World first: driving 1,000 miles from Land's End to John o' Groats on sustainable fuel

So, with all this in mind, there was a third-act battle-like sense of anticipation, when I signed up to join Mazda for its 1,000-mile crusade between the two geographical extremes of our island, which in a world-first, would be completed solely using sustainable biofuel. This is the other solution – the one that allows the cars we already know and love to stay in use (and production) with a clean carbon conscience.

Why the MX-5?

The drive, an epic one: Land’s End to John o’ Groats, while the cars would be stunning examples of all four generations of Mazda MX-5, from Mazda’s heritage fleet. Indeed, this soft-topped quartet comes from a wonderful group of iconic models from Mazda’s past that’s been run on sustainable fuels, thanks to a partnership with Sustain, for some time now.

Such a drive is the perfect 35^th birthday party for Mazda’s roadster. Over the years, few other cars have demonstrated such a singular focus on the job of being enjoyable to drive while still having such a broad appeal at a thoroughly egalitarian price point. Its classically pretty proportions, its focus, its reliability, simplicity, and affordability are what’s made the MX-5 the most successful two-seat roadster of all time.

The MX-5 is also the ideal poster child for the idea of giving existing cars a second chance to be clean, rather than racking up more carbon and energy debt by commissioning the production of another. For it is evergreen, with an ownership base that’s as vast as it is loyal and passionate, that owns their cars for a long time. It’s a model that has, throughout its history and in spite of its affordability, boasted a demonstrably longer service life than the average grocery-getter. In short, motoring really doesn’t get much greener than a lightweight 30-year-old roadster running on sustainable fuel.

1,000 miles lay ahead

Land’s End really lives up to its name. Between Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset, England’s hind leg of land stretches out into the Channel like that of a sleepy Tabby whose nap has just been unwelcomely disturbed. In the time it takes to traverse the distance by train, a 747 can cross the Atlantic. 

Of course, that doesn’t matter, because viewed from the driver’s seat of a Mk2 Mazda MX-5 Tenth-Anniversary Edition, thrumming away nicely with the top down as it tucks into a tank of Sustain’s 100 per cent biofuel, the region’s beauty has you in a trance as the miles tumble out the back. At least, once the sea mists have cleared. This was, after all, the first in a week of super early starts, to give us the best chance of covering as much distance as possible inside a day with time for dinner in the evening.

Complicating that endeavour is the fact that running totally on biofuel means we aren’t able to stop at any old Shell for a splash and dash every couple of hundred miles. The only place Joe public can currently fill up with a tank of Sustain’s 80 per cent biofuel is at Bicester Heritage, with the pump only opening to motorists as the first publicly-available biofuel dispensary in 2023. So, it was toward Bicester that we pointed the noses of our Miatas; top down, foot down.

Sustain fuels – could they save internal combustion?

Unfortunately, the 100 per cent biofuel itself isn’t actually available here yet, so members of their team would need to meet us with barrels and dispensers to juice up the cars. Once we’d arrived, nursing a spot of top-down motoring sunburn and a frosty can of Cola, I got to chatting with Suresh Nahar, Sustain’s Brand Manager at Bicester, while the cars were topped off. A few key talking points immediately became clear.

The first is that, contrary to what many believe, whatever the internal combustion engine there’s a sustainable fuel that can power it without any need for mechanical adaptation or any measurable effects on its longevity. Sustain produce and supply a number of different fuels for a number of different uses, from racing bikes, to racing cars, to vintage machinery and of course, road cars. 

Sustain’s 80 and 100 per cent biofuels suitable for petrol road cars use barely trace amounts of ethanol, so are a better fit for cars of a certain vintage than the standard E10 now found at most pumps. We actually observed, when not enjoying the MX-5s a little too much, a slight improvement in their efficiency compared to normal. Power, performance, and the breadth of their power bands were unchanged too by comparison to running them on a tank of Shell’s finest 98 octane.

To be clear, Sustain fuel doesn’t make any internal combustion engine ‘zero tailpipe emission’. To claim as much would be a nonsense. But what it does mean, at least by comparison to fossil fuels, is that the carbon the cars do emit is carbon that was first extracted from the atmosphere and from biowaste, to produce the fuel. It’s not carbon that was previously locked in the Earth over the last 60 million years or so. The result is no carbon is being added to the atmosphere that wasn’t there six months earlier. The MX-5s are, in combustion and at the tailpipe, technically (as near as makes no difference) carbon neutral when running on Sustain 100.

The biowaste element is stuff that would, in a past life, have gone to landfill – rejected potatoes in the case of the Celtic Renewables production facility we visited in Grangemouth. It’s a supplier for Sustain that’s poised to increase volume with its patented Acetone, Butenol, and Ethanol production method, marketing its products as replacements for oil-based materials in everything from plastics to the fuel in your car, even to perfumes.

Can sustainable fuel go mainstream?

Why isn’t 100 per cent Sustain fuel available yet? It’s a matter of cost which relates to legislative support – a point of visible frustration for Suresh – and scale. The Sustain 80 fuel you can buy is 80 per cent carbon capture and waste product biofuel, mixed with 20 per cent fossil fuel. The latter is there purely to, if you’ll pardon the pun, water down the cost. And even then, a litre of Sustain 80 will set you back £4.65. 

There’s potential for it to be cheaper in the future, but investment and legislative change are needed. At present there are no incentives to fill up with sustainable fuel, with the cost of a litre incorporating the same 52.95p of duty as a litre of dino juice. Curious, given the government’s own research: a Department of Transport report from 2019 showed renewable fuels could reduce emissions by some 83 per cent.

On the question of investment and scale, at present this is a niche endeavour suited to racers and well-heeled enthusiasts, with small-scale manufacturing and subsequent high costs. With more investment in the technology and larger facilities, production volumes could rise and costs could fall. All food for thought, as I finished my food ready for the 125-mile charge North to our overnight stop in Sheffield.

Vindicating the NC MX-5

The Mk3 Mazda MX-5 is the unloved one, at least within MX-5 circles. It’s the heaviest, the largest, it uses Ford engines and transmissions and is generally decried as too much of a departure from the purist roots of the MX-5. I’m not an MX-5 evangelist. In truth, I’ve never really got them, so the added refinement, creature comforts, and more confident, stable road stance of the 25th Anniversary Edition NC were nothing but welcome to me, much to the disgust of my MX-5 cultist friends and my MX-5 cultist co-driver, Mr Andrew Evans.

But I really don’t know what they’re on about. Yes, you can feel the added mass; yes it’s a bit less of a go-kart to place on a sinewy thread of a Lake District B road. But, if it’s 50 per cent better than the harsh, cramped NB on a steady cruise, it’s at worst 10-20 per cent down as a driver’s car when the roads get rural. You don’t need to be a master mathematician to square that. Once the A1 gave way to the tumbling Trans-Pennine A66 and the twisting roads of the South Lakes to Windermere, it acquitted itself as the interactive, interesting, involving roadster you expect any MX-5 to be. Come the end of the trip, it probably ranked among the two best drives I would end up having.

Why the stop at Windermere? If you’ve been before, you’d forgive us for finding any excuse. It is beautiful but also topical, given the boats that run on the lake now use Sustain fuel. It was certainly fun to pose the cars in front of the lake with a striking race boat in the foreground. Meanwhile tea, lunch, and a tour of the Windermere Motor Boat Racing Club went down a treat.

The ND, of course, is the MX-5 de-bugged. The current car – now in its ninth year of production – bucked industry trends by reducing size and weight. But as a modern car it was also a lot more refined, better-built, and better-equipped, with nicer materials and plenty of creature comforts. It’s the MX-5 to suit all tastes, including softies such as myself; dynamic and characterful to drive, cossetting enough (if weirdly cramped after the NC) to deliver a better quality of life for the 95 per cent of the time you’re not on a clear, winding road. And yet, brilliant though it is (you should definitely buy one if you’re even slightly thinking about it) I wouldn’t realise what it didn’t quite have until I drove the MK1.

‘Getting’ the magic of the Mk1 Mazda MX-5

The original MX-5 is a car people like to shove down our throats. From the cutesy pop-up lights to the retro ‘90s feel, insufferable JDM nerds will cover their ears, shut their eyes, and go ‘la la la’ at the mere suggestion that the ‘answer’ quite possibly isn’t always ‘Miata’. If you couldn’t tell, years of memes and comment section jousting put me off these before ever actually driving one. Categorically wrong of me, I know.

And I was wrong to dismiss it – something I begrudgingly realised before we’d even cleared the car park of the Dunkeld House Hotel for the final leg of our journey. On the last, most arduous leg of a thousand-mile drive, the oldest car should by rights have been the harshest and least refined. It was wading into battle with me on the backfoot and you might have expected me not to like it one bit. 

On the contrary. This early Mk1 from 1990 charmed from the first turn of the wheel to the last key-off in the John o' Groats Cafe car park. What is an utter honey of a car brought everything everyone has ever told me is magical about these cars into visceral clarity and focus. 

Its engine, despite being far less powerful by the numbers than the MK2, felt more eager, uncorrupted by a catalytic converter, through the snatchier five-speed gearbox. The ride felt more compliant on the softer suspension and smaller ‘daisy’ alloy wheels. The steering was a tonic, with a ratio and feel perfectly dialled into the way the car leant on its suspension. The way it moved under braking was just totally transparent – this is a car you will become a more effective driver in, and gain more understanding of the physics of a moving car given enough seat time.

It’s just a car you want to interact with. You seek out gears, you look for direction changes, you work the little sewing machine of a 1.6-litre four-cylinder engine. And you have to. As the winding A9 clambers up northern Scotland’s east coast, the thrashing winds pulled the little NA left and right. That might have been frightening if not for it being just another excuse to double down and focus on the joyous job of driving the thing. Is it old? Yes. Was it the most blustery inside when passengering? Absolutely. But none of that matters. I get it. 

Do I want one? No. Not it or any MX-5 is really a car that fits my personal tastes or driving style. But it was nothing short of a privilege to get to know that little white car, to finally understand with total clarity how they get under so many people’s skin.

Saving cars with Heart

And that sort of brings me to why the likes of Sustain and its sustainable fuel solutions are so important. Because we want to be able to drive these cars, 35 years from now, as I so enjoyed driving that NA almost 35 years on from when it was first delivered, and as I so enjoyed getting to know the entire MX-5 dynasty.

And it’s not just MX-5s. These, along with any other sportscars, hot hatches, super saloons, supercars, and everything else in between, are as much a part of our families as they are a means of A-to-B transport.

They have heart. Heart that big heavy hybrids and EVs are struggling to muster from beneath the bloat and the dull, distanced, synthetic driving experience. If we can have our cake and eat it too – which with sustainable fuels I more than think we can – then call me Bruce Bogtrotter.

David Richardson, Director at Sustain, has handily mentioned some key numbers from our journey that put this into context: “over the 1000-mile trip, we calculated that around 981kg of CO2 was saved by using Sustain in the four MX-5s to replace fossil fuels. Imagine the difference we could make if more motorists followed suit.

“Electric vehicles are increasing in numbers, but there are many millions of combustion engine cars on our roads. It surely makes sense to reduce the emissions from those vehicles if we can. Yet many people don’t realise it’s an option or know how sustainable fuel works. There are a lot of misunderstandings. 

“We need support from those in power to enable sustainable fuel production to be scaled up, which could happen relatively quickly. There is no silver bullet solution to tackle the environmental impact of the automotive sector – we should be using all the available technologies to give us the best chance to make a real difference.

“Achieving the first-ever drive from Land’s End to John o’ Groats on 100% sustainable biofuel is something we’re extremely proud of. It’s particularly poignant to be teaming up with Mazda on the MX-5's 35th birthday. Sustainable fuel is a genuine way we can keep vehicles such as these on the road for many years to come, whilst reducing their environmental impact.”

To make that Land’s End to John o’ Groates journey should be a bucket list experience for any driving enthusiast. To do it in these cars, while learning more about, and telling the story of one of the criminally under-publicised and under-utilised options available to us pursuing increased sustainability, was my privilege.

Photography by David Smith