Forget MPH, The VW XL1's Got The Biggest MPG Balls In The Business

Classic cars are great and all, but I've never completely understood the slightly beardy viewpoint that modern cars are constantly getting worse.

Okay, so we're overrun by electronic gadgets these days (some more welcome than others) and you can't really fix modern cars in your shed with a hammer any more, but to use only those factors as a barometer for greatness is to miss out on just how brilliant modern cars can be.

Want proof? Just check the swathes of awesomeness radiating from the Geneva Motor Show this week. In just one show, we've seen the launch of three of the craziest supercars ever to make it off the drawing board, in the form of the McLaren P1, Ferrari LaFerrari, and the batshit crazy Lamborghini Veneno.

Then there's the Alfa Romeo 4C, a new Corvette Stingray convertible, Porsche 911 GT3, and open-top Toyota GT86. All are faster, meaner and more wild than their predecessors - for those that had predecessors at all. Some of this stuff has been launched for no other reason than because they can make it.

It'd be a brave, stupid man to put hand on heart and tell you modern cars are rubbish.

Yet despite all this colour and excitement, it's another car entirely that caught my attention at Geneva. And it's about as far from an old-school car as you can get.

Volkswagen's XL1 was one of the show's stars. In a show full of supercar makers beating their chests and comparing the size of their pork swords, VW unveiled the most economical car ever destined for production, with styling so futuristic you could write a wildly inaccurate 1970s sci-fi film about it.

Spoilers, scoops and aggression are out - millimetre-perfect lines, a tiny, compact body and a body shell slicker than the Exxon Valdez are in. And unlike the Exxon Valdez, this thing barely uses a drop of oil.

With a 0-60mph time starting with '12' and a top-end just shy of the ton, performance isn't the XL1's priority. There's only a twin-cylinder 800cc diesel under that carbon shell, with assistance from an electric motor.

But somehow it's even cooler for that - there's no posturing, no fake eco-branded tat convincing you you're saving the planet - just a single-minded engineering take on using as little fuel as possible. It's what makes the original Honda Insight cool and the original Toyota Prius a depressing turd of a car.

That single-minded engineering is how the XL1 gets over 300mpg on a good day, and still manages over 120mpg on a really, really bad one.

And even if you forget all that, you can't help but come back to that futuristic bodywork.

It may not appeal to everyone, but it appeals to my inner child. Modern cars aren't getting worse - far, far from it - but for the kid who grew up wondering what the future would be like, only the XL1 can really answer that question. And hey, if it's good enough for badass space jumper Felix Baumgartner, it's good enough for me...