Ann Coulter has been known to heap scorn on the Prius – not to mention those who drive Toyota’s popular hybrid car. But that doesn’t seem to faze Prius fans, according to The New York Times, which posits that “the Prius has become, in a sense, the four-wheel equivalent of those popular rubber ‘issue bracelets’ in yellow and other colors - it shows the world that its owner cares.”

The first wave of Prius owners were geeks who coveted the car’s innovative technology; others wanted to do their bit to reduce our country’s foreign oil dependence or to combat global warming; and with the stratospheric price of gasoline, there are those who love not having to fill up every couple of days - the car is rated at an estimated 48 miles a gallon in stop-and-go city driving (the hybrid battery charges every time you brake) and 45 on the highway. Of course The Stiletto can’t discount the possibility that some shallow sorts bought a Prius because Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Billy Joel, Bill Maher and other celebrities drive one.

However, though Prius owners all-too-often come off as smug or pious, they share a guilty secret that the uninitiated would never guess. Because the car has a gasoline/electric hybrid powertrain, it has the acceleration and power of a car with a much larger gasoline-burning engine.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the Prius kicks butt. So Ann, your eyes won’t be offended by the “ugliness” of the car for more than a couple of seconds as it rockets past whatever jalopy you’re driving – even from a dead stop.

Al Gore III (you-know-who’s son) is one Prius driver who can attest to the car’s zippiness – as soon as the drugs wear off, that is. The 24-year old was pulled over by sheriff’s deputies for driving his hybrid at about 100 mph on the San Diego Freeway in the vicinity of Laguna Niguel, CA. When the officers smelled pot in the Prius, they “searched the car and found less than an ounce of marijuana, along with Xanax, Valium, Vicodin and Adderall” – and Gore allegedly does not have a prescription for any of those medications, Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jim Amormino tells The Associated Press. The scion of the Gore family was taken to the men’s central jail in Santa Ana on $20,000 bail.

[Editorial Note: At the risk of self-incrimination, The Stiletto confesses that she once took a Prius out on the section of the Loop 101 that cuts through Scottsdale (known to locals as “the Autobahn” – at least, until speed enforcement cameras were installed) and got it up to 105 mph. Nothing shook, nothing rattled and the engine did not strain at all. As the car was not equipped with speed-rated tires, The Stiletto thought it prudent not to satisfy her curiosity as to just how fast a Prius can go. By the way, none of the other vehicles sharing the road with The Stiletto at the time were going less than 85 mph, and their drivers were no doubt surprised to see a Prius holding its own – and then some!]

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