Had a spontaneous sprint with no less than an AMG c63 this evening-a dash to the merge. I was surprised by his bleating exhaust and took off in 2nd to 1st downshift. Not sure if he was on it all the way once he got the jump but what a tune from his pipes. at 60 he was 2-3 lengths ahead, one of them attributed to his jump-not bad for 457hp to 267...and I still get 21-22 mpgs to his 14.

 

Why not just let them go? It is only necessary to contest a merge when two cars are literally side-by-side, and the other driver is blithely unaware. When he is even slightly ahead, you can safely just let him go. After you get used to doing it that way, you can avoid a lot of aggravation.

 

Uh, because it harkens back to my adolescence? And at the same light tonight I had a CRV take me on-at least she smelled hybrid dust.

 

I enjoy the power of the HAH too. I think that it's OK to have some fun, if I were a hyper-miler I would have gotten the Prius or Civic instead. I wanted a BMW and my wife wanted a Prius, so we 'compromised' on the HAH instead. I would definitely buy this car again, and it's really fun to run it at the maximum blue bar boost range.

A while back I shadowed a BMW M3 up one of the mountain grades around here, and I think that he was surprised that I could hang with him. Until the hybrid battery ran down that is, and then it was like my bottle of nitrous oxide had run out. At that point I was just driving a plain vanilla Accord V6.

 

I had my bimmer when I was young, about 25-20 years ago. It wanted $2000 in unscheduled repairs, at least twice a year, the whole time I owned it. (That was a lot of money back then, and the warranty was worthless.) Several of my friends now have Mercedes convertibles. I can't blame them. Nice cars. They do still seem to need repairs frequently, though my friends tell me the warranty actually covers them.

Living in urban South Florida, where almost all the roads are perfectly straight, and there always seems to be a car in front of you, I decided about 20 years ago that it really didn't make sense for me to drive a German car. You can't actually "drive" them on these roads, anyway. I would rather drive a reliable car that is not likely to be stolen.

Maybe I just haven't had my mid-life crisis yet.

 

I had BMW 2002's (the model, not the year) for almost 30 years. My last one was a somewhat rare '73 2002 tii, a mechanically fuel injected 150 hp car from the most desireable nine month period before the emission standards choked them down in 1974. What a great car to drive in the mountains around here!

I guess that's why I enjoy the HAH so much, it is a very capable replacement for my old BMW's. I just coudn't justify the $20,000+ cost to restore a car with 327,000 miles on it, although if I had the $ I would have gladly done it!