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On my Top Ten list of all-time favorite things, cars fall somewhere between Penelope Cruz and cookie dough.

But I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed with cars. I can’t drive a stick shift and my repair expertise is limited to changing oil — messily, at that. As much as I enjoy cruising around in my beloved Mustang, I still feel oddly inferior to the Priuses and Focuses (Foci?) I pass. Sure, my car is sexier, but those consume far less fuel and have less of a negative impact on the environment.

Al Gore would be proud. Honestly, I’m a little jealous.

Car nuts everywhere collectively drooled when General Motors unveiled the Chevrolet Camaro concept car back in 2006, then decided to make the Camaro available to the public in 2009.
The joy continued when Dodge brought out its retro-styled Challenger and announced it would be on sale this spring.

Even a loyal Ford guy like me couldn’t help but notice how sharp the Camaro and Challenger looked, and the thought of trading my Mustang for one of them has crossed my mind more than once. The Camaro concept was so popular, it was even used in the Transformers movie last summer as Bumblebee — who was a Volkswagen Beetle when I was a kid.

As awesome as the new Camaro is, I would venture to guess it’s quite thirsty for fuel. Any car with a 6.0-liter V8 engine pumping out at least 400 horsepower has to suck down some serious gas. Chevrolet hasn’t officially released the data on the Camaro’s fuel consumption, but I’m guessing it has to average somewhere in the 15 to 20 miles per gallon range.

According to www.fueleconomy.gov, the Challenger guzzles an average of 16 miles per gallon, about the same as a Ford Explorer. Though my V6 Mustang is nowhere near the Camaro or the Challenger in terms of performance, it manages a pretty decent average of 19 mpg, the same as a 2008 Corvette Z06, Chevrolet’s very own world class sports car. The Toyota Prius and Ford Focus, by the way, average 46 and 28 mpg, respectively.

I drove a friend’s Prius recently and was surprised by how quiet — and fast — it was. It actually accelerated quicker than my car, while still being more than twice as efficient as the Mustang. I doubt the Prius would win any races against most cars on the road, but it gets you from point A to point B rather comfortably, which is really all the average driver needs.

With all the talk about global warming and America’s dependence on foreign oil, carmakers continue to churn out vehicles that have a ridiculous appetite for gas. Yet cars keep coming off the assembly line that can’t manage even 20 miles per gallon and there’s no end in sight to their popularity.

Americans have always been in love with their cars, but do we really need them to go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in less than 5 seconds? Do drivers really need 500 horsepower? I can’t recall a time in over a decade of driving when having near-NASCAR power under my hood would have come in handy.

So, take heart, economy car drivers. While you may not own the sexiest car on the road, you can rest easy at night knowing you’re doing your part to cut back on emissions.

I doubt we’ll see James Bond trade in his Aston Martin for a hybrid, but maybe in the Transformers sequel, Bumblebee will be a Prius.
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Andy Comer is a copy editor for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4469.

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