Now here’s a much better idea, a Prius convertible .

Unlike a lot of gearheads, I don’t hold a grudge against the Toyota Prius. It’s a little bland and utilitarian for my tastes, but I do like the idea of using less gas, and the few times I’ve poked under the hood or driven them, the engineering is quite interesting. Overall though, they’re like Corollas with a geeky drivetrain.

I think that one of the main problems with a lot of the new, greener cars that are out there (and a lot of green efforts for this or that problem) is how they are marketed. They’re sold to you with a strange sense of approbation and duty, they way your mother or 2nd grade teacher would get you to ingest some God-awful medicine because “it’s good for you.” Now how many cars are you going to sell that way? Sure, maybe to hair-shirts like Ed Begley et al, but if you really want to change things (like lessen green house gasses for example), you’re going to have to come up with a better pitch than, “you can’t have any meat if ya don’t eat your pudding.”

So that’s why I like this Prius convertible: it makes a bland and utilitarian car much more fun.

This one was done as a one off by a Prius Chat forum member to the tune of $46K.

True, that’s a lot, but hey, it’s their money, so who am I to quibble … now, if Toyota were to start doing this, and making a hybrid that is more performance oriented, I bet they’d sell.

There’s more photos after the jump.