Unhappy Hipsters Auto Showroom

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Readers - Help Me Pick A New Ride

The Skeptimist is due for a new ride, given that I've had the old Jeep Liberty for over six years. Heck, it's been paid off for almost 18 months. How un-American of me.

The dad-gum economy needs some stimulatin'.

But I'm torn between living la vida loca and getting what I want, and being sensible knowing that gas is headed back above $3 a gallon and I'd like to reserve some pocket change to be able to live it up once in awhile.

On the footloose side, I'm looking at an Infiniti G37x, a Cadillac CTS, or a Mercedes C Class AWD.

The practical me is thinking Ford Fusion or Escape, or maybe a Lexus IS 250 AWD.

I get about 17 mpg combined in the Jeep, using unleaded, and I'd like to improve on that. Seems silly to buy a vehicle that's not above 20 mpg, and that rules out quite a few on the old wish-list.

So, Gecko faithful, what recommendations do you have for me? Something sporty and with a modicum of power, AWD a plus, but also not a gasoline slurper.

Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Death of a Car Salesman

Much as Willy Loman suffered the tragedies associated with the downfall of the common man in the Arthur Miller play, the car salesman of today, once the huckster of a dream on four wheels, glances around the showroom and asks where it all went wrong.

Rich Cohen pens a wistful, melancholy history of the car, and wonders if we've come to the end of the road:

When I decided to write a story about the salesmen of cars, used and new, it was because I believed the car salesman to be a preacher in the church of the American dream. What is a car salesman if not a cleric who, like a minister or rabbi, sells the vision and moves the product? I believed such a story would be funny, as I would cram it with all the dealership stories I have accumulated in my life of buying and selling and being angry about cars. But as I went along, visiting dealerships, reading articles and books, then watching congressional hearings, the world changed. First gas prices went up, then credit disappeared, then the economy collapsed. (It went down like a camel goes down—first the front, then the ass.) The auto dealerships were hit early and hard. As the papers filled with stories about an industry on the edge of collapse, the salesman suddenly seemed less like a hateful hawker of false promises than like a sad relic. This American character, no less archetypal than the logger or trapper, was dying. (There is blood on the showroom floor!) The cowboy circa 1910, at the closing of the frontier. I went out like Rickels, full of put-downs and zingers, but came back like Cormac McCarthy, a disillusioned man trying to capture an American type as it fades into oblivion. 

It's a sad tale, but one that is worthy of your time.

Link, via The Daily Dish

Image by an0noym0us via flickr

Is the Chevy Volt for Idiots?

There's been quite a kerfuffle made over comments concerning the upcoming Chevy Volt as made by Audi of America President Johan de Nysschen in a recent interview:

Adding that they're too expensive and, "No one is going to pay a $15,000 premium for a car that competes with a (Toyota) Corolla. So there are not enough idiots who will buy it." He predicted that the Volt will fall flat, which will cause the federal government to step in and subsidize the Volt in order to save face and boost sales.

With its $40,000 price tag, the electric-with-a-gasoline-mileage-extended-engine Volt might get up to 230 miles per gallon, but tops out at 40 miles on a single electric charge alone. That's a pretty steep price, unless gasoline prices return to the $4 per gallon range in 2010.

I certainly hope that the Volt succeeds, but I can think of about fifty cars, and 20 hybrid models, that I could purchase for under $40K. And I certainly hope that the Obama administration does not get placed in a position where it needs to step in and subsidize the Volt. I can hear the right-wing shrieking already.

Image via Wikimedia Commons