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A 35 years old experiment by Audi has grabbed a hold of the European conspiracy theory bubble. Let me explain:
A tv-feature about an efficiency record achieved by Audi in 1989 has gone viral in October 2024, reporting on a then-new Audi 100 TDI C3 achieving an average fuel consumption of just 1.76l/100km. The video has Mister Stockmar, Audi's head of technology, explain that they drove 4818km on a single tank, getting the record breaking fuel efficiency, watched by the TÜV and a lawyer. He then goes on to say that the car will be on sale by February 1990, which never happened. The claim: Audi/the fuel lobby/the elites (etc) swiftly bought and crushed all the super-Audis. The truth: A single cut. The video excludes a few seconds where Mister Stockmar says that the slightly different production version will go on sale in February. The clip still collected half a million views before the ZDF (the channel who aired the segment) got it banned for copyright breaches.
What did audi do? Yes they did do the record setting drive across Europe, but the car wasn't intended to go on sale. In part due to several modifications that would be a headache in daily use. The fine-tuned 2.5l inline-five Turbodiesel had smaller injectors and altered injection timing (low fuel consumption but poor starting reliability), lower compression, special low viscosity oil, an extremely long fifth gear, no insulation, higher boost pressure, low-resistance tires inflated at 4 bar, a smaller alternator, an electric brake servo and a partially covered radiator grille. The car was also lowered to achieve minimal resistance from the driveshaft joints (among other modifications).
The drivers also weren't allowed to lower the windows or exceed 1100rpm on their 80-hour trip through 9 countries.
Plus they had a chase car to keep following traffic from pestering them into speeding up.
Audi openly listed all modifications in a press release, but as we know facts just get in the way of conspiracies.
Here's the press release by Audi: https://oldtimer-markt.de/www/otm/files/2024/11/3._Spar-Rekordfahrt_Audi_100_TDI_(C3)_1989_(C.3.3.2,_Nr._652)_WZ.pdf
And here's the list Audi published of all modifications: https://oldtimer-markt.de/www/otm/files/2024/11/4._Audi_100_TDI_Rekordfahrt_Technik.pdf
By the way: Mister Stockmar sees a repeat with modern diesels as impossible, since modern emissions equipment (mainly that to reduce nitrogen oxides) effectively demands a certain minimum consumption. He does say that a regular production Audi 100 C3 could make 3l/100km. In summary: No, nobody tried to make a super-efficient Audi disappear. The tour was an impressive marketing-stunt meant to advertise a new model. It was never intended as "you can do this with yours right off the showroom floor". The whole conspiracy-boom around the story does show how easy it is to manipulate (what appear to be) facts, since the basic "proof" of the conspiracy is a TV-clip with just a few seconds of footage/audio cut out.