2011 Mustang V6 Gets 48.5mpg At Bristol Test!

I would have so totally lost this contest, guessing way too low on Ford’s 1000 lap challenge. This morning they go and announce that with a real 2011 Mustang V6 at Bristol Motor Speedway, they achieved not 1000, but 1457 laps! Do the math and that comes out to an incomprehensible 48.5 mpg. Holy manoly! 48.5 mpg in a showroom stock 305hp sports car!

Ford devised the 1,000 Lap Challenge to demonstrate that a stock production Mustang V-6 could run 1,000 laps and 533 miles on a single of tank of fuel. And in a hitting the ball out of the park strategy of fuel efficient driving techniques at the feet of. Ford engineers, the Mustang far surpassed its goal of 1,000 laps.

“To see a Mustang post average fuel economy of 48.5 mpg while running at Bristol is impressive,” said Dave Pericak, Mustang chief engineer. “The new V-6 engine along with the advanced six-speed transmission in the car is a key element in delivering both fuel economy and performance for Mustang.”

The Challenge team, which included NASCAR star David Ragan and four Ford Mustang engineers, completed the challenge in 17 hours and 40 minutes, showing off the 2011 Mustang V-6’s class-leading fuel economy by averaging 48.5 mpg over the course of the 776.5 miles logged during the Challenge.

Ragan pushed the Mustang past the 1,000-lap mark at 7:26 p.m., 12 hours and 26 minutes into the Challenge, but the car wasn’t close to being out of fuel. Mustang engineer Seong Park was behind the wheel when it finally came to a halt (on the backstretch) of the famed NASCAR track at 12:41 a.m. local time.

Other Mustang Challenge team drivers included Tom Barnes, Jonathan Mehl and Carl Ek, who along with Park, rotated through one-hour driving stints during the event, which took place at the world’s fastest half-mile track.

“When we hit 1,000 laps we still had a quarter of a tank of gas left,” said David Ragan. “The last driving stint before I passed 1,000 laps I was averaging 43.7 miles a gallon and that is unbelievable.

And while you might think this had to be the result of “Hollywood TV Tricks”, Ford admits to taking great care to drive the car in a way that saves fuel – something everyone can do. But the car itself was right off the lot. The team of Ford engineers prepared for the challenge by implementing fuel efficient driving tips like minimizing the use of air conditioning, steady and consistent driving, avoiding sudden stops/starts and by keeping the RPMs low.

And we can attest that when we test drove the new 2011 Mustang V6 last spring in southern California, a number of automotive media drivers achieved over the car’s state 31 mpg in their drives. We got 28.7mpg in our combined drive and that included a lot of romping on the gas to see how well it accelerates. Some got up to 37 mpg in their driving routes!

Credit goes to the 2011 Mustang’s all new all-aluminum 3.7-liter DOHC V-6 engine that uses advanced engineering to deliver its combination of power and economy. Twin independent variable camshaft timing (Ti-VCT) adjusts the valve train in microseconds depending on driver inputs, further contributing to the engine’s overall efficiency. The Mustang used in the challenge is a stock production vehicle that can be purchased through a Ford dealer.

“This is beyond our wildest dreams,” said Tom Barnes, the lead engineer for the Ford Mustang 1,000 Lap Challenge. “There have been a lot of people who have done a lot of things in preparing this 2011 Mustang V-6 to run the Mustang 1,000 Lap Challenge and have the success we have had today. It was great when we went past the 1,000 lap mark with David, but nobody could ever imagine that we still had five hours ahead of us. This is a fantastic feeling and it shows again what a great car the 2011 Mustang V-6 is.”

More than 51,000 consumers registered their guesses for the event at www.mustang1000lapchallenge.com. One lucky consumer that correctly guessed 1,457 laps will be randomly drawn from all correct entries and will win their own 2011 Mustang V-6.