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Greenie spendthrifts wanted: A heavier, slower Civic with a smaller trunk. Oh, yeah, and it costs 50 percent more.
Never mind that we in Michigan are just emerging from our igloos after a long cold winter. The world is heating up, the ice caps are melting, and when that melt is complete, we’ll all be living high in the mountains in houses on stilts to stay dry. Forty days and 40 nights the waters will rage, and when the ice caps refreeze, we’ll all be fighting over who called first dibs on those last two pigs for our celebratory barbecues, since the unicorns were already eaten by sharks.
There are people who would argue that that sinister little creation, the automobile, is responsible for it all. We blame Al Gore, China, sweatshops, and greenie celebrities who flit about in private jets. Those who want to make a difference drive hybrids, while those who researched their decision drive diesels. Those who are truly enlightened and want to make a difference, however, seek something higher, lighter, more ethereal. They find natural gas.
For the most part, the hunt is conducted outside of new-car showrooms, although the game is no longer found in the back-yard sheds of neighborhood madmen or the workshops of “some guy my uncle’s caterer’s yoga instructor knows,” but in experienced shops that sometimes charge twice the list price of the customer’s 1989 Toyota Corolla to convert it to natural-gas propulsion.
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