Abstract
Measurements have been made of the fuel consumption of a petrol and a diesel car when starting from cold. The cars were the 1.1 litre petrol VW Golf and the 1.5 litre diesel version, which have the same passenger accommodation and nearly identical road performance. It was found that the diesel car used less fuel in the 'warm-up' period than the petrol, both when being driven at constant speed on a test track and with the engine idling and the car stationary. (Author/publisher)