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> I've yet to see a fast car that gets really good gas milage.
You can get a BMW 123 (which actually has a 2.0 engine) diesel which is
pretty quick for a road car (0-60 in 6.9 seconds, top speed 148 mph) and
gets pretty good gas mileage (54.3 MPG). Did you want something faster than
that, or with better gas mileage?
Fuel economy (and hence emissions level, which is what we get taxed on here)
are pretty much proportional to the weight of the car. If you can reduce
the weight of the car while not compromising safety then you are on to a
winner. That is why car manufacturers are always pushing suppliers to
reduce the weight of everything.
> I have seen some of those lightweight 3 cylinder coffins with wheels.
I don't know what you mean by the lightweight 3 cylinder jobbies, but if you
get a *proper* lightweight car (eg a Caterham or Lotus) they are usually
much stronger than a normal car because they are designed for the race
track. I have seen a Caterham (weight = 500 kg) roll about 10 times end
over end and then hit into a solid grass bank, the wheels and engine were
totally ripped off, but the driver compartment was in almost perfect shape -
the driver climbed out and walked away. Would you expect the same to be
possible with your average road car? Ditto for an F1 car (weight = 600 kg),
you can drive it head on into a concrete wall with a couple of rows of tyres
at 150mph and not have any serious injuries.
It is possible to build light cars strong, just expensive.
How about taking an F1 car (600kg), making it a bit bigger so 2 people can
fit in (700kg), replacing the engine with that BMW 2 litre diesel one
(800kg) and adding all the stuff to make it look a bit more like a normal
car (900kg). You now have a car that would likely get insane gas mileage
(probably around 70 or so mpg, so you could do 1500 miles on a tank!), be
insanely fast (0-60 would likely be under 5 seconds) and probably impossible
to injure yourself with. Only problem, it would cost a million dollars :-)
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