I like diesels, and this sounds neat. The company website is www.trident-vehicles.co.uk if you want a look at the thing.

Independent

Supercars are all about statistics, from the obscene asking price through to the terrifying top speed and the untenable miles per gallon. They give the greenies and the pinko car-hating lobby loads of reasons to be even less cheerful than normal.

In theory then they should really hate the Trident Iceni R. It has a 6.6-litre twin-turbo V8 engine producing 450bhp. It will do 230mph and get to 60mph in less than four seconds. But, and this is the kicker, it runs on locally produced biodiesel, and at a constant 56mph the Iceni will return a Smart car-beating 70mpg.

[…]

So what’s the secret of the Iceni R’s remarkable stats? “Torque multiplication,” says Phil Bevan, the chief designer. “Diesels operate more efficiently within the right rev range and fewer revolutions mean less friction. So a 2.5-litre diesel engine hammering down the M4 at 4,200rpm is not very efficient when with modification it could be doing it at 1,000rpm. Diesel engines are torque rich, but brake-horse power poor.”

Probably with the Bugatti Veyron’s 1,000bhp-plus in mind, Bevan insists he is not interested in bhp. “It’s a myth,” he says. “The most important thing is optimising the efficiency of an engine. In Formula One, the optimum rev point is 18,000rpm, which means that all gear changes occur at this figure. With the Iceni R it is 3,500rpm, and our computer model shows that at 56mph the engine generates 402rpm and that works out at 71.5mpg.”

[…]

The racing engine produces 450bhp and 800lbs of torque – virtually three times those of the Ferraris they compete against – and is geared to reach 230mph. Road cars will only do 170mph, but getting to 60mph takes the same time, under four seconds.

At Silverstone, though, Bevan noticed the difference. “On the main straight the Ferrari will be doing 8,000 revs and it will scream past,” he says. “When the Iceni goes past it is nearer to 3,000, and although it is doing 140mph it sounds like it is purring along at 50mph.