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• Wednesday, July 2, 2008 01:11 AM

  I'll keep my Prius, thank you

  I've lived mostly in Europe (Spain) since the Cheney-Bush coronation, but moved back to the States a couple of months ago. Smarts are all over the place in Madrid and Barcelona, but nearly nonexistent outside them.

  When I moved back here, I didn't even think about buying anything but a Prius. In fact, I arranged the purchase from Spain by phoning a friend at the local Urbana (IL) Toyota dealership, and picked the car up the day after I arrived. That was on May 8, and I ended up with the $28K model, with a bunch of stuff on it I never would have paid for in a normal market, but this was the last one on the lot, and it was $28K or wait until mid-July for another. All of the June delivery were already sold.

  The other day, I got a call from my buddy at the dealership to find out how the Prius and I were getting along. I told him I was totally in love with the car and that I'd needed to buy gas only once since I bought it (I never drive when it's possible to walk.) and gotten 50 mpg with a 1/2 city/highway driving ratio. He told me demand was now so high that all their deliveries for the next six months are already pre-sold.

  What really pisses me off about this whole deal is that the U.S. auto industry is so far behind the Japanese that I had to choose between buying $2500 of extras I didn't want or waiting over two months (now 6) for a car. But there's nothing new about our auto industry being clueless and venal. After all, most small American cities (including mine) had wonderful electric trolley systems until Henry Ford went around the country bamboozling the city fathers into selling them to him so he could tear up the tracks and scrap the rolling stock.

  Now, GM's caught the hybrid bug. I saw an ad the other day for a full-sized GMC Yukon 2wd SUV hybrid boasting a most excellent 14 mpg in the city, and a whopping 21 on the highway. (ROTFL)

  . . . . .

  For those of us bashing Farhad: Please stop. The poor boy's review is totally in keeping with what's become of Salon, and better than a lot of what you find here. Can't help wondering how much longer Glenn Greenwald will hang around here before ditching Ms Walsh's little piece of fluff for a more serious (and more entertaining) publication.

  —slaird46 Read slaird46's other letters
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