The N1 to Colesberg in a full-size saloon
Two hundred and twenty-five kilometres of almost straight tar, a crosswind that arrives without warning past Trompsburg, and a fuel slip at each end. This is the run that separates a car that cruises from a car that merely goes fast.
Updated 15 October 2026BloemfonteinThe whole file
A long level stretch of national road on the Free State plains, fence line and telephone poles running to the horizon.
The loop we use
The run starts at the pump on the corner nearest Zastron Street, brim to brim, nozzle at the same angle, and ends at the same pump. Between those two slips there is the N1 south through Edenburg, Trompsburg and Springfontein to the Colesberg turn-off, then back. Two hundred and twenty-five kilometres each way, one stop, cruise set at an indicated 120 km/h where the limit allows it.
We do it in the mid-morning window after the Verkeerdevlei truck traffic has thinned, because a car's cruising manners are a different thing when you are overtaking a flat-bed every four kilometres. If the wind is above about 30 km/h we note it on the sheet rather than pretending it was not there. Four of the last nine saloon notes carry that line.
Cruising manners at an indicated 120
The number that matters is engine speed at a true 120 km/h, and it is not the one on the brochure. A big saloon with an eight-speed automatic sitting at 1 750 rpm will drone less, drink less and arrive with the driver in better shape than the same car geared at 2 400 rpm. We read it off the tachometer at a steady throttle on the long level stretch past Jagersfontein road and write both the indicated and the satellite-measured speed, because speedometers here over-read by three to six kilometres an hour.
What nobody mentions is throttle behaviour on overrun. Lift off at the crest before Springfontein and some automatics shuffle down two gears looking for engine braking you did not request. On a 450 km day that is forty or fifty small annoyances. A car that simply freewheels and holds its gear is a quieter car to own.
Fuel, measured twice
The brim-to-brim figure for a 2.0-litre turbo petrol saloon on this run has come out between 6.4 and 7.1 L/100 km, against a trip computer that insisted on 5.9. The computer is optimistic by roughly half a litre on every car we have put through the loop, which over a 70-litre tank is about 90 km of range you thought you had and do not.
We also take the figure on the town circuit, because that is where most of the kilometres actually happen. The same saloon returned 9.8 L/100 km through Westdene and Universitas in the afternoon school window. At an indicative R24 a litre that is the difference between about R1 540 and R2 350 a month for a thousand town kilometres, and it is the sort of gap that should decide a purchase rather than the colour of the stitching.
Wind, road surface and the concrete strips
There are stretches of the N1 south where the old concrete slabs sit under the asphalt and you feel a regular tick through the seat rails at a spacing that matches your speed. Soft sidewalls absorb it; a 35-section tyre on a 20-inch rim transmits every joint into the cabin and into your lower back. We read 68 dB at 120 km/h in one large saloon on 18-inch wheels and 72 dB in the same model on 20s, which does not sound like much until you have listened to it for three hours.
Crosswind matters more here than anywhere else we drive. The gap between Trompsburg and Springfontein is open, high and treeless, and a tall car with a short wheelbase wanders. A long saloon tracks straight with the smallest correction at the wheel, and that is the single strongest argument for a low heavy car on this route.
What a year of these runs costs
Six return trips to Colesberg is 2 700 km. Add a Gauteng run or two and the town kilometres and you are at 20 000 km a year without trying. At the measured 7.0 L/100 km on the open road and 9.8 in town, blended to about 8.4, that is roughly 1 680 litres, or about R40 300 a year in petrol at an indicative R24.
Then the tyres. Free State chip-and-spray and the gravel sections take a set of four 225/45 R18 tyres to the wear bars in about 48 000 km if the pressures are checked monthly, and in half that if they are not. Budget an indicative R12 000 to R16 000 a set, fitted and balanced, and remember that a staggered fitment removes the option of rotating them.
Three things to take away
- 01Engine speed at a true 120 km/h predicts long-run comfort better than power or torque figures.
- 02Trip computers on every car we have measured read about half a litre per hundred kilometres optimistic.
- 03On the open stretch past Trompsburg, a long low car costs you less effort at the wheel than a tall short one.