With the recent victory of Audi's diesel-powered race car at the legendary "24 Hours of LeMans", American car-makers, buyers and critics and analysts are starting to get serious about these engines which use 1/2 the amount of fuel of gasoline-powered vehicles, can go 1,000,000 miles and more with only basic care and maintenance, and, as proved by Audi at LeMans, have no trouble running in excess of 150 miles per hour for 24 hours at a time.
AUTOBLOG now reports that Renault will be incorporating the 2.0L diesel powerplant from the Laguna in the Megane RenaultSport. The turbodiesel will be good for around 180 horsepower, a top speed of roughly 139 mph, and a 0-62 time of 7.5 seconds. According to Germany's Auto Motor Und Sport magazine, the oil-burning sport model should hit the European market in March 2007.
The primary marketplace competitor for the diesel Megane RenaultSport is said to be Volkswagen's Golf GT TDI. While these machines will make great reading in AUTOWEEK in their "Not For Sale Here" pages, it's getting to be time that diesel engines were offered in a serious way in the USA. Every major car company in the world builds them (including GM, Ford and DCX for cars and trucks worldwide) and even in the automotive-sophisticated UK, the best-selling car is a small Honda model outfitted with a turbo-diesel powerplant.
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