Sadly, this quote and its attribution are very, very true. Quick confession about me and cars. When I was a little kid, I loved Hot Wheels and Matchbox toy cars like all my age in the Seventies. I wanted a Formula One driver. I thought racing, even stock cars, was awesome. Pretty standard American boy. I’m confident if Cars (one of Pixar’s worst movies) came out in 1976, I would’ve been over the moon.
Then gas prices shot up around 1978-79.
I oddly became more practical regarding cars. I kid you not. I remember showing my parents a VW print ad, urging them to consider buying a Rabbit because it got close to 50 miles per gallon on the highway. Dad quickly deflated my “research” by explaining how the Rabbit was too small for our needs, used diesel fuel (not easily available in the Midwest then) and utilized a stick shift, something Mom was uncomfortable driving. However, my preference for good mileage stuck. It didn’t mean was opposed to owning a bitchin’ European sports car…until I got to college.
So you could say the Prius is my achievable dream come true in the car section with the scorecard of lifetime goals. Maybe Teslas and their cousins will come down to affordable levels before I die but they’re not any good on the highway trips between here and Big D or Houston. I’m in the camp promoting hydrogen.