Rob's Car Images


My newest car, a Toyota Prius. Despite being partial towards Fords and coming from a Ford-owning family, so far I've owned (or at least was the primary driver of) a Chevy, a Mazda, two air-cooled VWs, two Nissan Sentras, a Subaru and a Toyota (and a non-running GMC pickup). My wife has had two Nissan Sentras as well and now has a Honda (but she did buy it from a Ford dealership, if that counts!).

This one is a gas-electric hybrid, with a 75HP 1.5 liter gas engine and a 1.3 KW battery supplying a 65 HP electric motor. I'm getting gas mileage in the 40's during winter and 50's during summer. (Translates to about 5 liters/100km average). Took me awhile to get a car that could do it, but it's finally better than my 1987 Sentra which averaged about 38 mpg. Two more pictures of the Prius during a vacation to my uncle's farm in northern Minnesota. You can also see it in QuickTime (.mov) format: a 2 1/2 minute, 5.8MB file. If you need QuickTime for Windows, download QuickTime 7 standalone (without iTunes), you probably want to uncheck the message boxes.



In July 2006, I attended a Prius gathering to meet like-minded souls. I demonstrated (if anybody cared) how a Prius can carry 8-foot 2x4s and a few bags of mulch.

Here is the previous beast of burden, a 1999 Subaru Outback. Sport Utility Wagon they call it, and it was pretty useful. All-wheel drive (4WD always on, with dynamic power shifting) and nearly 8" clearance should come in handy for MN roads in winter. It only gets 24 mpg summertime commuting (28 mpg on the highway), not as good as my Nissan Sentra's use to get, but better than a functional SUV.

Apparently this is mine, altho I haven't given anybody anything for it other than a startled look when I was told it was mine. This is the first vehicle I remember riding in, and it was far from new at the time (early 70's in Montana). It's a (1955?) GMC pickup, in desparate need of fixing up.

My '68 Fastback still in Minnesota. It's a rear-engined air-cooled electronic ignition 12-volt 1.6L Volkswagen. The Fastback, Notchback and Square backs were supposed to be the successor to the Bug, but the Bug wasn't ready to die just yet. So eventually they shelved these and later came out with the Rabbit instead, abandoning new development of the air-cooled engines.

Ah, what beauty - Volkswagen Bugs, and mid-winter snow! (In case you can't tell, the one on the left is a blue '68 and the one on the right is a red '65).

Here are more pictures of snow. Back to my Home page.