Fun, Frugal(and relatively fast): All eight cars get 30 mpg. But which has the most cojones?

摘要

BACK IN THE DAY, TELLING YOUR BUDDIES YOU'D BOUGHT an economy car was a bit like informing them you'd sold your speed shop business to pursue a career as a wedding planner. There would be wincing, head shaking, face-palms of incredulity. And who could blame them? The mid-1980s econobox was tinny, frumpy and bog slow, upholstered with sticky vinyl and styled with the artistry usually reserved for cereal boxes. They were the automotive equivalent of a Beechcraft Sundowner, a light plane whose cruising speed was so glacial pilots joked that it suffered bug strikes on the wing's trailing (!) edge.