There was a guy at my high school who drove an old light gray station wagon with tiny little pink palm trees and flamingoes on it. His dad owned a Chevy dealership, and he could have driven any car he wanted, but he drove that old wagon--and convinced all of us it was cool.
I drove an old Oldsmobile '98 (not the year, but the model) that was about 45 feet long and brown. The wheel was like steering the wheel on the Titanic. When I put my hands on 2 and 10, they were in different time zones. My mom wouldn't let me put pink palm trees or flamingoes on it, and I couldn't make it look cool. When my brother drove it as a youth minister, the kids nicknamed it The Brown Turd.
My other adventures with cars as a teen and a tweenty-something generates a whole slew of stories about being a humble driver.
Past cars after the Olds:
1992-1995 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra (also known as The Coffin Car)
1995-1997 Nissan Sentra (the titled said "totaled" but what do they know?)
1997-2000 Chevy Corsica (known as the Teal Mobile)
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4 comments:
Daniel said...
The Prius is a fabulous car actually. Roomier, too, than I would ever have imagined from the outside view, as at 6'5 even I don't have any trouble with it, though I've sometimes felt cramped in larger looking cars. While the "cool kids" may well like them just for being "cool", I appreciate it for much more practical reasons: over the past year of having one, I've seen gas mileage in the car range from the high 40s to about 57 mpg on a recent trip. As far as I can tell from checking out the MPG ratings on the government fuel economy site, no other car comes close to that yet. Toyota's suggesting the next gen Prius, slated for the '09 or '10 edition, will break the 100 MPG mark.
Ulovebeth said...
Daniel - Do you think I should wait for the '09?
Daniel said...
It depends: if you're most interested in the look of the car, waiting might not be the best option as Toyota has been suggesting the third generation Prius (either the '09 or '10 model, they haven't said definitively which it will be) may have an entirely new body/design. One possibility is the Hybrid X body they premiered at the Geneva Motor Show last year, which is a decidedly different look. At the same time, it's rumored that there may be as many as three different models in the Toyota Hybrid line built on the Prius model/engine in the nextgen line-up, so you might enjoy one of those designs better. :)
But if the consideration is more about the gas mileage issues, waiting might be costly, depending on what sort of mileage you get now or how much travel you do---e.g., for personal interest, I've kept a log since June '07 of gas prices and distance driven/fill-ups, and in that time alone, with relatively minimal travel, I've spent around $9k less on gas with the Prius than I would have had to spend for the mileage I had with the prior vehicle (Expedition). At that rate, the car pays for itself in a couple of years. :) But if the '09 release this fall is going to be the nextgen with the vastly improved mileage, that, naturally, could be an even greater benefit, so the brief wait between now and then might not be too bad. If it turns out the '09 is going to be another second gen engine (which is still fabulous), though, I don't know there would be any real reason to wait for it, as it shouldn't be that different from the current model, unless you plan on custom ordering one. That is, if you can find one on the lot somewhere that meets your needs/desires, that's cool, but if you want to custom order a specific set of options from Toyota directly, you may not have a choice but wait, as, the last I heard, there's a significant waiting list now for factory orders.
Have you had a chance to drive or ride in one yet?
Ulovebeth said...
Not yet. I'm going to try to soon.