A team of mechanical engineering students at California Polytechnic State University is prepping an ultra high-mileage, three-wheeled car for the upcoming Shell Eco-Marathon student competition. If all goes well, they'll take first place with fuel economy more than 13 times higher than the 230 mpg General Motors claims the Chevrolet Volt will deliver – and Cal Poly car doesn't even need batteries.

The Cal Poly Supermileage Team, launched in the late '80s and resurrected in 2005, combines students from a senior project team and a department club to work on vehicles that deliver numbers that make hypermilers and plug-in hybrid enthusiasts weep. The team is working on two cars: the Black Widow (shown above), which took first place in the 2007 Eco-Marathon and second place in 2008 and 2009, and a new three-wheeler for the competition's Urban Concept category.

"In the past, the competition has been held on closed race tracks, but this year, it is in downtown Houston," said team president Verent Chan. "Road conditions will be worse, which may negatively affect our fuel economy, but we still are aiming for the No. 1 spot."

While the Urban Concept vehicle is still under construction, the team has continuously improved the Black Widow since its creation in 2005, slowly ratcheting up fuel economy from 861 mpg to the current 2752.3 mpg. They've done it by shedding pounds like a Triple Crown jockey on a celery diet in a steam room. At a mere 96 pounds, the car weighs slightly more than a Lagerfeld model, has a rock-bottom drag coefficient of 0.12 and can reach a blistering 30 mph with a modified 3 horsepower Honda 50cc four-stroke engine. That's right – three horsepower.

And, Colin Chapman be praised, it can go faster.

"The car is capable of higher speeds, but the fastest we’ve ever taken it is somewhere around 35 mph," Chan said. "This is because we are trying to maximize the fuel efficiency for the competition. If we wanted to reach higher speeds, the engine has enough power. We would just need to set up our gear ratios differently."

The fuel and weight savings are tremendous, but Chan says we shouldn't expect to see cars like the Black Widow outside of competitions. This baby, as cool as it is, is purely academic.

"By no means are we developing cutting edge technology that will be used in future vehicles," he said. "More than anything, our club is training engineers to push the boundaries of efficiency so when they enter the working world, it will be no different in how they approach other designs."

This year's Eco-Marathon runs March 26-28. We'll be sure to root for the Black Widow.

Photo: Cal Poly Supermileage Team