Robert B

I like it when folks make mistakes. Environmentalist can suck on this!

1983 Porsche 928 S.. V8. 4.5 litre. 170MPG/ 100k miles. Immac! - $5950 (Bloomington)

http://bloomington.craigslist.org/ctd/1746705257.html

kccampro

Yup, I remember that model... it could go 170 miles running on: 1 gallon of gas, a few basil leaves and 5 diced kittens. Unfortunately it never caught on in the states, great car though.

soontobered84

I love it when I'm cruising aound 70-80 and a Prius passes me. I just always think, " Here I am in a vehicle designed to drive this speed in luxury and comfort and getting around 21+mpg, and here are these 'environmentalists' driving in a POS car designed to go 45-50 and I just KNOW they are getting worse mpg than me." Just makes me smile every single time.

pcar928fan

Another odd car w/ the S front spoilers but no S rear spoilers...

Jerry Feather

I'll bet the compression ratio is really high. I raised the compression in one of my 356's to about 9.5 to 1 and it would get 35 MPG with a little tail wind.

Nicole

I don't quite understand the hostility towards the Prius. It's just another vehicle built for a specific purpose - in this case for minimal fuel consumption, while the 928 is built as a fast Autobahn cruiser. In fact, I find it technically interesting - to get the gas engine and e-motor to work together in harmony is not so easy to do; otherwise their competitors would have imitated it more quickly.

Granted, I'm a fan of turbodiesels, which are a lot of fun and very economic, too. But they are also complex machines.

I rented a Prius for a week to see, if it's really as bad as everybody says (it was not), and at the end of the week I put $10 in gas into the tank. Can't complain about that.

It has superb aerodynamics for its class, has room for four people, a nice trunk and a flexible interior (fold down rear seats). It isn't fast, but with the combination of gas engine and e-motor, it's not totally sluggish, either.

For a daily driver to get me from A to B, it would be totally adequate.

Hilton

Nicole, the hostility is due in part to the people who buy Prius' for the wrong application.

For a city runabout at low speeds in heavy traffic, they're great, especially now they can be plugged in.

However, people who buy them as a fashion statement, drive on the freeway at 70mph, and then bitch about the ecological insensitivity of others are just idiots.

See the Topgear test comparing fuel consumption of a Prius versus a BMW M3 at 70mph

Or indeed, any number of magazine comparisons from Europe comparing hatchback economy (usual winners are the small French/German diesel engined hatchbacks with over 50mpg).

taffelman

The Prius... what a hype...

Almost every European car manufacturer makes normal turbo diesels that can match and usually beat the Prius in every way including consumption. The Prius looks good "on paper" but the official Toyota figures are not repeatable in real life. In real life tests the new turbo diesels beat it even on CO emission.

My Daily driver is a BMW diesel with M-sport suspension and 255 mm wide 18 inch rear tires, and it easily makes 50 mpg (4.7 l/100km) on weekend trips with two people and luggage in the car (following speed limits with cruise control). At DD duty it average around 43-45 mpg and I really have to drive like an idiot to average a tank to less than 40 mpg (6.0 l/100km)

IMHO the Prius is a bad concept thats been hyped way too far by the "environmentalists"... and it's dangerous! not because of the media hyped accelerator faults, but because of it's lousy handling.

S4ordie

Unfortunately we don't get the good TD's here in the same configurations as the UK and Europe. The ones we do get are on mostly high end cars. Hopefully this will change over time. I had a very nice 2007 MBZ E320 Bluetech that just tickled me everytime I turned the key. It was a perfect torque monster on the interstate and I often averaged 38mpg on the highway. Loved the car but replaced it with a Honda Civic Hybrid when we moved to Hawaii which we have carried across the Pacific back to San Francisco California. I drove it to Los Angeles and back and averaged 46 mpg over two tankfuls. Impressive and a whole lot less expensive than any BMW, Audi, VW, MBZ TD offerings.

I'm with Nicole on the hybrids. Purpose built car that does a pretty good job. I have vices in my other transportation

Nicole

The only turbodiesel that compares to the Prius and that we can get here in CA is the VW Golf TDI.

It's a great car - fun to drive, available with the great double-clutch transmission, but not much cheaper than the Prius. It's not available with automatic climate control. I don't think you can even get leather seats in it. It can't match the Prius' aerodynamics, though.

You have to make some compromise with either of these fuel sippers.

Calgary Ole

I had a car take me from Milan to Como. It was a 5 series BMW diesel. The young lady in 5 inch heels hit about 150 miles an hour..in a diesel!

Nicole

^^^ So?

Actually, there are many turbo diesels nowadays that hit the voluntary 250 km/h (155 mph) limit set by the manufacturers.

Mercedes S-Class, BMW 7, Audi A8 are all limited that way. But they get 30-40 mpg... try that with any gasoline powered model!

Nicole

I have never gotten more than 23 mpg out of my 928 - no matter how I drove it.

I have a hard time believing that a Prius will ever use that much gas, under any driving conditions.

taffelman

Take a look Nicole

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKTOyiKLARk

I'll try to explain the diesel hype

Over 70% of all new sold cars are diesels here in Norway and the European average is about 50%, so you can get every spec and opton with a diesel engine. They used to cost more than petrol versions but recently the car tax has been switched even more toward CO emission, so the car manufacturers started to make all the eco friendly small displacement turbo diesels (1.6 to 2 liter engines) and have added "start/stop" systems, alternator disconnection while accelerating, aero package, etc... all to take advantage of the lighter tax on low CO emission cars. So these days the cheapest versions are the "high tech" turbo diesels with painted spoiler kits instead of the entry level petrol versions with matte black bumpers

For a daily driver a diesel is the only sane option here. In the second hand market the petrol versions are very though to sell, so diesels have better resale value, twice as good fuel economy, 10% cheaper fuel and refined diesel engines with much less noise and vibration than before, and with much better torque between 1500 - 3500 rpm than the petrol versions. BTW: VW diesels are known for being some of the most noisy.

Nicole

^^^ All true. No dispute about the turbo diesels. I'm a fan!

The Prius is purpose built for low fuel consumption (gasoline). That's its strength. It always takes a lot of extra effort introducing and producing a new technology. Also, I find that usually, when people make such calculations they leave out the cost of transportation of the oil to the pump.

The point is: The Prius has a purpose just as the 928. Both are frequently misunderstood.