A recent epic South African road trip by Australian fuel-efficiency experts John and Helen Taylor (4431km in a Toyota Prius on less than 140 litres of petrol) seems to have set a new fashion.
The latest to step up for the long road were veteran journalists (and cousins) Malcolm and Rodney Kinsey, who set a South African record for the longest distance travelled by a passenger car without refuelling - 1941km, to be precise!
Malcolm Kinsey, of course, is the author of the annual Kinsey Report on the prices of replacement parts for cars in South Africa.
The two cousins, with six-times SA Rally champion Jan Hettema as observer in a back-up car, filled up their bog-standard VW Golf 1.6 TDI BlueMotion's 55-litre tank at the SA Customs post in Beit Bridge, on the Zimbabwean border and, by rocking the car and "trickle-filling", managed to squeeze in almost an extra 10 litres.
Then they set off toward Gauteng, at 4pm on a Friday afternoon, running at a steady 80-90km/h, the slowest speed at which the TDI would pull top gear without labouring.
That sounds like a crazy time to start a long trip, but there was method in the Kinseys' madness, as they crossed the urban sprawl of Pretoria and Johannesburg in the small hours of Saturday morning without even slowing down.
They reached Bloemfontein at about 9am on Saturday morning and took a well-earned break, getting back on the road just before 4am on Sunday morning.
They were, however, very lucky in that an earlier approach to the Director of Roads had borne fruit, and they were escorted through each of the many stop/go roadwork sites on the N1 with the minimum wastage of time and fuel.
The group reached Cape Town late on the Sunday with the Golf running on fumes, having driven 1941km, at an average speed of just under 70km/h, on 63.8 litres of diesel, for an overall fuel consumption of 3.29 litres/100km.
And Rod Kinsey, whose idea the record attempt was, said: "The car was fantastic - it drives like it was built for economy runs!"