photo credit: blackstarproject.org

I am in the market for a car.  Why?  You know, I’m not quite sure.  But hey, it’s the last thing my mom will do for me before she sends me off to fend for myself.  Of course, I can still bum my living situation off her for the allotted three months before she starts to charge me a minimal rent.  Besides, might as well take advantage of the government’s stimulus plan and save a thousand or so, right?  All of this came up rather randomly and suddenly the first full day I was back.  My mom and I spent the day finding out about getting me a new phone and we decided to drop by the dealers’ strip at night to have a quick browse at what there was.  Sadly, I’m not the most original, so I pretty much just wanted to look at the brands we’ve owned: Toyota and Lexus.

photo credit: vietnamcar.com

Originally my budget was $30,000, but that was dropped down to $20,000 when my mom saw some of the price tags for the cars on the lots.  After a bit more searching, she settled to something more like $23,000, which should get me a decent set of brand new wheels.  I think I can probably stretch that a little if I need, though hopefully I won’t.  I checked out Toyota, Hyundai, and Nissan and try as I might, I still find the Camry the nicest-looking.  And yes, I do not want to buy a car unless I think it looks nice.  Most have short, stubby trunks that I find utterly unattractive and others just have the wrong shape in general.  I liked the features of the Altima but I just didn’t like how it looks from the front.  After some pondering, my mom decided that what I need is a mid-size sedan.  I don’t really know what the difference between that and a full size is, but hey, sounds about right!

photo credit: thedailygreen.com

I went home and did some research and suddenly it dawned upon me: why am I not looking at hybrids?!  So of course, the first thing I did was only consider the hybrids on the market.  Lucky me, there aren’t too many out there that are mid-size sedans, so it makes choosing easier.  I really just want the Camry, but the Prius has such cool features and the Altima is slightly cheaper and has sliiightly better MPG.  Sadly, I find the Prius ugly and I don’t know if I could bear to own the thing.  I guess a test drive can help me decide.  As for the Altima, though it’s the safest car on the road, I don’t know if the price and MPG differences are big enough to change my mind.  In the end, I’ve come full circle and still got my eye on a Camry Hybrid.

However, I want to go to the dealer’s and ask about all the things that the Prius has and what the Camry can have too.  Usually I’m all about functionality over aesthetics, but for some reason with cars, that’s not so much the case.  I’ll also need to take them both out for a spin.  I’ve heard that the Prius has a “Prius blind spot” and if that bothers me, there’s no way I’m getting it.  The solar panel cooling system and parking assistance sounds so awesome though!  I hope they have that type of technology for the Camry as well.  I wish the Camry’s MPG was better though – only 33 MPG to the Prius’s 50!  How does the Prius get away with being so much cheaper when it has better technology?!  I just don’t understand cars.  All I know is that I’ll probably stay brand loyal for the rest of my life, thanks to the choices that my dad made in my youth.

[You know what I just realized?  Camry = C + mary!  Yeah, this is what happens when I mistype something… amazing discoveries occur.  :-P]