>>>I've ordered one...
>>>http://www.eliomotors.com/
>>>
>>>Price seems right and 84mpg on the highway.
>>
>>85mpg highway doesn't seem very impressive by European standards - there must be a dozen models here that get better *average* mileage than that.
>>Sure, great price - but it doesn't seem suitable if it would be your *only* vehicle...
>>
>>I think I prefer the BMW i8 :-}
>
>Can't go wrong with a Beemer ;-)
>
>Re the ultra high mileage vehicles, I don't think it's a matter of Europe having smarter auto engineers than the U.S, (BTW, you are not part of Europe, you know; I learned that just this week ;-) ). It's more of a cultural difference. As a general rule I suspect Europeans have more interest than Americans do in things like gas mileage, emissions, and the environment in general. Here there are a lot of us mainly interested in vroom, vroom, vroom -- top speed, engine displacement, 0-60 time, that kind of thing.

A part of it difference in thinking is probably fuel price - must be double the US price in the UK. But non-US models (ok - not European) seem to me to be just as good, if not better, on acceleration, top speed and handling.

Heard from a friend of mine in Germany over Christmas - he went out to change his two-year old, top of the range Mercedes for a later model and came home two hours later with a Roller. I asked him if he'd part exchanged the Mercedes - but, no - said there were some places where a Rolls wasn't suitable so decided to keep them both!

>
>Total change of subject, knowing you were in the rock life way back when. I was saddened by the death of Joe Cocker. Goodness knows he had his problems but he also had a distinctive and powerful voice. "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" was on my record shelf and was played regularly. I guess we should be grateful that he lived to be 70.

Sad news at Xmas. I was a roady for Joe for a couple of years. We lived in a cottage in Berkshire on the same track as the Traffic cottage. I was asked to move to the states when Joe decided to base himself there but decided against it.
Bumped into him several times in later years. The last time was at a festival in Toronto. He was in great shape then - we sat in the bar for an hour or so after the show reminiscing; just one brandy and coffee. Rock'n'Roll was more fun in the early day :-}