VW's cleanest Polo goes on sale

Volkswagen's cleanest and most fuel-efficient Polo has gone on sale.

The new 80.7mpg Polo Bluemotion starts from £14,445 for the three-door and £15,045 for the five-door version.

Its 74bhp 1.2-litre diesel engine produces CO2 emissions of just 91g/km, which means the car is free to tax and puts it in the lowest company car tax band of 13%.

As well as the new engine, the Polo Bluemotion gets longer gearing, regenerative braking, aerodynamic tweaks and an engine stop-start system.

Air-conditioning comes as standard, along with alloy wheels, cruise and stability controls, plus four airbags.

The Polo can accelerate from 0-62mph in 13.9 seconds and has a top speed of 107mph.

Not the cleanest
It's not the cleanest and most efficient car on sale in the UK, however, the Smart Fourtwo diesel shades it on both counts, but the Polo is faster and offers seating for five – as well as significantly more boot space.

More mpg from then and now…
The Polo isn’t the most efficient Volkswagen to date, either. Although it was never sold in the UK, the Lupo 3L was marketed on the continent and returned an average of 94mpg.

That’s the equivalent of three litres of fuel consumed for every 100 kilometres travelled – a popular way of measuring economy in Europe that gave the 3L Lupo its name.

Volkswagen has also developed a 1.0-litre car that's capable of 282mpg. However, Ferdinand Piech, currently chairman of VW’s supervisory board, drove it nearly 150miles to a board meeting in 2002 and managed 317mpg.

Volkswagen has developed that prototype and unveiled it as the L1 development vehicle at the Frankfurt Motor Show last autumn. The concept car is capable of 205mpg with C02 emissions of just 36g/km. The tandem two-seater will be built in limited numbers for use on public roads from 2011.


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