TheGreenMilesMobile Handles Beltway Better Than $48,720 DoucheMobile

I was driving home on the Beltway recently in my still-spry 1999 Saturn SL2 with 128,000 miles on it, pleasantly surprised TheGreenMilesMobile remains fun to drive after all these fuel-efficient years, when I noticed a low-riding pickup truck lumber past me with brake lights flashing constantly. It was a Ford F-150 Harley-Davidson edition and the heavy highway-hugger and its overmatched driver couldn't even successfully execute a lurching lane change without repeatedly tapping the brakes.

First, let me make clear I'm not bashing Harleys or the Ford F-150 series here. Harleys get fantastic gas mileage. Ford's base F-150 XL model is an excellent made-in-America truck that gets 17 miles per gallon city and 23 mpg highway, not far from some of the best-mileage pickups like the Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid's 20 city/23 highway.

But the two brands have combined into a gas-guzzling, hideously expensive Frankenstein monster. The Harley-Davidson edition starts at a ridiculous $48,720 and gets a putrid 13 miles per gallon city and 18 mpg highway. So not only does the Harley model get 25 percent worse gas mileage than the base XL model, but you could buy two F-150 XLs for the price of one F-150 Harley - with $4,000 leftover for gas money.

And that's before we talk about what it looks like. I'll leave that to Car & Driver:

If the décor is in fact your style, though, your taste might be a little, shall we say, questionable. Example: There is glitter on the center console. To paraphrase everybody’s favorite park-bench prophet, that’s all we have to say about that.

Not just expensive and planet-killing, but ugly too ... but hey, I'm sure people will think you're just as cool as actual Harley riders.