It’s been a week since Sam brimmed his NC Mazda MX-5 with Coryton’s Sustain fuel and the results are in. Well, his fuel economy is, whether he alone has made any noticeable impact on the environment may take a little longer to determine. A week of frequent running on sustainable fuel has returned a staggering… 23.8mpg. Sam admits that a good chunk of his recent drives have been in London traffic, so take that with a fistful of salt, but it appears that the improvements in performance and cleanliness are the biggest draws of sustainable fuel over economy. We’ll reserve judgement until he’s able to log more miles.
Anyway, today’s episode of The Gassing Station is all about the new Audi RS3 Competition Limited. It’s been built to celebrate 50 years of the company’s inline-five, and brings three-way adjustable dampers, a Sport Quattro-inspired colour scheme and lots of carbon fibre. The most eye-catching detail, however, is the £89,330 price tag (for an RS3!) and that Audi’s only bringing 11 of the 750 production run to the UK. Given that they’ll almost certainly sell out in a flash, Sam and I head into the classifieds to find some fun five-cylinder alternates that, ideally, aren’t knocking on the door of six figures.
That leads nicely to our buying challenge of the week. PHer LordGrover is after something with a V8 as they begin, in their works, the ‘slippery slope to retirement.’ Armed with a budget of £30k, Sam chose this 2010 Maserati GranTurismo S with just one previous owner and only 18,694 miles on the clock for £28,990. A remarkable find, that, which I’ve tried to one-up with this 2014 BMW M6. It’s had a few more owners and the mileage is a touch higher at 25,395, but it’s also a touch cheaper at £27,995 and may well prove a little kinder on your wallet in the long run. But if you think you can do better (there are a lot of options out there), then feel free to jump into the topic and submit your own suggestions here.
Before wrapping up, we head into Baffled Spoons’ ‘best concepts that never made production’ to remind ourselves of the cars that could have been. There’s mention of MG’s mid-engined EX-E from 1985, the original Jaguar F-Type concept and XK180, plus the V10-engined Ford Shelby Cobra from the mid-’00s. Sam puts forward the bizarre BMW Z18 and E36 M3 Compact, and I’m still waiting for Bentley to wheel out its Hunaudières concept that would ultimately end up as the Bugatti Veyron. You can pop your own suggestions here, but have a listen to the pod first so we don’t cover the same ground.