Reason number 1000 why I like the Prius:

A Prius-Hummer War Divides Oscarville
By SHARON WAXMAN

Published: March 7, 2004

OS ANGELES
It was very early Monday morning by the time Tim Robbins lurched out of the Vanity Fair Oscar party at Mortons restaurant and toward the valet line, with his wife, Susan Sarandon, two children and his golden statue for best supporting actor, in "Mystic River." The driver pulled up, not in a limousine, but in the diminutive Prius, the hybrid gas-electric car that Hollywood — part of it, anyway — so adores. Meanwhile, down the street a stretch Hummer limousine was parked at the corner of Melrose and San Vicente, having deposited a group of younger, less famous, "après nous le déluge" type partygoers to the very same Vanity Fair bacchanal. As Mr. Robbins folded his six-foot-five frame into the front passenger seat, and the rest of his family curled themselves into the back seat, Ms. Sarandon was heard to remark that the fans behind the barriers were screaming in their direction "because they're trying to figure out why we're in this crazy little car," a loaner. Why, indeed? The culture wars roll on in Hollywood, this time on wheels, and nothing divides people like that nine-mile-a-gallon former military truck or the tiny Japanese-made sedan with dual engines under the hood. It's Hummer versus hybrid, Hollywood hedonism versus holier-than-thou Hollywood political correctness. Both cars have been on the streets for some time, in the Hummer's case more than a decade. But with the Hummer's most ardent celebrity fan, Arnold Schwarzenegger (he owns seven), elected governor last year, just in time for a large-scale H2 promotional campaign, the car-culture wars have been reignited with a vengeance. The environmental campaigner Laurie David, the wife of Larry David of the HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm, worked herself into a lather not long ago over a Hummer-driving mother in the parking lot of the Crossroads School in Los Angeles. She rolled down her Prius window to share her displeasure. "I said," Mrs. David recalled, " `Are you crazy to bring this car into this parking lot? Do you understand how dangerous it is to the kids you can't see?' She stared at me blankly." Nowadays the divide is more than cultural. It is also political. It is class- and age-oriented, too. Really. New money is very Hummer. Old money (dating, say, from the 1980's), very Prius. Entertainment industry executives like Jim Wiatt, the president of the William Morris Agency, who used to be seen in a big fancy Mercedes-Benz, drove to the Vanity Fair party in a hybrid. Tom Hanks just bought the redesigned 2004 Prius, the second generation of the car Toyota first introduced in 2000. It is the movie people who can afford mansions who are driving the $20,000 hybrids. And it is the rappers who just made their first couple of million dollars who are buying the $50,000 Hummer. It is the kids of entertainment industry executives who rent Hummer limos for their proms and big nights out. In the rap world, Tupac Shakur helped popularize the Hummer. His H1, unused since his death in 1996, was offered on eBay for a starting bid of $500,000, but did not sell. Celebrity Hummer owners include the actor Adrien Brody and the director James Cameron, who made the macho "Titanic." Hugh Hefner has been seen in a Hummer. And Steven Soderbergh's agent, Pat Dollard, says he loves the "sheer excess" of the truck, which he owns. "It's a high-profile vehicle — it's what you want to be seen in," said Richard Sterman, a Hummer salesman at a dealership in the San Fernando Valley. But not on Oscar night. "The Catherine Zeta-Joneses — they don't fall out of Hummer limos," said De André Armstrong, president of A Total Success, a Hollywood limousine rental company. "They come out of regular stretch limousines." Indeed, Mr. Brody, who bought his Hummer H2 last year, left it in the garage on Oscar night and arrived by limo. Patrick Quinn, the director of special events at Z Valet, who parked Mr. Robbins's hybrid, observed about a dozen Priuses at the Vanity Fair party. Many were there because an environmental group, Global Green USA, had recruited celebrities, including Mr. Robbins, to attend the Oscars in Priuses. Among the other recruits were Charlize Theron (the best-actress Oscar winner), Robin Williams and Sting. So some Oscar-night hybrid flaunters were merely driving loaners. Evidently, they had not put their money where their green principles are. It is a good bet that more than one flies by private studio jet, burning hydrocarbons as wastefully as the Daytona 500. Lately, however, the Hummer seems to be losing ground in the culture wars. Mr. Quinn of Z Valet said he saw fewer than he used to. Roseanne Barr used to drive a Hummer, but she gave it to her former husband, Ben Thomas, in a divorce settlement. He sold it. The rap star Coolio got one from his record company but gave it up because of the poor mileage (about 11 to 12 miles a gallon, according to General Motors). Nationally, sales for the H2 fell 21 percent in February, Reuters reported, the sixth straight month of falling sales compared with the previous year. G.M. is offering dealers incentives to help spur sales. Howard Drake, an owner of the Hummer dealership in Sherman Oaks in the San Fernando Valley, said his sales were down in January and February, only because he did not have enough supply. Every once in a while, he acknowledged, the culture wars seep onto the lots of the dealerships. Mr. Drake said he was approached by a well-known actress, whose name he declined to share. "She told me she wanted to buy a hybrid, and she was concerned about the Hummer and its effect on the environment," Mr. Drake recalled. "I asked where she lived. She said Beverly Hills. I said, `Out of curiosity: How big is your house?' "She said: `What does that matter? It's 20,000 square feet.' " He said he replied: "I don't know what's less correct. Having three people live in a 20,000-square-foot house, with a pool and heaters and air-conditioners. Or me driving my Hummer 500 miles a month." Mr. Drake's house, he said, is 3,000 square feet.