Aside from the fact that the winking emoticon means I was joking (and it is funny to see a tiny little car bezzing along, as you know it's taken them 5 miles just to get to that speed), I don't see how you would damage the car by getting onto the motorway and putting your foot down for a bit (aside from your wallet regarding the petrol!)

Components for cars are tested to destruction and will not suffer from being worked. Craig's fact about the million piston strokes kinda proves my point.

By the time a new engine has run for a total of just 4 hours, at an average of 2,000rpm during those four hours, the pistons will have made around a million journeys up and down the cylinders :-)

Your point being that what is going to happen will happen within the first few thousand cycles? Well, most people report that diesel engines, in particular, are quite tight when new, and don't achieve full economy or performance until they're at least 10,000 miles old, quite a bit more than 10^6 cycles!

The other point is that manufacturers give themselves the leeway of permitting heavy oil consumption; most say that a consumption of up to 1litre/1000 miles is acceptable. It isn't. Mine doesn't use a drop of oil between changes and I wouldn't be happy for a new engine (even a diesel) to use much either.

This is to prevent the manufaccturer having to tear down an engine with glazed bores and worn rings-at their expense.