Turns out you don’t need to be in an electric vehicle to point fingers and laugh at people waiting in gas stations. Craig Henderson, a Washington state native, went from the Canadian border in Blaine, Washington to Mexico on one tank of gas or 12.4 gallons of diesel.

Henderson made the 1,478 mile journey along 1-5 in a 1984 car that he built by himself called Avion. The car’s aluminum frame and carbon fiber body helped give it an extraordinary 119.1 miles per gallon. This 1,500-pound vehicle uses an aluminum monocoque frame with steel crash and suspension subframes at the front and rear and is literally as light and aerodynamic as they come.

The body is made from carbon fiber and fiberglass and the car uses a 800cc diesel engine. It needs about three to four horsepower to maintain a 55 mph speed. Goodyear’s low rolling resistance Fuel Max tires helped chug the car along.

The Henderson once wanted to mass-market the Avion, which he built 26 years ago as a prototype, but gave up on his commercial dream and got the word-record instead for topping 103 mpg in a car.

As of now, the star driver will build a couple of more Avions for a few interested parties.

Clearly, this makes it fairly clear that President Obama’s mandate that cars fleets need to average 35 mpg is extremely achievable. We’re hoping some larger car manufacturer picks up on Craig’s model and expands on it.

As Henderson told the News Tribune, “It’s kind of funny … these are two guys who did this. Why can’t Detroit do this?”

Via Wired Autopia