Posted date: 31-10-2014
Somewhere outside Flagstaff, Ariz., inside the world's slowest-moving Audi, photographer extraordinaire Mike Juergens and I had endured an entire day of headwinds, uphills, range anxiety, careening trucks, desert-induced ennui, furious cops, the ignominy of being passed by four Toyota Priuses in a row, and the malodorous toxicity of each other's sweat -- which had achieved the consistency of olive oil -- when we finally said, "screw it," and did something we had been explicitly told not to do: we turned on the air conditioning.
The windows were rolled down about a finger's width; outside, the temperature read 89 degrees. Inside, it felt like a Finnish sauna. When the cold air hit my face, I felt a song rise from my heartstrings.
Big mistake.
Four hundred miles later, still trundling along at 40 mph, we watched our hard-earned average mileage plummet. The end, San Diego, the calming ocean, seemed impossible. We felt like the first settlers of America, waged in a war to win the West, heading towards the salvation by any means necessary…
Come to think of it, those guys didn't use air conditioning, either.
The idea seemed at once simple and ludicrous: drive an Audi A3 TDI from Albuquerque, N.M., to San Diego, Calif., on one tank of diesel. Since the drive was sponsored by Audi, we figured it’d be easy. They must've gamed the system!
Then, co-pilot Juergens dropped a bombshell: "We need to do 62 mpg to finish this thing." The Audi A3 TDI is rated at 43 mpg highway, holding 13.2 gallons of diesel, with a range of 567.6 miles. We'd touch the California border with 266 more miles to go.
If we followed Audi's insane advice, we would have a fool's chance in making it. The route had been tested by range-stretching experts, who trotted forth quixotic phrases like ridge riding, long glide, stale greens, maintenance lane dive, reverse pass, and hard deck, which didn't mean what we thought it meant. We were encouraged to trash talk our competitors. We were told to "embrace the weirdness of the Southwest."
We assembled in Albuquerque, a town that looks like it could fit in the palm of your hand. Cool desert air hits your nostrils, sharp and crackly like Pop Rocks, a true signifier of fall -- a New England staple, transplanted to an ocean of tans and grays. When we arrived, Audi chief communications officer Joe Jacuzzi announced a surprise: "I would show you a picture, but it would make sense to show you it." We followed him to the parking lot.
Behind an Audi Q7, atop a U-Haul trailer, sat a 1995 Ford Aspire whose every panel looking like it had been attacked with hammers by Bolsheviks. Jacuzzi beamed. "The first team to run out of diesel…gets to drive 'It.'"
The journalists tittered. How much was it? someone called out.
"We're not telling," Jacuzzi replied.
