely 100 miles from where I started, according to a map.