Case in point: these two wagons were for sale locally, for relatively low prices. When compared to the original prices, the BMW was an incredible steal. However, the BMW will end up costing way more than the Ford, in practically every way you can imagine. (Trust me on this; I had an old BMW for a few years.)

But every single minute behind the wheel of the 528 (when it is running OK, that is) will be way more enjoyable than every minute behind the wheel of the Escort.

You must pick your poison.

(And I dream of poison. When I saw that BMW, I thought a little too long on how fun it would be to have it. Alas, we will continue to drive one of the most boring — and practical — cars on the planet, the Toyota Corolla.)

The rental car was a Dodge Avenger — a “mid-sized” American sedan — pretty generic. The quality was not bad. There were a few details that didn’t quite measure up. One was the ensemble of gauges. (If you click on the image, you can see more detail.) Sitting straight-ahead, the left edge of the tachometer was not visible. And the typeface for the speedometer was a really poor choice.

A very fun aspect to the rental car experience was the surprise that awaited me when I loaded up a CD... there was already a CD in the player. So I pushed it back in. Cheezy, syrupy Chinese pop music filled the car.

Just before returning the car, I faced a dilemma. I had forgotten to take a photo of the CD to share with you. So would I leave the CD in there as a surprise for the next renter who would try to listen to a CD? Or should I bring it home so I could take a photo? Alas, passing on the blessing to the next renter went by the wayside. So I’m passing on the blessing to you (minus the audio portion).

I love writing letters to the editor. This is my 15th or 16th letter to get published in a national or international magazine. I get a buzz out of seeing my name in print. Egotistical? Maybe. (Forgive me for that, if it’s true.)

Roughly the same amount of time it would take for you to comment on a blog post — and have 21 people see it — can yield a few more views, if your thoughts are published in a magazine. Print may be dying, but there is still a good number of people who read printed magazines. Obviously, I’m one.

If you’d like to read more of the dead Volvo story, it’s in my previous blog.

And here’s Ezra’s column. The December Automobile Letters to the Editor section had more letters about that column than I’ve ever seen focusing on any article or column before.

AAA now has trucks devoted to charging stranded electric cars in six different US cities. At the moment, that would only be two vehicles — the Nissan Leaf and the Mistubishi i. And there are maybe 25 actual cars floating around the US. So it’s a near-future-oriented program.

Anyhow, I was amused at the thought of a relatively low fuel economy truck being driven across town to charge up an “ultra-green” car. It kind of defeats the purpose.

Another strange thing is that the trucks charge up the cars to travel another 3–15 miles ... to “reach a charging station.” Good luck finding a charging station. You might know that most fully-electric cars take about 24 hours to charge from a regular household circuit. (A devoted 240– or 480-volt outlet drops the full charge time down to 3–6 hours.)

My constructive suggestion? Use a much cheaper tow truck and tow the car to the owner’s home. Or an office or store that has an electric extension cord.

Electric cars aren’t ready for prime time. Yet.

The Corsa (shown) is a great little car. Our family of five did a day trip of 160 kilometers (100 miles) across Belgium and Holland without any problem, in spite of the relatively small size. The feeling of quality was evident in all the controls, how solidly the doors shut and in my general perception of the components being substantial.

The Corsa/Sonic handles well. It was quite comparable to the Ford Fiesta I drove a few days before driving the Corsa.

Sadly, the Sonic has an ugly front end, but it’s still a good car — far better than the Aveo, which it replaces in the Chevrolet line-up. The Aveo was based on a relatively cheap quality Suzuki.

A huge difference between the car you can buy in Europe and the USA model is more than cosmetic — the European models can be bought with diesel engines. In the 1.3 liter model we rented, I recorded about 43 miles per gallon. According to Opel’s website,* the gas (petrol) model gets about 23% less fuel economy. (And the Sonic will get even less fuel economy than the European gas model.)

I found the power from the small turbodiesel to be more than adequate. We’re not talking sports car territory, but it had more power than our Toyota Corolla, which has an engine that is almost 1.5 times bigger than the Corsa’s.

I’m just sad that American cars don’t get such great small engines — when they are already being made and sold in the rest of the world.

And finally, here is a great article on why America just doesn’t get diesel cars, from Automobile Magazine. (It’s a PDF. And copyright pardons, please. And forgive the poor quality of the scan; I spilled water on the page.)

* Note that this link is to the Vauxhall Corsa, England’s version of the Opel Corsa.

Tesla

Boulder has had a showroom for a while, but Denver recently got one — in a mall! (Funny enough, the Boulder store is now missing from their dealership listings page.)

The store is small. Just two cars are on the floor. But at $140,000 each, I’m not surprised.

The Roadster is the only model currently available. It’s basically a Lotus Elise at more than double the price. That’s a lot of saving the whales you can do for the difference.

A reflection of how hard this vehicle is to categorize is that Car & Driver magazine and Automobile magazine both gave it really unusual reviews. One was an epic poem — “The Oddity”. The other was a Q & A, in which the reviewers asked, “Does it do this well?” for 4 different categories, and the answer in every case was: “No.”

(My apologies if you just bought one. And also, please know that I have nothing against the regular Murano.)

The photo came from Car & Driver magazine.

They tried. America just wasn’t ready for a car that was much smaller than a Toyota Prius but did not get as much fuel economy.

I was sad. It’s a fun car. I would never buy one, but the idea that someone could was a good thing.

So as I rode my bicycle past this 40 year old pickup, I remembered that the original owner loved it the day he drove it off the Chevrolet dealer’s parking lot. He had a great time taking his wife or best friend for a ride. He waxed the red paint with great care a few months later. He spent more at the car wash each month than his friends spent on their kids’ birthdays.

And now it’s sitting in a parking lot, having not been driven for at least 15 years. Sad.

So the internet is even creeping into your future car’s transmission!

I do not say this in an alarmist manner. Rather, I see it as an exciting thing. This is technology being used well.

I think it’s even cooler when technology like that is used to bring clean water to people who might otherwise die. A friend of a friend, Erik Hersman, is doing stuff like that for Africa.

(By the way, I do have a big brother, in real life. He’s great. And by the way, this version of the A6 will hit US showrooms late in the summer of 2011. Stand in line now... just kidding.)