Although it helps to start with a fuel efficient vehicle, gas mileage is just as much about how you drive as what you drive. To prove that point, Porsche enlisted the help Klaus Niedzwiedz – a well-known German motoring figure – to drive the company’s newest 911 sports car.
Niedzwiedz set out on a 400 mile trek behind the wheel of a 345 horsepower Porsche 911 – featuring direct-injection and Porsche’s new PDK duel-clutch transmission — with optimal fuel mileage as the goal. After driving 118 miles on winding country roads, 19 miles in the city and the remainder of the balance on the autobahn, the results showed that Niedzwiedz had achieved an impressive 35 mpg – a figure confirmed by Germany’s DEKRA Car Inspection Authority.
The conditions were less than ideal with intermittent rain storms, but Niedzwiedz mostly kept that flat six humming between 1,800 and 2,000 rpm, with road speeds, for the most part, kept in the 56 to 81 mph range.
We doubt Porsche will be winning ‘Green Car of the Year’ any time soon, but as Niedzwiedz said, “the result proves that with a lot of feeling and discipline you can even drive a 3.6L, 345hp sports car very economically.”
