So you’re interested in buying a fuel efficient car, but you don’t have $25 grand to throw down on a new Toyota Prius?  You probably also noticed that leasing is dead and great loans can be hard to find.  There’s good news for you.  First, buy a used car and if you’re not sure why, check out my Top 10 Reasons for Buying a Used Car.  Second, you don’t’ have to buy a hybrid to get really good gas mileage.  It’s a myth and it’s propagated by our local, state, and federal governments that do things like give out subsidies for hybrid vehicles or use taxpayer money to help car manufacturers develop hybrid technology.  What’s really important is fuel efficiency – hybrid or not.

To generate this list, Google Trends was used to figure out which high fuel efficiency cars are searched for the most frequently on the web.  Here are the results:

There are a few surprising things about this list:

• 7 out of 10 are foreign made
• Toyota snagged 3 spots on this top 10 list
• Chevrolet nabbed 2 spots on the list (who knew?)
• Chevrolet Volt would be #10, but it’s not in production until 2010
• The Geo Metro and the Geo Tracker came close to making it on this list even though they aren’t in production any longer
• Dodge, Hyundai, Isuzu, Kia, Mazda, Pontiac, Saturn, Scion, Subaru, and Volkswagen should all have something on this list, but none of their cars came even close due to either a low search volume or the complete lack of a high fuel efficiency car

Now that you’ve seen the list, go out and get the high gas mileage car of your choice and make sure you buy one that’s two years old so that you’re getting the best deal, being environmentally friendly, and saving a TON of money using Carsala!

Many cars have really, really, awful names.  These names fail to inspire us or even cause us to consider buying the cars they name.  Names such as the Volkswagen Routan, Pontiac Parisienne, and Renault Le Car all fail miserably to make me even wonder what those cars look like.  In some special instances, car names can actually do damage to the car company and these cars have made it to the top of my list: The Top 5 Worst Car Names – Period.

Name: Perodua Kancil

Never heard of this car?  I’m not surprised.  I discovered this car during my travels to Malaysia many years ago.  When translated, Kancil is supposed to mean “mouse deer.”  My Malaysia friend translated it to me as “gazelle.”  The problem as you may have picked up is that the name is dangerously close to “cancel,” and in a country where most people speak some English, this is what the car is commonly called.  Don’t feel like driving a car that is already “canceled?”  Neither do many people in Malaysia although it is still produced today.

Name: Nissan Armada

Oh, the ill fated Spanish Grande y Felicísima Armada, or “Great and Most Fortunate Navy.”  If Nissan had only been more fortunate in naming this SUV.  The problem with the name Armada is that it may be best known for the Spanish Armada’s defeat at the hands of England.  Starting with the Battle of Gravelines, the Armada went on to lose about 50 ships and 5,000 men.  Based on the Nissan Armada’s sales and poor reliability history, I reckon another Armada is about to be lost.

Name: Chevy Nova

Poor little Chevy Nova.  The name was supposed to inspire images of a great shining star.  Instead, the name caused this car to be the butt of many, many jokes and false rumors.  In Spanish, Nova can be separated into “no va” which literally means “no go.”  People still claim that the Nova sold poorly in Spanish speaking countries because of the poor name choice.  In reality, it didn’t sell poorly, but I’m betting it would have sold a lot better with a better name.

Name: Oldsmobile

Ransom E. Olds, (yes, his first name was Ransom) was the founder of Olds Motor Works.  In 1897 he named the business after himself.  I know the company’s naming happened more than a century ago, but it’s hard to believe that calling an automobile “old” was ever a good idea, and in 2004 Oldsmobile stopped producing cars.  Although the word Ransom itself has all sorts of criminal and illegal undertones, there’s something intriguing about the name and I’m wondering if it would have been better to change the company name to Ransom rather than shut the whole operation down.

Name: Ford Explorer, Expedition, Excursion, E????

When my wife and I named our two daughters, we spent a lot of time thinking about all the ways a fifth grader could change a first name into an insult.  Apparently nobody at Ford thinks this is a valuable exercise when naming a series of SUVs.  In about 2001, I distinctly remember getting emails and hearing a lot of jokes around the office about the next great Ford SUV – the Expenditure.  I’m sure somebody at Ford got a big bonus and a promotion for naming these cars, but when everybody is making fun of Ford SUVs for being an expenditure, that can’t be good for business.

Do you think I missed a truly terrible car name?  Write a comment and share the name!