I’ve had it with
gasoline. Not only is it helping melt the glaciers in Glacier
National Park, thaw the Alaskan permafrost, and drown low-lying
Pacific islands, but it’s also emptying my wallet. So when my
husband and I decided to buy a new car recently, we both wanted it
to use as little gas as possible — or, better yet, no gas at
all.
We knew hybrid cars were gas-efficient, and sexy,
but they were way, way out of our price range. (I’m a writer
and my husband is a teacher, so our cars usually hail from the
Golden Age of Disco.) We had to find something a bit less chic. We
then learned about biodiesel, a fuel made from used vegetable oil.
Biodiesel, we were told by its many fervent fans, burns
efficiently and reduces overall greenhouse gas emissions by using
recycled ingredients. It can power most normal diesel engines, and
it’s usually very easy to procure; those willing to get a
little greasy can even make batches of biodiesel in their
backyards. While biodiesel cars aren’t as clean and green as, say,
bicycles, they’re a definite improvement on standard gasoline
vehicles.
The problem with biodiesel, we discovered, was
finding an inexpensive diesel car.
So we began prowling
the back alleys of eBay, looking for our dream diesel. My husband,
who would normally rather eat nails than sit in front of a computer
screen, made inquiries about a 12-passenger diesel van once used by
the Kansas City Transit Authority, and began happily cyberchatting
with members of a biodiesel discussion forum. We did consider a
Volkswagen Rabbit that was spending its declining years on an
Oregon farm, and an almost-spiffy red Jetta parked not far from our
home in Colorado, but the prices of both quickly climbed beyond our
reach. It looked like we might have to stick with gasoline after
all.
Then, a business trip took us to northern New
Mexico. And there, in a parking lot next to a busy highway in Santa
Fe, my husband happened upon a 1982 silver Mercedes Benz station
wagon, outrageously high in miles but tenderly cared for —
and wonderfully affordable. It was, after all, more than a
generation old, a spry senior citizen of the auto world.
Its owner, a merry-faced amateur mechanic, turned out to be both a
Mercedes fanatic and a biodiesel aficianado. He told us that the
car had already run on veggie-based fuel for more than 20,000
miles, and the greasy stain below the gas tank supported his story.
After a test drive in town and some deliberation, we paid
up, filled the tank with biodiesel at a gas station in Santa Fe,
and began our journey home to Colorado. When my turn came to take
the wheel, I slid eagerly into the driver’s seat, ready to
pilot our new car down the highway. Something was different, I
realized, and it wasn’t just the fuel. It was the
proportions.
After years of driving the tiniest, most
gas-efficient cars I could find, the wagon seemed enormous, long
and broad and burly. Its trunk was big enough to camp in, its
bucket seats generously sized, its chrome hood ornament hilariously
ostentatious. When I pressed the gas, the engine took a noisy gulp
of biodiesel, and the car lumbered onto the road.
This, I
thought, was no rattling Geo Metro, no simpering Toyota hatchback.
This was a car with some meat on its bones, a car worthy of a
proper American road trip. This car, I thought giddily, could
rocket on Route 66 … or swerve down the scenic coast of
California … or swallow the desert miles between Salt Lake
and San Francisco. It could do pretty much anything, and do it with
gusto. And best of all, it could do it without the help of
globe-heating, world-destabilizing, bankbook-busting fossil fuel.
Was that chic, or what? I looked out over the vast hood
of the venerable Mercedes, and I watched the white clouds tumble
across the sky. As our vegetable-powered beast roared north toward
the Colorado border, the empty road unwound before me, disappearing
into the steep, snowy peaks piled on the horizon. I tugged open the
sunroof, found a Mexican mariachi tune on the radio, and grinned:
Thanks to a couple of gallons of cooking grease, I finally
understood the real romance of the American road.
Michelle Nijhuis is a contributor to Writers on the
Range, a service of High Country News in Paonia,
Colorado (hcn.org) where she lives and
writes.
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