The price of 95 octane petroleum nudges ever closer to the double digits. As a result your V8 saloons and turbo-charged wonder hatches are becoming more and more of a sore point. With pandemonium looming, humour me as I explore an option on the lips of all who possess a spanner and a tight budget.

He pulls up alongside your luxury Euro barge, a severely altered Citi Golf of anonymous origin. You wager it rolled off the assembly line circa 2002, but it's newer than that. You can't be blamed for your mistake; the blunt surgical instrumentation of a garage tuner has transformed the humble Giugiaro-penned hatchback into something a bit more special. Its ultimate purpose is not to go faster, sound louder or look any better - instead, in a fictitious account of a not too fictitious future where the burgeoning fuel price has eclipsed the 20 rand mark, modifying for economy is a scenario you can bloody well prepare yourself for.

Gone is the reasonably modern 1600 engine with all its bells and whistles. In its place resides a 30 year old petrol-sipping EA111 lump from an 1100 1978 Golf L. The inefficient carburettor has been chucked in favour of a more modern MP9 fuel injection unit and a Go-Tech fuel management computer, as polarised by the Fast and Frivolous generation. The little motor has had all its internals balanced and lightened, its rudimentary cylinder head spins it's lightened and oh-so-fuel efficient short-duration camshafts in unison to the highly-strung rods and pistons, which like the fly-wheel and the rest of the chassis have been lightened for the benefit of a better power to weight ratio. This is essential in a vehicle packing just under 40kW but which barely weighs a stitch under 700 kilos, unladen of course. A light-weight mild stainless exhaust has been mated to its undercarriage giving the Golf a more serious burble on idle, despite the tinny components under its carbon fibre bonnet. It's a smart move further eliminating any air-flow restrictions that may impede its forward momentum, brick-like aerodynamics now it’s only Achilles heel. Luckily this humble Golf has never enjoyed luxuries such as air conditioners and power steering. They're completely redundant fuel-sapping devices and would surely have been chucked during the process of optimization that has thus far transpired. Also redundant are roof liners, mats, sound deadening and the six piece audio system. Surely one little speaker would suffice. Also expendable were the original factory wheels. In their place are a fairly attractive set of 14” aftermarket rims comprised of a lightweight alloy compound and a free-spinning 4 spoke design. The tyres coating it have been pumped up in excess of 3 bar and combined with its fibre body panels allegedly enables the vehicle to blitz the clocks from 0kph to 100kph under ten seconds. More importantly in it’s current guise the owner, lets call him Rupert, assures us that he now manages an unheard of 2.9l/100km. The standard car suffered to keep it under 7l/100km. That means when you’re refilling on Wednesday morning, Rupert can trundle all the way onto the weekend. And therein lies the crux.

So there you sit, at the red light, listening to Rupert as he revs the back out of his little 1100cc knowing that it’s barely costing him a penny to do so. But let’s not forget that he still has many a month of miserly motoring to suffer before he can enjoy the savings his new found ‘Allegrita’ status affords him. He’ll argue that it is money he would have spent on ludicrous sound and styling modifications anyway, but this way he can afford to run his tenacious little terrier till month end, which is more than some of us can say. Still, it only takes one manufacturer to take notice of Rupert and his little creation and claim this new found stream of tuning for its own. Chances are it will be Chinese.