You are looking at the most economical car that you can (almost) buy in the UK. The Volkswagen Polo BlueMotion, available in summer, has the following vital statistics: 72.4mpg combined and 102g/km CO2. This beats the Toyota Prius. And it certainly beats the Prius in one critical area: economy on the motorway. If you own a company that employs people who spend all day driving up and down the nation’s favourite roads such as the M1 and M6, there is no better car to slash your motoring carbon footprint than the Polo BlueMotion.

It’s fairly similar to a standard Polo, but it employs a few main weapons in its attack on the heavy drinking of fuel. These include an efficient 80 PS 1.4-litre, three-cylinder turbo-injection diesel engine, with improved exhaust and catalytic converter, better aerodynamics and weight saving, and longer gearing.

And the longer gearing really is long gearing. Forget everything your driving instructor told you about when to change gear. If you plod along at the sort of speed you’d put any normal car into fifth gear, the Polo BlueMotion will be spending all its time wanting to stall. This is a car where fifth gear is for 70mph on motorways, when the revs are ridiculously low (the extra-long ratio of fifth gives 35mph for every 1,000rpm) and hence the amazing fuel consumption – and consequent useful range of around 700 miles.

This is the sort of driving that the Polo excels at. It’s less good at stopping and starting in towns – at low revs and under acceleration the 3 cylinder diesel engine sounds like it would be more at home in a Ford Transit. At this speed, it doesn’t feel anything like a high-tech engine. It feels smoother when the turbo kicks in, when decent levels of torque appear from around 2000rpm. This helps the car get to 62 mph from rest in 12.8 seconds, and it can reach a maximum of 109 mph.

So what’s it like to drive? And what about corners in the wet? Well, the handling and steering is probably not another Polo BlueMotion strongpoint – not helped by the high profile, hard compound eco-tyres, which may aid economy by reducing rolling resistance, but which aren’t particularly confidence-inspiring. The tyres are mated to lightweight alloy wheels, and overall this Polo weighs just 1084 kg.

A multifunction computer provides information such as immediate and average fuel consumption, along with the range you’ve got left.

Visually the BlueMotion has a few subtle differences when compared to the normal car; the grille is designed to reduce drag, there’s a front spoiler, and a rear window spoiler smoothes the airflow further. Even the door mirrors are smaller – which does actually limit the visibility of vehicles to the side. Inside, the instruments are lit with cool blue lighting to remind you it’s a BlueMotion.

The Polo BlueMotion will be available in the UK this summer in June, and if you want the UK’s most economical motorway car, this is it. The price of the BlueMotion is likely to be around £11,990 – which is relatively expensive when compared to other Polo models – you’ll have to weigh up how much you want that amazing motorway fuel efficiency.

Other VW models will also have super-economical BlueMotion versions, starting with the Passat and Jetta.