A sporty little foreign job that costs $1,000 and wrings 1,721 miles out of a gallon of gas? The numbers sound preposterous, but they are the vital statistics of a tiny, cigar-shaped one-man Dutch "car" that traveled a test track in eastern Holland last week to win a sexy sobriquet: the world's most economical gasoline-fueled auto.
Dutch engineers kept the machine's weight down to 130.5 lbs. by fashioning the body out of plastics. A 50-cc moped motor was tuned for top efficiency. To maintain the required 9.3 m.p.h. average speed, the driver repeatedly accelerated, coasted until the speed dropped, then slowly speeded...
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