I have made a terrible mistake. Gallons of gasoline spew wildly, spectacularly, apocalyptically out of the Ford police cruiser. As I dash to stop the potential conflagrationmy ears abuzz with furious hornets, my vision narrowing with the dreaded rose mistI wonder how Id gotten myself into this mess. Nearly 70 years ago, in the April 1950 issue of MotorTrend , we published what was our first road trip storya Mobilgas-sponsored fuel economy run from Los Angeles to the Grand Canyon via Las Vegas. --> The rules were onerous: You had 18 hours and 30 minutes to drive your stock sedan in the most efficient possible manner, with the winner determined by their overall ton-mpgcalculated by the weight of the car and passengers in tons times miles traveled divided by gallons consumed. The winning V-8-powered Mercury managed 26.52 mpg over the run, achieving 61.27 ton-mpg. It proved to usand the consumerin those pre-EPA days how efficient a modern car could be if driven economically. To pay tribute to our magazines first road trip while proving how much the automobile has evolved, MotorTrend en Espaol managing editor Miguel Cortina, features editor Scott Evans, and I set out to retrace our steps from L.A. through Vegas and on to the Grand Canyon, but wed given ourselves some new rules: Instead of 18.5 hours, wed have just 10; we would follow no set route, just a single Las Vegas checkpoint; we could pick any vehicle; and the winner would be declared via some sketchy cocktail-napkin math determining who spent the least amount of money on gas combined with the least amount of time on the road. As modern Americans have proven with our desire for SUVs and pickups, we might not care about fuel economy, but we do care about our wallets. In an attempt to keep us all honest, each of us would be outfitted with a stopwatch and a fuel chart. A simple scatter plot would verify the results. In the months prior, we sequestered ourselves to figure out our respective strategies. There were really two schools of thought: You could figure out some harebrained route to the Grand Canyon at slow but efficient speeds on back roads with favorable elevation changes and light trafficI figured Scott and Miguel would take that pathor you could hedge your bets by taking the much quicker freeway. The latter was my choice. Getting to the Grand Canyon from L.A. isnt rocket science; President Eisenhower took out all the guesswork in the 1950s when America constructed the interstate highway system. Id simply take the interstate to Las Vegas and then another one to the Grand Canyon. Easy. The harder choice was picking my car. Again, tons of considerations came into play here: powertrain, energy cost, range, time to fill. I boiled my requirements down to two simple ones. I wanted a hybrid with the range to finish on one tank, and I wanted something that wouldnt bore me to tears. My initial instinct was to get a Lexus LC 500h. Fast. Sporty. Gorgeous. Efficient. But its lust for premium fuel meant thered be no way I could get to the Grand Canyon with enough of a time window to make up for the cost differential if Scott or Miguel went the hypermiling route. Instead, I picked the 2019 Ford Police Responder Hybrid. The cop-spec Fusion has a lower curb weight, a 38-mpg combined rating, a big enough tank to make the trip in one shot, and lights, sirens, and a bullhorn to keep me entertained. Plus, it has a bulletproof door. Thats gotta count for something. I was convinced I could win simply by driving at the speed limit on the freeway and selectively drafting off big-rigs. I still entertained that foolish confidence when Scott and Miguel pulled up to our starting line at MT s local Chevron before dawn, a late-winter chill in the air. As I expected, both looked prepped for self-torture. While I hoped to prove efficiency and fun could happily coexist with my Fusion cop car, Miguel was bundled up to deal with the colda sign he wasnt planning on running the HVAC system in his blob-shaped 2019 Hyundai Ioniq Blue. Meanwhile, Scott, driving the MT Garages 2019 Honda Insight EX , was armed with a Bluetooth speaker and portable batteries for his phone so he could produce the worlds most boring Instagram stories. Glad I wasnt riding with either of them. Things didnt get interesting until after Id crossed the halfway point in Las Vegas. Despite exceeding EPA estimates at 41 mpg, my distance-to-empty meter didnt make me happy: 235 miles of range with 270 miles to go. I could make up that 35-mile difference, I reasoned, by easing my speed below the posted limit. I turned the cop car south toward Arizona. My optimism faded as I confronted a nasty headwind. Over the next few hours, I watched helplessly as my mpg ticked down, settling at 35. A weather report from the finish line put a final nail in the coffin of my plan: Snow was blanketing the 70 miles surrounding the Grand Canyon. I dropped my speed down further, to a crawling 55 mph, to buy myself some time while I figured out a backup plan. Not long after, I got a glimpse of a driver beaming ear to ear, rapidly approaching in my rearview mirror. It was Scott in his Insight. As he disappeared ahead of me, over the horizon, I decided Id stop for gas and attempt to catch him and Miguel on I-40. I figured the headwind had to hurt them, too, and that despite their cars superior efficiency, both would have to stop. The snow, I reasoned, would slow them even more, as their hybrids low rolling resistance tires would slip in the slush. I picked the first gas station I saw as I dumped into Kingman, slid the pump into the Fords capless fuel filler, clicked the handle in place, and stepped back to fill out my fuel log. Without warning, gas geysered out of the side of the Ford. I dropped the fuel log and ran toward the car. Ducking the spray, I released the fillers handle. The stream mercifully stopped. View this post on Instagram Have I mentioned I hate capless fuel fillers today? #thisisbullshit A post shared by Christian Seabaugh (@c_seabaugh) on Feb 5, 2019 at 11:06am PST I had made quite the scene. I looked around warily. The woman in the Jeep across from me pretended to be hyper-focused on her headlights. The couple in the camper van feigned confusion at a paper map. A bell tinkled behind me. Short and stocky and sporting face tattoos and a Chevron polo shirt, a man looked at me quizzically, unsure why this long-haired, tattooed dude in a band T-shirt and jeans was messing with a cop car. Undercover? Grand theft? Escaped felon? The pump just started spraying everywhere, I offered lamely as I started wiping down the cruiser. Yeah, that pumps been actin up lately. Ill go grab some litter, he said, sufficiently satisfied that I wasnt on the run. We finished cleaning up, and I paid the nearly $50 bill before peeling out. New new plan: If I wasnt going to win on the cost of fuel, I was at least going to get there first, even if it didnt result in an outright win. I knew Scott and Miguel were somewhere ahead of me, hypermiling away as they attempted to avoid stopping for gas. As the Ford burned up miles, I scanned the highway and roadside gas stations for signs of the others. Ahead on the right, an Arizona State Trooper helped a car out of a snowbank. Was it one of the guys? Nojust a pickup that had gone off the road. Mid-conversation, the trooper paused, watching curiously as a black-and-white piloted by some hippie-haired kid flew by. Soon after, I found my cohorts. Off to the right at a gas station, I spotted the gray Ioniq, Miguel hurriedly running around the nose. Shortly thereafter, I came upon a smug blue Insight limping along at 20 under the limit. It was Scott, frantically scanning the shoulder for a gas station. I bid Scott adieu over the cruisers squawk box. Then I floored it. Christian Seabaugh A Run Beyond the Finish Line I have made a terrible mistake. I couldnt hold it any longer. The pressure in my rectum was intensifying, and sweat beaded on my forehead. If there was a muscle in my body, it was clenched. I was fearing the worstpulling off the highway and running into the bushesbut the next gas station was mercifully close. The tension in my body was such that when I parked the Ioniq at the Chevron station in Seligman, Arizona, I sprinted inside and blurted, Dnde esta el bao? Any English vocabulary was long forgotten, but my needs were obvious enough, and the attendant pointed me toward relief. The open toilet seat was the most satisfying thing I had seen all day. I didnt mind losing the lead. Avoiding soiled boxers was the new victory. But with 90 miles of range and 95 miles to go, my chances of winning the race were slim. I was doing so much better on the L.A. to Vegas leg, averaging 59.5 mpg per the cars trip computer, and I had a little more than half a tank left. Based on the projected range, I was certain I was going to make it to the finish line without stopping320 miles remaining for a 270-mile tripbut I wasnt taking into consideration the strong headwinds and the steep inclines we had to traverse on Highway 93. The good thing was that each of us was facing the same conditions. But the others were not suffering the distress caused by the deep-fried appetizers and German sausages from the night before. I had passed many gas stations that required no detour, but I hadnt stopped because I was grasping at hope that I could make it on one tankand one colon. It was not to be. Back on the road 10 minutes later, I couldnt stop thinking how different this fuel run was from the original. The Mobilgas Grand Canyon Run story had more than 300 officials from AAA collaborating; they disassembled each participants engine and measured each component to ensure it was stock. Things were a little more formal in the 50s, but our goal remained the same today. As we wrote in that issue, fuel economy is one of the features that determines, to a large extent, the advisability of buying a particular model car. Hence my choice of the Hyundai Ioniq Blue as my carriage. My decision was made easy: Log onto the EPA fuel economy website and find the Best and Worst Vehicles section. I knew a plug-in hybrid or EV would jeopardize my strategy, as I would need to find a charger in Vegas. Too time-consuming. So a regular hybrid was my starting point. The Ioniq Blue can deliver 58 mpg combined, per the EPA, and it was the top-ranked vehicle on the list. The EPA also says the Ioniq Blue has a range of 690 milesmore than enough for the 550 miles or so that we needed to cover. I didnt care about the Ioniqs deficient driving dynamics or the head snap delivered by the poorly calibrated six-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission. I cared about having the best fuel economy and winning. After my peristaltic panic cost both time and moneyId overlooked the big, bold sign announcing $3.89 per gallon at that Chevron in Seligmanmy concern for winning was all but gone. In retrospect, I could have done more to find the cheapest fuel instead of relying on the Ioniqs remarkable efficiency to carry it all the way to the finish line. Nothing, however, could have prepared me for the very emergency Id faced, so perhaps it didnt matter. With 5 gallons of very expensive gas in the tank, I stopped the pump and sprinted toward the Grand Canyon, knowing Id probably get there last. Miguel Cortina Its Not Crazy if It Works I have made a terrible mistake. I was confident about Plan A. The magnitude of that hubris was not lost on me as I bet the farm on Plan D. Plan A shouldve taken me all the way to the finish line without refueling. An EPA-estimated range of 550 miles, just enough to meet Googles estimated length of our route, was a major factor in my choice of the Honda Insight . All I had to do was beat the EPAs highway fuel economy rating by a fraction of a percent, and Id make it. Beating EPA numbers is harder to do the higher they arepercentage gains dont reflect marked mpg improvementsbut its not impossible. My seemingly ridiculous plan to minimize power drain on the Insight by plugging my phone into a 1,000-mA-hr battery pack and a Bluetooth speaker, rather than use the onboard USB port and stereo, felt like a stroke of genius. So did purposely dehydrating myself that morning before getting in the car so I wouldnt have to stop to use the bathroom. [An army may travel on its stomach, but someone still has to dig the latrines.Ed] It helps, though, if your route accounts for altitude and weather. Considering the lengths I went to to plan alternate avenues and engineer tricks for reducing fuel consumption, youd think that changing road conditions wouldve occurred to me. But beyond my long-held knowledge that imposing mountain passes separate L.A. and Vegas, I didnt give it much thought. Thats how I ended up 70 miles from the finish line and 20 miles away from the next gas station, sucking fumes while my instrument cluster flashed an estimated 18 miles to empty. Plan B had been to top off in Williams, the turn-off from the interstate to the Grand Canyon. Fuel is significantly cheaper there than at our finish line, a station in Tusayan just outside the park gates. In the 70-mile stretch between gas stations east of Kingman, though, it became obvious Plan B was off the table. That left me with Plan C, Seligman, the first gas east of Kingman; or Plan D, pushing the limit by aiming another 20 miles down the road to the cheaper gas in Ash Fork. I placed my bet on Plan D as I approached the Seligman exit and eyeballed the posted gas prices. More than $3.80 a gallon, at least a buck more than in Kingman and Williams. Made sense, this being the last major opportunity to fill up going west and the first going east. I was sure Id made the best strategic decision when I passed Miguel and his Ioniq parked at the Seligman gas station. Sucker. With the Honda s 10-bar gas gauge still showing a single bar, I wagered I could make the 2-mile difference on the trickle of electrons remaining in the hybrid battery if I absolutely had to. Christian was an afterthought by this point. His Fusion Hybrid wasnt getting anywhere near the mileage I was, and I knew hed already stopped in Kingman to fill up. He was out of the game, as his pathetic after-the-fact campaign to change the rules would demonstrate. Miguel, though, had been reporting miracle fuel economy from his trip computer over the walkieway better than EPA. Mine was showing considerably worse than EPA, but I was still on the road, crawling along, and he was filling up. With my eyes keeping watch over the worsening road conditions, a Ford cop car went blurring by: Christian in his Fusion, going at least 80. He shouldve been running the lights and sirens. Shackled to my decision, I tried to focus on a back episode of the How Did This Get Made? podcast to distract myself from the fuel gauge. Its not like there was much else I could do at that point. Id left the climate control off the entire drive to save energy. The rain and snow had forced me to use the headlights and wipers, but I turned off each whenever it was safe. All of the standard active safety systems were already off to save power, and if I could have turned off the infotainment screen, too, I wouldve. All that was left was my feather-footed driving and confidence in my prior experience road tripping a pure-electric car. The glowing sign standing watch over the snowy, nearly deserted gas station at Ash Fork was the most beautiful thing Id seen in 500 miles: $2.52 a gallon. I leaped out of the car, whipped out my credit card, and filled that little Honda right to the gas cap like I had before I left. Yes, I know, youre not supposed to overfill because it can damage the emissions system. But dammit, I had a race to win, and gas was a dollar a gallon more at the finish line. Back in the car, I laid into the throttle getting back up to highway speeds, desperate to stay ahead of Miguel. Id made it to Vegas in less time than he had, and I didnt want him closing the gap in the final miles. My tactic would use more gas, but Id paid a lot less for it. Spotting Christians Fusion at the finish line, its police markings somehow still covered in a haphazard application of gaffers tape after 550 miles of rain and snow, was no surprise. Over the walkies, hed become increasingly obsessed with getting there first even though that part of the equation didnt matter. I didnt even try to contain my excitement when the fuel pump at our finish-line fill-up clicked off after three-tenths of a gallon. A few minutes later, Miguel rolled in, still clinging to the hope hed used less gas than me so it would offset what hed spent on it. View this post on Instagram Chicken. Dinner. #mt70 A post shared by Scott Evans (@dasgimpen) on Feb 5, 2019 at 3:24pm PST It didnt. At 8:46.32 on the stopwatch, Id spent 15 fewer minutes behind the wheel than the other two [Seems suspicious, but Scott claims he left L.A. a bit later than the others.Ed] and spent just $31.83 on gas, 10 bucks less than Miguel. Therefore, we can confidently say, in our best 1950s pseudo-science documentary voice: If you want to get to your destination quickly while spending as little as possible on gas, get yourself a Honda Insight (and a backup battery, a Bluetooth speaker, a sweater, and a wicked case of dry mouth). Scott Evans More on the Insight here : 2019 Toyota Prius vs. 2019 Honda Insight : Third Time Is the Charmer So how did we do compared to the original fuel run? 70 years makes a major difference In planning our homage to the original Mobilgas Grand Canyon Economy Run story, published way back in 1950, we made an early decision to not use the rules our forebears set. Time is money, so our winning driver would be the one who spent the least amount of money on gas and the least amount of time on the road. But what if wed followed the old rules? In the original fuel economy run, we used a ton-mpg figure designed to level the playing field between big and small cars. To provide a basis of comparison for all cars, we wrote, a ton-mpg figure was chosen instead of vehicle mpg, for with the latter method, a heavy car with good fuel economy for the particular engine could not compare favorably with a light car of equally good fuel economy. The added weight of the heavy car would drop its economy. Ton-mpg sounds complicated, but its actually pretty simple: Its the weight of the car and passengers in tons, multiplied by miles driven, divided by gallons of gasoline consumed. The top three finishers of the 1950 run were a Mercury V-8, a Cadillac 60 Special, and a Cadillac 62. The winning Mercury netted 61.27 ton-mpg and 26.52 mpg; the Cadillac 60 came in with 59.12 ton-mpg and 22.08 mpg; and the Cadillac 62 got 58.57 ton-mpg and 22.53 mpg. So how did we do? Well, perhaps not surprisingly considering the fuel spill (which has to count toward gallons consumed), the Police Responder Hybrid finished last, achieving 65.44 ton-mpg and 33.35 mpg. Consider both of those numbers to have a big, fat asteriskwithout the spill, wed guess the Ford scored around 71 ton-mpg and about 35 mpg. In second place, the Ioniq Blue scored 78.26 ton-mpg and averaged 49.39 mpg. And despite the time discrepancy when playing under our new rules, the Insight still would have won under the old ones; it achieved 82.83 ton-mpg and netted 52.09 mpg. Christian Seabaugh 2019 Ford Police Responder (Fusion Hybrid) 2019 Honda Insight EX 2019 Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid Blue DRIVETRAIN LAYOUT Front-engine, FWD Front-engine, FWD Front-engine, FWD ENGINE TYPE Atkinson cycle I-4, alum block/head, plus permanent-magnet AC-synchronous electric motor Atkinson cycle I-4, alum block/head, plus permanent-magnet AC-synchronous electric motor Atkinson cycle I-4, alum block/head, plus permanent-magnet AC-synchronous electric motor VALVETRAIN DOHC, 4 valves/cyl DOHC, 4 valves/cyl DOHC, 4 valves/cyl DISPLACEMENT 121.9 cu in/1,998 cc 91.4 cu in/1,498 cc 96.4 cu in/1,580 cc COMPRESSION RATIO 12.3:1 13.5:1 13.0:1 POWER (SAE NET) 141 hp @ 6,000 rpm (gas), plus 88 hp (elec); 188 hp comb 107 hp @ 6,000 rpm (gas), plus 129 hp (elec); 152 hp comb 104 hp @ 5,700 rpm (gas) plus 43 hp (elec); 139 hp comb TORQUE (SAE NET) 129 lb-ft @ 4,000 rpm (gas), plus 177 lb-ft (elec) 99 lb-ft @ 5,000 rpm (gas), plus 197 lb-ft (elec) 109 lb-ft @ 4,000 rpm (gas, plus 125 lb-ft (elec) REDLINE Not indicated 6,600 rpm 5,500 rpm WEIGHT TO POWER 19.9 lb/hp 19.7 lb/hp 21.4 lb/hp TRANSMISSION Cont variable auto 1-speed automatic 6-speed twin-clutch auto AXLE/FINAL-DRIVE RATIO 2.57:1/0.00:1 3.42:1/8.39:1 (elec), 2.75:1 (gas) 4.19:1 (1st-4th), 3.05:1 (5th-6th, R)/2.34:1 SUSPENSION, FRONT; REAR Struts, coil springs, anti-roll bar; multilink, coil springs, anti-roll bar Struts, coil springs, anti-roll bar; multilink, coil springs, anti-roll bar Struts, coil springs, anti-roll bar; multilink, coil springs, anti-roll bar STEERING RATIO 14.8:1 12.6:1 13.9:1 TURNS LOCK-TO-LOCK 2.7 2.5 2.7 BRAKES, F; R 12.4-in vented disc; 12.4-in disc, ABS 11.1-in vented disc; 10.2-in disc, ABS 11.0-in vented disc; 10.3-in disc, ABS WHEELS 7.5 x 17-in steel 7.0 x 16-in, cast aluminum 6.0 x 15-in cast aluminum TIRES 235/50R17 96W (M+S) Goodyear Eagle Sport 215/55R16 93V (M+S) Michelin Energy Saver A/S 195/65R15 91H (M+S) Michelin Energy Saver A/S DIMENSIONS WHEELBASE 112.2 in 106.3 in 106.3 in TRACK, F/R 62.3/62.0 in 60.9/61.6 in 61.5/62.1 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 191.8 x 72.9 x 58.0 in 183.6 x 71.6 x 55.6 in 176.0 x 71.7 x 56.9 in TURNING CIRCLE 37.6 ft 35.7 ft 34.8 ft CURB WEIGHT 3,735 lb 2,992 lb 2,977 lb WEIGHT DIST, F/R 58/42% 61/39% 61/39% SEATING CAPACITY 5 5 5 HEADROOM, F/R 39.2/37.8 in 39.3/36.9 in 39.1/37.4 in LEGROOM, F/R 44.3/38.3 in 42.3/37.4 in 42.2/35.7 in SHOULDER ROOM, F/R 57.8/56.9 in 56.9/55.0 in 56.1/55.0 in CARGO VOLUME 12.0 cu ft 15.1 cu ft 26.5 cu ft TEST DATA ACCELERATION TO MPH 0-30 3.0 sec 2.6 sec 2.8 sec 0-40 4.5 3.7 4.2 0-50 6.2 5.3 6.2 0-60 8.2 7.3 8.4 0-70 10.7 9.8 11.0 0-80 13.5 13.5 14.7 0-90 17.1 18.9 0-100 21.2 PASSING, 45-65 MPH 4.1 4.0 4.5 QUARTER MILE 16.3 sec @ 88.0 mph 15.8 sec @ 84.6 mph 16.4 sec @ 84.3 mph BRAKING, 60-0 MPH 118 ft 122 ft 129 ft LATERAL ACCELERATION 0.85 g (avg) 0.87 g (avg) 0.81 g (avg) MT FIGURE EIGHT 27.4 sec @ 0.63 g (avg) 27.5 sec @ 0.63 g (avg) 27.9 sec @ 0.60 g (avg) TOP-GEAR REVS @ 60 MPH NA rpm 6,950 rpm (elec); 2,300 rpm (gas) 2,000 rpm CONSUMER INFO BASE PRICE $31,030 $25,080 $23,320 PRICE AS TESTED $36,941 $25,080 $23,455 STABILITY/TRACTION CONTROL Yes/Yes Yes/Yes Yes/Yes AIRBAGS 8: Dual front, front side, f/r curtain, front knee 6: Dual front, front side, f/r curtain 7: Dual front, front side, f/r curtain, driver knee BASIC WARRANTY 3 yrs/36,000 miles 3 yrs/36,000 miles 5 yrs/60,000 miles POWERTRAIN WARRANTY 5 yrs/60,000 miles (8 yrs/100,000 miles hybrid+battery systems) 5 yrs/60,000 miles (8 yrs/100,000 miles hybrid+battery systems) 10 yrs/100,000 miles (10 yrs/Unlimited miles hybrid+battery systems) ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE 5 yrs/60,000 miles 3 yrs/36,000 miles 5 yrs/Unlimited miles FUEL CAPACITY 14.0 gal + 1.40 kWh Lithium-ion battery 10.6 gal + 1.22 kWh Lithium-ion battery 11.9 gal + 1.56 kWh Lithium-ion battery REAL MPG, CITY/HWY/COMB 42.2/42.2/42.2 mpg 60.0/50.1/55.1 mpg 63.7/54.3/59.1 mpg EPA CITY/HWY/COMB ECON 40/36/38 mpg 55/49/52 mpg 57/59/58 mpg ENERGY CONS, CITY/HWY 84/94 kW-hrs/100 miles 61/69 kW-hrs/100 miles 59/57 kW-hrs/100 miles CO2 EMISSIONS, COMB 0.51 lb/mile 0.37 lb/mile 0.34 lb/mile RECOMMENDED FUEL Unleaded regular Unleaded regular Unleaded regular The post Ford vs. Honda vs. Hyundai: The Great Fuel Economy Road Trip Challenge appeared first on MotorTrend .