A wrong turn leads to the Honda Accord Hybrid's formerly-airborne soulmate

Greetings from Las Vegas! Before I tell you about my trip, you should know that I am the master at making wrong turns (or missing the right ones). I am so good at it that getting lost is often the highlight of my trip, as it was today. Instead of cutting through the Pear Blossom Highway, I managed to blow by the exit and wound up in Mojave, California. Among other things, Mojave is one of the places where disused airliners are stored. From the road you can see jets from all over the world awaiting an uncertain fate -- they are just as likely to wind up on a glorious assignment in some new part of the world as they are to be torn up into tiny pieces of scrap metal. (It's not unlike the life of a freelance journalist.)

Anyway, I came upon an old four-engine jetliner called a Convair 990 Coronado, a contemporary of the Boeing 707. Jetliner travel was still pretty exclusive when the Convair jet was conceived in the late 50s, and Convair thought a smaller, faster jetliner would sell. It didn't. The 990 carried fewer people and burned way more fuel than its contemporaries. Convair built 37 of them, lost a ton of money and dropped out of the airliner business.

What does all this have to do with cars? Well, it has to do with the car I'm driving -- the 2006 Honda Accord Hybrid. Like Convair, Honda gambled that people would want a hybrid vehicle that produced more power while still getting decent mileage. Like Convair, they were wrong.

Not that the Accord Hybrid is doing all that badly. I averaged 37.3 MPG on my trip out here -- excellent for a car this size, though I imagine that's due more to the Accord's Variable Cylinder Management system, which runs the V6 engine on only three cylinders under light load, than the hybrid system. As for the extra power, well, I've found all the acceleration I need at half-throttle. I'm sure the Accord Hybrid would have been much more successful if it got 40+ MPG like the Prius, even if it gave up a little speed.

I got some really cool pics of the Accord and the 990. Sadly my ability to make wrong turns is eclipsed only by my ability to leave something vital home; in this case it was the USB cable for the camera, so this stock photo of the Accord will have to do.

Tonight I'll be studying up on the car I'm here to drive, the Mercedes-Benz E320 BLUETEC diesel. Tomorrow we drive -- and I can't wait. -- Aaron Gold

Photo © Honda