Bucking the trend

According to a couple of articles I came across, I do not fit the stereotype of a conservative.  At least not the stereotype that liberals envision when they think of conservatives.

The articles dealt with how choice of vehicle indicates political leanings.  Drive a small, fuel-efficient car, you're probably a tree-hugging liberal living in a cramped studio apartment in an urban center.  Drive an SUV, you obviously don't give a shit about the environment, you hateful urban-sprawl-promoting suburban redneck!

Well, wrong on both counts.

I have two cars.  One is a sports coupe.  The other is an entry-level SUV.

I've had the sports coupe for a few (12) years now.  It suited my purposes when I first got out of college.  I needed something to get me from point A to point B without burning a ton of fuel to get there.  I needed only to move my person back and forth to work.  Don't get me wrong.  I still wanted something a little fun.  Something with enough power and handling to extricate me from a potentially life-threatening situation.  Still, it gets 25/29 city/highway mpg.

A few years later, I decided to spin out on black ice in an intersection and put it into a snowbank.  I extricated it without too much difficulty, but I realized I wanted something a little better suited to traveling on icy roads.  Something will all-weather tires.  Something a little more grown up.

In the midst of high gas prices, I exploited the laws of supply and demand and purchased an SUV.  An entry-level SUV that didn't perform too badly on fuel economy: 21/25 mpg.  I didn't get an SUV because I enjoy burning fossil fuels.  Quite the opposite.  Burning that fuel quicker means I have to replenish it more frequently.  And that costs me money.  But when you can grab a load of lumber for a landscaping project, pick up a new office chair, and stop at the grocery store on the way home, it means you'll use less gas than a similar two or three trips in the sports coupe.

Fuel efficiency is important to me, but cargo capacity has become more important as I've aged.  And during a recent move, towing capacity showed its value as a potential time- and money-saver.  Exactly how heavy a trailer can a Prius tow anyway?