V8 or Prius

[CSP]

From: Beat the fuel blues with a V8 | The Daily Telegraph

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Beat the fuel blues with a V8
Article from: The Daily Telegraph

By Tim Blair

July 12, 2008 12:00am
LET'S say you're among the one million or so Australians who'll buy a new car this year.

With the cost of living and fuel prices, economy will be a major concern.

But you also need something big enough to haul the spouse, kids and - if you live out Gosford way - unlicensed NSW Education Minister John Della Bosca, should he flag you down on the way home from another action-packed night on the town.

Assume you've got 40 grand to play with, including trade-in dough.

Also assume your spouse at one time suffered a serious head injury, so he/she has lately been into you about the environment.

He/she rates windchimes as a more useful invention than the internal combustion engine. He/she should take a good look at him/herself.

Your entanglement with this person may lead you towards a Toyota dealership to test a petrol/electric hybrid Prius.

Now, the Prius is plenty roomy inside. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd chose a Prius as his government car, so the compact Toyota is clearly big enough to sleep in.

And very economical! According to official figures, a Prius only drinks 4.4 litres per 100km. That's less than would be consumed by a Dubbo rugby league team on an end-of-season trip to Coffs Harbour.

But before you slam down 40 large on a Prius, do your sums.

Money is tight in 2008. Can you afford to blow all your cash on a $40,000 Gaia-powered oestrogen wagon?

Is earning street cred from people who think cars should be illegal anyway really worth such a massive investment?

Shouldn't that spouse of yours be outside cleaning the yard instead of downloading the Garnaut Report?

So pause a while. Examine all your motoring options.

Compare prices for new and used vehicles. Analyse fuel prices. Scan every available chunk of econometric data you can possibly access. Once you do, you'll discover this:

The only rational choice for the budget-conscious motorist is a gigantic V8.

The Daily Telegraph recently ran a story on local car dealers who are struggling to sell big V8-engined cars.

One dealer, Allan Homsi of Everlast Autos, had a sweet 5.7-litre V8 Commodore SS on his lot for sale at just $9990.

That's about six grand below market valuation.

I called Allan this week. He'd subsequently sold the well-maintained 2000 Holden, but only after slashing another thousand off the advertised price.

Someone in Sydney is rumbling around in a rockin'-hot V8 sold new for around $45,000 and bought just eight years later with loose change.

Let's say - it's a big assumption, but stay with me - that this canny buyer was in our category of potential Prius purchasers.

By opting for the unwanted V8, he saved about $31,000 off the list price of a new hybrid.

At current pump prices, that means he's got enough left in the bank to buy 19,375 litres of petrol _ sufficient to propel that Commodore for 161,458km, given its estimated 12l/100k fuelconsumption.
Australian motor vehicles are driven an average 14,600km per year, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The Commodore buyer has saved enough on purchase price alone compared to the Prius to cover - get this - 11 years of driving.

Moreover, he's covered those 11 years while owning something that doesn't scream "gender reassignment surgery'' every time he rolls down the street.

Now let's look at this fellow's neighbour, who we'll assume votes Green and doesn't own a calculator.

He bought a Prius. Covering the same distance annually, he'll have to drive that thing for about 25 miserable hybrid years before he sees an economic advantage over the V8 owner.

It'll be 2032 - deep into Prime Minister Rudd's ninth term - by the time Mr Prius is in front.

If the PM truly cared about the national economy, he'd have all his ministers stomping about in big-arse second-hand Holdens.

Obviously, you don't have to use all your V8 savings on petrol.

You could spend some of it on a massive plasma screen TV to keep that yappy spouse quiet while you ponder the other benefits of cheap V8 ownership:

You save thousands while laughing in the face of bossy old hag Mother Earth. Win/win!

Instead of killing Michael Stipe - almost run over by a silent hybrid while crossing a Los Angeles street in 2004 - your rumbling V8 will alert the enigmatic REM lead singer to the presence of traffic, thus allowing the planet to enjoy his band's latest album Accelerate.

Which I'm told is excellent.

Hybrids are notoriously complicated and difficult to repair. By contrast, all you ever need to fix a V8 is a hammer, some wire and maybe a lump of wood.

Some V8s appreciate. Last year a 1971 Ford Falcon GTHO Phase III sold for $750,000. Economy cars rarely increase in value.

An eight-year-old V8 is much cheaper to insure than an expensive Tsutsumi voltbox. More savings.
When time comes to send your simple V8 to the wrecker, you won't need a team of trained experts wearing HAZMAT outfits to deal with various chemicals, toxins, exotic metals and other mutant-creating battery poisons.

Frenchman Leon Levavasseur took out a patent on the V8 engine in 1902. He lived for 59 years _ not bad for his era.

This week it was reported that a Japanese engineer designing a hybrid Toyota Camry died at just 45 from stress.

Don't join him.

Buy a V8.

Cooling on global warming

SCIENCE denial, one of my favourite hobbies, is catching on all over the place.

We long-term denialists welcome all newcomers and remind them to learn the secret handshake before next week's meeting.

A fellow long-termer, Michael Costa, was criticised this week by national warmenist-in-chief Ross Garnaut.

"The NSW Treasurer is a well-known denier of the science,'' Garnaut said.

According to Professor Garnaut: "The non-scientist has no rational alternative but to take the majority of science seriously.''

It must have stung when the next person on board the denial bandwagon was PM Kevin Rudd.

"If we do not begin reducing carbon pollution,'' Rudd wrote in The Australian, "Australia's economy will face more frequent and severe droughts, less water, reduced food production and devastation of areas such as the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu wetlands.''

This is a more dramatic denial than most hardcore deniers will ever manage.

Even if you accept the whole CO2-is-heating-the-planet idea, Australia simply doesn't produce enough of the stuff to alter food supplies or destroy wetlands.

We all wish it were so, but wishing won't make it happen.

Actually, it's not the deniers we should be worrying about. It's the believers.

British surveys have found that little kids are losing sleep over global warming. A US report mentions children terrified of their towns being flooded.

And in Melbourne, we have a 17-year-old referred to a psychiatric unit with what Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry described as a severe case of climate change delusion.

"The patient had developed the belief that, due to climate change, his own water consumption could lead within days to the deaths of`millions of people' through exhaustion of water supplies,'' the journal reported.

"He was unable to acknowledge that the belief was unreasonable when challenged.''

There's a lot of that getting around. No word yet on whether the boy was cured or is now working for the ABC.

[Julie]

hahahaha I love it!

[Astranomical]

Was Clarkson involved in this by any chance?

Either way, very interesting reading. VTII/VX SS or Prius...I know what I'd prefer, and it definitely ain't the Prius!

[Emackulation]

V8's ftw! yak yak yakk

[TVR-190]

id go out and buy a chevy suburban diesel and park it outside greenpeace headquarters.

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

Not to mention that to make a Prius, more carbon is produced, more unrenewable resources are used and it costs more to maintain than your average V8 family car.

[BullittSV6]

My new favourite thread. All of a sudden I don't feel so bad for craving a V8. cheers CSP!

[CANYONERO]

i like the points it makes, good stuff!

[feistl]

Im going to buy the prius, attach a bull bar and run down the greenies.

In all seriousness though, dont buy a VX SS. Anyone who has one should sell it now cheaply as they are terrible cars.





Im in the market for one

[VT97CALAIS]

Mate I love that story well done on posting it here
top stuff, I hate those friggin hybrid Prius / Honda piece of sh1ts !!!!
Also those so called Smart cars, how safe would those be in a high speed crash?
Hopeless peoples!

Cheers,
VT97Calais

[Grennan]

Moreover, he's covered those 11 years while owning something that doesn't scream "gender reassignment surgery'' every time he rolls down the street.

Brilliant article, just brilliant. Top find CSP, top find indeed.

Lets await comsirac's reply shall we

[feistl]

Ive been in a few arguments with Prius owners. Its always fun right at the end after you've proved how inefficient they are, they start getting annoyed and childish... To which my final response is...

"Fine, for every 1L of fuel you save, im gonna burn 3. In fact, im gonna go start my car now".

I then leave my car running in the driveway for the rest of teh party/night etc.

Drives em nuts.

[Astranomical]

id go out and buy a chevy suburban diesel and park it outside greenpeace headquarters.

Nah, screw that - get a Hummer!

[CSP]

Lets await comsirac's reply shall we

Im hanging for comsirac's reply! Cant wait!

[Julie]

Im hanging for comsirac's reply! Cant wait!

probably doing a google search right now for some unemployed hippy bum bloggers account of the article

[commsirac]

[QUOTE=Cousin Slow Poke;822242]From: Beat the fuel blues with a V8 | The Daily Telegraph

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Hybrids are notoriously complicated and difficult to repair. By contrast, all you ever need to fix a V8 is a hammer, some wire and maybe a lump of wood.

.[/I][/QUOT

That is funny, so you can fix a 6L v8 that wont go with a computer fault with some wire and a lump of wood.

Cmon guys, the article was written especially for dimwitted petrol heads who want to think they are doing the world a favour by driving a v8

Yeh I agree, Prius isnt the answer.
Would have been good if the just did the comparison with just the non hybrid form of the prius(petrol only), whatever that is, and a 6L v8.

[stocky]

[QUOTE=commsirac;822326]

From: Beat the fuel blues with a V8 | The Daily Telegraph

_________________
Hybrids are notoriously complicated and difficult to repair. By contrast, all you ever need to fix a V8 is a hammer, some wire and maybe a lump of wood.

.[/I][/QUOT

That is funny, so you can fix a 6L v8 that wont go with a computer fault with some wire and a lump of wood.

Cmon guys, the article was written especially for dimwitted petrol heads who want to think they are doing the world a favour by driving a v8

Yeh I agree, Prius isnt the answer.
Would have been good if the just did the comparison with just the non hybrid form of the prius(petrol only), whatever that is, and a 6L v8.

yes....with wire as it said. plugged into a computer to fix it

[accentstencil]

I think the Prius is a great little car for some people. I much prefer my V8, but my daughter had a Prius which I drove several times and I found it to be a fantastic little car. I was getting like 4.5lt/100k and although it was no rocket it certainly didn't hold up traffic. Contrary to popular belief, you do not plug them in to charge over night, they charge themselves whist driving, even braking charges the battery. The only drawback is the cost of a new battery should you need one, around $5000 I believe.
I won't be buying one but for some people they would be perfect.

[TVR-190]

prius is good depending on your driving style, city, im sure its a good car, highway and faster speeds its useless and inefficient

[BANKS]

I want everyone that owns a prius to watch this video, then go out and by a blown bigblock V8 so i can laugh at you for owning such a stupid "evironmental saving car"

Top Gear Supercar Fuel Economy Comparison Test

[CSP]

Top Gear got better fuel efficiency out of a new BMW M3 than they did from a new Toyota Prius.

YouTube - Top Gear Toyota Prius Vs Bmw M3 Fuel

Its more about how you drive a car than the car itself.

[azkwazere]

great, im proud of you all now that you feel better about yourselves and your big tough engines. Good job.

aZk.

[Jo3_Blo]

Lol, love the article! I didn't realise a prius was so expensive! What a rip off!!! They should be 25000 or something, affordable and realistic compared with other cars. Ridiculous. I thought they were an okay car, but no way would I pay so much for one.

and as for the video above^
Like he says, its not what you drive, but how you drive. While a big V8 might be a lot more efficient at high speeds and stuff, its bound to be more efficient, as that's what it is deisgned for, it is a much bigger motor and dosn't need to work hard.

Whereas the hybrid, isn't designed for that.....

Get what I mean?

But yeah, Its great how V8 prices have come down heaps! even VS V8 statos used to be 10 grand +, now I just seen a lot in the trading post for 4 grand!!!! AWESOME!!!

But the old classics V8s, like your chevs, old fords even your old holdens (one tonners, monaros all that) will hold their price and in years to come, increase. Just read the editors article in Street Machine this month.

[Grennan]

Yeah i cant wait till i buy my Clubby in February for my birthday. Ive estimated itll cost around 13grand, thats gonna come down a bit in 6 months i imagine. More for mods.

[minux]

Awesome article.