There hasn't been a mass uprising or anything, but more than a few people have asked me why I haven't been writing my weekly car column lately — the one that has appeared on the cover of the Friday Autos section for the past couple of decades.
The answer is simplicity itself: The public relations folks in Colorado who distribute factory cars to the western states news media seem to have lost track of me. Other than a couple of rides in mid-December (both Fords), I've had to drive my own car for the past three months — outrageous, don't you think?
I realize not all of you see this as a crisis on par with soaring utility bills or Bill and Hill backing their moving van up to the south portico of the White House to furnish their new D.C. digs.
For all I know, there may be one or two of you who actually prefer those lame wire-service car reviews I've been forced to run during my winter of vehicular discontent.
For the faithful, though, I've been assured that some cars will be coming my way next month. In the meantime, I'm going to devote today's column — which normally deals with such topics as loud music in stores and the 100 Year War between banks and credit unions — to automobiles. Specifically, "green" automobiles.
Readers of auto-buff magazines like Car & Driver know that "car guys" (women can also be car guys, but don't call them car gals) are as politically incorrect as it's possible to be and not get themselves tarred and feathered. Car guys don't care a valve lifter for such things as pollution and fuel economy. They only want to know how fast it goes and how cool it looks.
Even I, sensitive person that I am, have been chided for my PC deficit by readers who took issue with my opinion that the TRAX light rail system was a boondoggle and no one would ever ride it. I seem to have missed that call, but it sure generated a lot of interesting mail addressed to "Dear Mr. Troglodyte."
Anyway, last month I sent off for a new publication called "ACEEE's Green Book — The Environmental Guide to 2001 Cars and Trucks," and it arrived last week. ACEEE is an acronym for American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, an independent, nonprofit research group based in the same town where the Clintons do their furniture shopping . . . or is that shoplifting?
The Green Book has 140 pages of everything you might want to know about which cars, trucks, vans and SUVs are doing their part to make the ozone layer larger or smaller, the planet hotter or cooler and the air in the Salt Lake Valley more or less breathable during winter inversions.
Much of what the ACEEE has to say will be ignored by most of us — for example, the advice that we leave our cars home and ride to work on bicycles or carpool instead of commuting alone.
But we can at least do our part by checking out the "green" quotient of our next vehicle before we agree to make those 972 easy monthly payments.
I can't list all of the winners and losers, but here are some highlights.
Not surprisingly, the new gas/electric hybrids, the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight, take top honors for their LEV (low-emission vehicles) ratings, and those two Japanese carmakers also scored well for their conventional vehicles. The Honda Civic GX and HX are rated tops among subcompact cars, while the Toyota Camry heads the compact cars with automatic transmissions and the Toyota Echo leads those with manual shifters.
The Honda Accord is tops among the midsize cars with automatic transmissions, and the Mazda 626 leads midsize cars with a 5-speed manual.
The venerable Ford Crown Victoria is the greenest large car, while the Toyota RAV4, Toyota Highlander and Ford Expedition took top honors in the small, medium and large SUV categories, respectively.
The sinners include the Dodge Ram pickup, Lincoln Navigator, Ford Excursion, Cadillac Escalade, Chevrolet Suburban and GMC Yukon Denali.
If you want to buy the book, contact the ACEEE at 202-429-8873, or write to them at 1001 Connecticut Avenue N.W., Suite 801, Washington, D.C. 20036. Their Web site is ( www.aceee.org) and their e-mail address is ace3pubs@ix.netcom.com .
E-MAIL: max@desnews.com