Smaller than a Golf and lower than a Boxster, Volkswagen's XL1 looks like a bijou supercar. It has a sleek, thigh-high, carbon-fiber composite body, butterfly wing doors, a mid-mounted powertrain, and a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. The XLl is a supercar of a different sort, though. It won't hit 200 mph, but it will go more than 200 miles on a single gallon of diesel. In fact, on the official European combined driving cycle, the XL1 is rated at 261 mpg. European and American fuel-consumption tests are quite different, but VW engineers say an equivalent combined EPA city/highway number would be about 20 percent lower-say, 209 mpg. What does that mean? It means you could drive the 2800 miles from Santa Monica Pier to downtown Manhattan on about 55 bucks' worth of fuel. And a bit of electricity.
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