From your link"To get 99 m.p.g., VW made the Lupo light. In the 3 Liter, VW engineers used aluminum and magnesium wherever possible, including in the hood. They reduced the power drawn by accessories. There is no power steering. The windows must be cranked, and the mirrors must be adjusted by hand. The Lupo does, however, offer air-conditioning, and unlike the power-robbing units on small cars like the old Chevy Metro, once the star of Florida rental fleets, the Lupo's system does not offer a stark choice between acceleration and refrigeration.
VW also honed the aerodynamics of the round-face vehicle. But the Lupo hit the three-liter mark primarily by using a diesel -- and not a rugged, old-fashioned, sooty diesel, but a newer turbocharged direct-injection diesel with a computer chip to regulate its breathing.
The Lupo 3 Liter is available across Europe, where a third of all new cars -- and well over half all luxury cars -- are diesels. The owner's manual offers service addresses from Manchester to Minsk.
Hitting the three-liter average while meeting emissions standards depends on using low-sulfur diesel. The test car came already filled, with warnings not to add American diesel, which has a higher sulfur content -- up to 300 parts per million, compared with European standards that range as low as 10 parts per million -- and therefore produces higher sulfur dioxide emissions. VW would like to see all the sulfur removed from diesel -- Sweden sells fuel as low as 10 parts per million -- but it tunes the TDI's sold in the United States to the fuel here."
So, it's super light. Uses a special diesel with special fuel, and is "more aerodynamic" not to be mistaken for very aerodynamic.
So, it's tiny, unsafe, expensive to operate, and hideous.
