It's enough to make an oil company exec weep into his Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1957; yet another fuel-sniffing, penny-pinching small car that contributes almost nothing to the profits of petroleum-extracting multi-nationals.
This time, the culprit is Citroen and the car is the C3 HDi -- a diesel variant of the C3 taking fuel economy to a new magnitude of meanness.
At 4.4lt/100km, the C3 HDi level-pegs Toyota's Prius hybrid for economy, according to the ADR 81/01 standard for combined cycle testing.
The C3 HDi won't go on sale until October and local importer Ateco has not revealed pricing for the new model, but has advised that the price will undercut the $29,990 being charged for the larger C4 HDi (more here). The latter runs the same 1.6-litre engine that will be fitted to the C3 when it arrives in the country.
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