VW’s 262-MPG XL1 Was The Perfect Skinflint’s Supercar, Here’s One For Sale And What It’s Like To Drive

The original 987 hp, 253 mph Bugatti Veyron is often touted as former VW boss Ferdinand Piech’s most ambitious pet project, but the 68 hp, 99 mph Volkswagen XL1 was every bit as crazy.

In the 2000s Volkswagen showed a couple of fuel-sipping, cigar-shaped concept cars that imagined a future where practical daily transport could also deliver the holy grail (for metric misers) of consuming just one liter of fuel per 100 km traveled. Translated to American English, that’s an absolutely ridiculous 235.4 mpg.

It sounded like a noble cause, but absolute nonsense at the same time. The tandem-two seat layout and lift up canopy made the first two concepts look more like something you’d ride on a 1965 daydream of a 1999 monorail than a car. Then in 2011 VW showed its third iteration. With an almost conventional seating layout and dihedral doors, it looked like a far more realistic proposition. Actually, it was a realistic proposition: by 2012 VW confirmed it would let 250 people buy what is still to this day the most fuel efficient ICE car ever built.

The XL1 was built with the single minded focus we normally only see in the craziest supercars, and much of their tech, too, only repurposed to maximize efficiency. It features a carbon chassis, carbon ceramic brakes, gullwing doors and a ridiculously slippery 0.186 Cd drag coefficient. It’s tiny, measuring just 153 inches (3888 mm) long, which makes it shorter than VW’s own Polo supermini, and it weighs just 1753 lb (795kg). When new in 2015 it cost £98,515 ($139,000), putting it in the same ballpark as well-equipped Porsche 911, or a lightly used Audi R8 V10.

Related: VW’s ARVW Prototype Was A Bullet Train On Wheels

Where it deviates wildly from a supercar is under the hood. Instead of a V10 or turbocharged V8 you’d expect in a car this shape, there’s a mid-mounted two-cylinder diesel hybrid powertrain. The volts bit comprises a 5.5 kWh plug-in battery and 27 hp electric motor that can deliver 31 miles of zero emissions driving, while over in the ICE corner is a tiny 800 cc, 47 hp diesel that’s essentially a Golf TDI 1.6’s inline four chopped in half. Stomp the throttle right to the stop and they combine to make 68 hp and 103 lb ft of torque.

The XL1’s consumption was officially rated at 0.9 liters per 100km (261.6 mpg U.S.), beating even the original target. However, VW claims the real figure was 283 mpg U.S., but was rounded down due to EU rules.

VW built very few XL1s and the people who own them tend to be fanatical about them, so they rarely come up for sale. Which is why there’s a bit of a buzz around the appearance of this one on the Collecting Cars auction site.

Painted in classy Sunset Red rather than the more commonly seen white or silver, this particular car is located in the Netherlands and has covered just 19,504 km (12,119 miles) in the hands of one owner since it was first registered in 2015.

The history file lists a minor rear impact in 2017, but states the damage was fixed at Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg factory. Four years later, there’s apparently no visual trace of that incident, according to the listing, but the paintwork has a few stone chips, and the exposed carbon on the interior sports a few scuffs, as you’d expect for its age.

We have driven an XL1, so we have a pretty solid idea of what’s in store for the next owner. And the big surprise is just how fun it is to drive. Not because it’s quick, because it’s not. Zero to 62 mph (100 km/h) takes 12.9 seconds, and it’s all over by 99 mph (159 km/h) courtesy of an electronic limiter, though the seven-speed DSG transmission’s long gearing is designed to let you ride the surprising swell of low-rev torque, so it never feels outright slow.

But the chassis, which features double wishbones and coilovers up front, is a sensation. The steering is unassisted and serves up more feedback than any other Volkswagen I’ve driven, and quite a few big-league sports cars and supercars as well. And since 55 per cent of the mass is located over the rear wheels, the balance is superb. Even with comically skinny 115-section front tires (fat rubber kills mileage, remember) limiting your grip, you can still carry huge(ish) speeds everywhere.

The downsides are the grabby carbon ceramic brakes and the fact there are no paddles to let you shift gears, presumably because VW reasoned economy will be far better if the computer is in charge of the shifting.

The camera-based door mirrors aren’t that great either, but the fact that it had them at all six years ago when the tech is only just appearing on a handful of new cars today reinforces how advanced the XL1 was.

Even factoring in the red auction car’s previous repair, it’s likely to sell for north of $140,000 (£100,000). If you like the idea of an alternate universe supercar where the total number of laps of a track you can do is more important than how fast you can do just one, the auction ends on Wednesday.