Ford set for 100mpg motoring milestone

Ford is close to making a spectacular engineering breakthrough that will allow some of its best-selling cars to cover 100 miles on a gallon of fuel.

A next-generation power unit is set to break the three litres per 100 kilometres economy barrier – equal to 94.1mpg – and officials are confident it will reach the magic 100mpg mark in the next five years.

Conceived at the company’s research centre in Holland, the first Ford three-cylinder motor to go into series production is now in the hands of development engineers based at Dunton in Essex.

Despite having a swept volume of only 1,000cc, the little unit will produce between 100PS and 130PS – sufficient to provide adequate performance for various super-economy versions of the Fiesta and even the latest C-MAX.

“What we’re working on is potentially the most significant engine we have ever put into a car. We think it will be a motoring milestone – it’s very exciting and we think we’ll be at the 100mpg level in five years’ time at the latest,” Ford marketing director Mark Simpson told Fleet News.