Mon 15 Jan 2007
Mr. W, his bro and I had lunch at Original Mike’s today, where I watched his bro consume an entire full rack of ribs. (“You can’t finish a full rack in one meal here!” “Oh yeah? Watch me.”) Then, walking toward the Prius, Mr. W ordered me to drive back to his house despite my protests. I’m really uncomfortable driving people’s cars, especially their new cars. I go through a paranoid period when I get a new car, so I’m pretty sensitive to other people’s PP, too. “Just do it,” Mr. W insisted, “And you can see what it feels like to drive a car with only 4 cylinders.” Does a Prius actually have 4 cylinders? It has pretty decent torque for 4 cylinders, but it doesn’t jump and fly into warp speed the way my IS350 does. I was secretly relieved. I’d have been mad if I could’ve spent $10K+ less on a car that is more fuel efficient (600 miles to the 12-gallon tank) without sacrificing the power. The Prius is perfect for Mr. W, however, because he gets the headroom in the dome-shaped roof of the Autopia-looking car, and crazy gas mileage, and it’s small enough to fit in a garage unlike his last few vehicles when he was in a run of 4 or 5 Toyota Tundra double-cabs, and it’s pretty affordable in the mid-$20K range. Plus it has most of the bells and whistles of a luxury car, i.e. touchscreen navigation system, back-up camera, upgraded speakers and 6-disk CD changer. He doesn’t have my tooshie-toastin heated seats, tho, but that’s okay for him cuz he also doesn’t have to deal with leather, either.
The color is sweet, too!
yeah, it is unusually pretty. I’m gonna see if I can find a picture to post.
Hehe, I should let you feel how it is in my car under full throttle one of these days :).
Oh I’m a sucker for heated seats. It’s a MUST! I’ve been looking at a new car but I’m not sure just yet. I’m glad you got to drive the new ride. I know what you mean about driving other folks vehicles..I’ve only driven Bat’s car once in over a year. SKEERY!!
Yeah, well, she drove it like she stole it. She sure didn’t act skeered.
James – are you threatening me?
Flat Coke – my seats aren’t just heated, but they can be air-conditioned, too! What cars are you considering? I’ll give you a review. 🙂 Or TurboTiger and/or James will. I seem to have a few car buffs reading my blog! Plus I recently looked at the annual Consumer Report guide for cars.
Bat – she probably drove it like that knowing you’d never let her drive it again.
Cindy — Yes, yes I AM 😀
Oooh, your seats are airconditioned too? After having my Nissan 300zx with leather seats and a t-top, I didn’t really enjoy the leather when the weather rose above 90 deg and the car was baking in the sun. Especially when you were wearing shorts.
Plus fabric really grips you better!
The prius is a cool car, for the mileage it gets, it has alot of low end torque. One of the advantages of a electric motor, almost all of it’s torque is available at 0 rpm. Though, acceleration is definitly not as much as a real sports car, but better than a geo metro.
And Cindy, I’ll absolutely scare the crap outta you in my Evo. 🙂
Cindy–James & Turbo–the 2007 Saturn Sky Redline TURBO. Lemme know what you think. I would have to order it and they are saying delivery date of May. The wait time is shorter for the Redline.
TurboTiger – I prefer fabric, too. And yeah, I looked up the Prius specs last nite (Mr. W had NO IDEA! He knew no numbers at all about his car), and the gas engine has 76 horsepower, the electric has 67, the combined hp is 110. I don’t know how they managed to pull 230 torque out of the 67 electrical horsies!
James and TurboTiger – I don’t wanna die! Which is why I trust you won’t bring your threats to life, unless you want pee on your seats.
Flat – Aw, man, the ONE CAR I know nothing about. (Okay, one of many.)
Hey FlatCoke, I saw the saturn sky it looks like a cool car, although I never went for a drive in it before. I’ll have to do a little more reading about it. I saw a few around here before. The first time I saw it the styling was distinctive enough that I went to figure out what it was — I was surprsied to see that it was a saturn!
Cindy – I am very careful when I drive recklessly :). We won’t crash! Now pee on the seats — that would not be good!
Flat – The Saturn Sky Redline Turbo looks to be a cool car. I’ve never seen one close up before. Can’t comment on the build quality both initial and long term, and the turbo charged, intercooled engine is also new. Though the ecotec engine has been around a few years now, and alot of people really seem to like to modify it for racing. But it’s relatively small appearance hides it’s hefty weight. It’s quite heavy for a 2 seater, definitely alot heavier than say a mazda miata, even a turbocharged mazdaspeed miata.
Hopefully they use some better materials in the car, as Saturn’s heavy use of plastic materials never appealed to me in their other cars.
Cindy – I have a strict no peeing policy in my car. You will have to hold it in.