In related news, we’re going to test drive a Mini at two this afternoon. :)
Update:
Getting a Mini has become much more likely. Very comfortable (more room for the driver in fact than my truck), very zippy, corners like it’s on rails, excellent handling in general, and optimized for an intelligent driver — I really enjoyed the half hour they let us just take off and drive it (without even a sales guy). The clutch is very forgiving and I really liked the action on the manual… I can’t even see where getting the Cooper S would be necessary — the plain old Cooper I drove had plenty of juice, and that’s something I’m really picky about.
Then you look at numbers and realize that the highway MPG is double my pickup’s and even the city mpg is still 11 better than my truck’s highway mpg. There’s a lot to like.
Jackie even liked it, and she really didn’t want to.
8 Replies to “vroom”
Comments are closed.
gosh, im very envious of your mini experience :):):)
Doyce,
You will love getting better mileage. I get about 45 mpg with my TDI Passat, and while I still worry about the upcoming war with Iraq and the problems in Venezuela, I don’t worry about my pocketbook. I had a dream last week about fuel spiking to $5. a gallon and seeing mammoth SUV’s abandoned by the side of the road. Heh heh heh.
Ooh, get a Mini and take pictures so we can all be jealous! The Mini would probably be the only car I would allow myself to drive in Taipei, and then only if I lived outside of town.
Best possible thing for this country would be if gas went to $5/gallon for about a decade. I’d love to a mass transit system in any American city that was more than an afterthought.
While I definitely appreciate the sentiment, I don’t think you’d at all like the economic impact of that sort of spike in fuel. We’d survive it, but there’d be a lot of pain in the meantime …
That dire note aside, I’m finding it quite amusing that Doyce is doing all my springtime car shopping for me. Especially since every time he talks about a different make model, it’s one that I’ve been mentally considering.
Dave,
I am not some big enviro nut, but it is not certain that we will survive our addiction to fossil fuels either. People discount the economic impact because it is (probably) far in the future, and difficult to assign a dollar figure to. But, shouldn’t we add the cost of terrorism to every gallon of gasoline? Shouldn’t we add the billions of dollars we give to Egypt and Israel every year? Shouldn’t we add some amount to cover the likely costs of global warming? If people paid the true cost of gasoline “at the pump,” instead of through income taxes, only farmers would be driving Suburbans.
As a 9-months-in Prius driver, I’m finding the savings/benefits are, as observed, hard to quantify. But, to be honest, the costs weren’t all that high, either.
But the obvious success of the early hybrids (GM and Ford are now announcing their own plans to compete, after much foot-dragging, and Toyota has announced an “all hybrid by 2007” plan) wouldn’t have happened if they couldn’t sell the early ones… I guess that might be another one of those hard-to-quantify benefits.
Of course, the mini is a lot cooler than the Prius…