Once a point of contention regarding gas-electric hybrids, Consumer Reports now affirms that the purchase of a hybrid can save consumers anywhere from $500 to $4,250 over a five-year ownership period. Especially with steep gas prices, the greater mileage afforded by even mild hybrids, such as General Motors' alternator-driven hybrid models with their small MPG increase, can offset the higher purchase price when compared with their traditional gas driven counterparts.

CR looked at 12 hybrids, some full hybrids, some mild hybrids like the vehicles offered by GM, and finally the SUV two-mode hybrids recently released by General Motors. Of the twelve vehicles total, six of them - the Toyota Prius, Chevrolet Malibu, Chevrolet Tahoe, Ford Escape, Saturn Vue, and Toyota Camry - led CR to its claim of savings from $500 to $4,250. And these gains are even without the tax credits offered on several of the models by Uncle Sam for going geen. Significantly, the six models above actually pay back their price premium after just one year of ownership. Much of the bump is in depreciation values--hybrid vehicles are holding their values much better than many gas-only vehicles.

To compare cost, Consumer Reports used their own new-car owner-cost estimates form the April 2008 issue. The most savings were offered up by the Toyota Camry Hybrid, which netted 34 mpg overall in CR's testing. It set the bar in CR's tests, and netted the impressive $4,250 savings over a comparable gas-powered Toyota Camry XLE, which rang in at 24 mpg overall.

The Toyota Camry hybrid, which gets 34 mpg overall in CR's tests, saves the most money: about $4,250 over five years compared with a similarly equipped four-cylinder Toyota Camry XLE, which gets 24 mpg. Next up is the Saturn Vue Greenline Hybrid, which saved about $3,000 compared to the non-hybrid 4-cylinder Vue. Finally, the Chevrolet Tahoe saved about $1,500. But currently, with tax credits, the Tahoe comes out ahead by a whopping $4,500, the Vue at $3,700.

Consumer Reports' latest issue dispenses some wisdom that penny-pinching fathers have been harping on since the dawn of time: It's nearly always cheaper to buy a used car than a new one.

Specifically, Consumer Reports focused on late-model vehicles from one to three years old. In the case of a "reliable three-year-old car," says the magazine, enough money can be saved over the first five years of ownership to pay for all the gas used during that time.

Their findings from the study showed that total savings over the first five years ring in at 32 percent for a three-year-old car. A one-year-old car will save buyers 19 percent, they found, and a two-year-old car 27 percent.

Using the Toyota Camry as an example, CR found that a 2005 Toyota Camry V-6 has the potential to save a consumer around $13,000 over five years when compared to purchasing a brand-new 2008 Toyota Camry optioned the same way. And assuming a gas price of $4 per gallon, that consumer would be able to pay for all gasoline costs during that period and still be $2,500 ahead (assuming 12,000 miles driven per year).

Consumer Reports based its five year owner costs on depreciation (calculated using CR's Auto Price Service), fuel costs ($4 per gallon for regular, $4.20 for premium), annual mileage of 12,000, average insurance costs based on IIHS data, a five-year car loan with 15 percent down, reliability data from their own 2007 Annual Auto Reliability Survey, and sales tax computed using the national average at the time of purchase.

The full report is available in the October issue of Consumer Reports, on sale September 2 on newsstands and online at their site.

It's a little belatedly that we report the passing of a colleague of ours, Larry Griffin. Larry was a longtime editor at Car and Driver, an ephemeral presence with a loose tether to anything but an interstate highway and a Mobil gas card and his prized handmade horse saddles. Above all, he was a great photographer and contributed many stories to the magazine.

He was also known as Landfill Larry, because when he kept an office at 2002 Hogback Road, it required tetanus shots and permission from FEMA directors to step inside among the piles of press kits, old faxes and racing gear.

Try though I might, I couldn't find a picture of Larry in my personal archives. He was always behind the lens instead, like during a dawn-to-dusk cover shoot for Car and Driver back in 1995, in the awesome shadows of Utah's Monument Valley.

So to go with this blog, I chose a picture of Grand Teton in Wyoming. Larry loved Wyoming and Montana, and nearly every time I saw him he was returning from, or preparing for, a trip to the Yellowstone area, to Les Kellem's saddle shop outside the park's north entrance, where he had friends. For years, the front office at Car and Driver wore his photos of the park -- one, a stunning mural-sized piece of a Montana highway snowed over with yellow spring flowers.

Even those of us who worked with him knew little about him and that was how Larry liked it. A few years ago, in my book on Car and Driver's first 50 years, I chose Larry's story of taking a Porsche race car to his high-school reunion as one of the pinnacles of the magazine's history -- because it showed a side of Larry almost none of us knew. (He's standing right, bearded, in this photo from the story.)

Larry died in a nursing home in Lawrence, Kansas, on the 18th of March. Friends at Car and Driver think he was 63 years old. He had struggled with mental illness for the past few years and died in the care of the state of Kansas, leaving behind only a 90-year-old aunt, never having married or had children.

The C/D staff has gotten together to commemorate Larry with a stone placed next to that at his mother's grave in Kansas. If you are interested in making a monetary donation to help pay for the headstone, email and we'll put you in touch with them.

Auto journalists like to throw stones at automakers for the build quality of their cars. But what if the car writers had to take their spot on the assembly line and help shepherd a new vehicle from start to finish, and pass the quality muster?

That's what Automobile magazine editor Jason Cammisa was charged with, when the magazine wheedled its way into the Lamborghini assembly line in Sant'Agata, Italy, and installed him on the production line. Lucky Cammisa, the magazine's West Coast editor, got to be a part of the assembly process for the first Lamborghini LP560-4 to come off the line.

Cammisa followed the LP560-4 through the 20 assembly stations at the factory -- "where German efficiency meets Italian style," the magazine says. (Lamborghini's a subsidiary of Audi these days.) He also bore witness to the changes in the factory that are supposed to make the cars faster, lighter and more environmentally friendly, but we suspect he was mostly interested in playing with all the tools.

Cammisa says his "Build-A-Bull" car left the factory with the stamp of approval from his new co-workers. The online version of the article includes a quartet of videos showing Cammisa on the line -- which you can see here, here, here and here.

Our advice? Take the gig full-time -- it has to pay better, right?

With Mercedes-Benz and BMW going coupe crazy, it's no surprise that this morning's online edition of Autocar illustrates a new two-door spun from the Mercedes A-Class.

The Brit car mag promises the new coupe will join the Mercedes lineup by 2011, and we're guessing that since the U.S. doesn't get the A-Class to begin with, this new two-door will stay far away from America, too.

Nonetheless, Autocar's sketch looks pretty -- and the appearance of a new two-door will help Mercedes take on BMW in the race to the bottom of the car totem pole. BMW's 1-Series coupe has likely convinced its rivals in Stuttgart that the coupe market is promising at the entry level.

Autocar suspects that Mercedes will eventually replace its CLC coupe with this new vehicle. And it also predicts Mercedes will add a new small sport-utility vehicle around the same time frame, as BMW is also planning a new X1 SUV and MINI ute.

The new Mercedes coupe may be dubbed CLA, Autocar concludes, and will also get competition from new two-doors at Saab and Alfa Romeo.