The Guinness World Record for the greatest distance travelled by a production car on a single tank of fuel was broken this week by the Volkswagen Passat BlueMotion. The car was driven by the Sunday Times journalist, Gavin Conway on a journey that began at Maidstone in Kent and then on to the South of France and back. The car finally ran out of fuel close to Calais, after completing a distance of 1,526.63 miles – the equivalent of driving from London to Moscow or New York to Los Angeles, without having to refuel.

The route mainly followed French autoroutes, but included some town driving, resulting in an average speed of just over 45 mph. The amount of fuel used was 77.25 litres, giving an overall fuel consumption of 90.0 mpg –substantially higher than the Passat’s claimed combined figure of 64.2 mpg. The resulting fuel cost for the journey works out at just 6.17p per mile travelled.

The Volkswagen Passat BlueMotion used for the record attempt was a standard production car with a 1.6 TDI (105PS) engine. Much like the Polo and Golf BlueMotion models, the Passat is equipped with aerodynamic modifications to the body, a lower ride height, Start-Stop, programmed battery charging, longer gearing and low rolling resistance tyres.