the consumer—in those pre-EPA days
how efficient a modern car could be if
driven economically.
To pay tribute to our magazine’s first
road trip while proving how much the
automobile has evolved, MotorTrend en
Español managing editor Miguel Cortina,
features editor Scott Evans, and I set out
to retrace our steps from L.A. through
Vegas and on to the Grand Canyon, but
we’d given ourselves some new rules:
Instead of 18.5 hours, we’d have just 10;
we would follow no set route, just a single
Las Vegas checkpoint; we could pick any
vehicle; and the winner would be declared
via some sketchy cocktail-napkin math
determining who spent the least amount
of money on gas combined with the least
amount of time on the road. As modern
Americans have proven with our desire
for SUVs and pickups, we might not care
about fuel economy, but we do care about
our wallets.
In an attempt to keep us all honest,
each of us would be outfitted with a stop-
watch and a fuel chart. A simple scatter
plot would verify the results.
In the months prior, we sequestered
ourselves to figure out our respective
strategies. There were really two schools
of thought: You could figure out some
harebrained route to the Grand Canyon
at slow but efficient speeds on back roads
with favorable elevation changes and
light traffic—I figured Scott and Miguel
would take that path—or you could hedge
your bets by taking the much quicker
freeway. The latter was my choice.
Getting to the Grand Canyon from L.A.
isn’t rocket science; President Eisen-
hower took out all the guesswork in the
1950s when America constructed the
interstate highway system. I’d simply
take the interstate to Las Vegas and then
another one to the Grand Canyon. Easy.
The harder choice was picking my
car. Again, tons of considerations came
into play here: powertrain, energy cost,
range, time to fill. I boiled my require-
ments down to two simple ones. I wanted
a hybrid with the range to finish on
one tank, and I wanted something that
wouldn’t bore me to tears. My initial
instinct was to get a Lexus LC 500h. Fast.
Sporty. Gorgeous. Efficient. But its lust
for premium fuel meant there’d be no
way I could get to the Grand Canyon with
enough of a time window to make up for
the cost differential if Scott or Miguel
went the hypermiling route.Instead, I picked the 2019 Ford Police
Responder Hybrid. The cop-spec Fusion
has a lower curb weight, a 38-mpg
combined rating, a big enough tank to
make the trip in one shot, and lights,
sirens, and a bullhorn to keep me enter-
tained. Plus, it has a bulletproof door.
That’s gotta count for something. I was
convinced I could win simply by driving
at the speed limit on the freeway and
selectively drafting off big-rigs.
I still entertained that foolish confi-
dence when Scott and Miguel pulled up
to our starting line at MT’s local Chevron
before dawn, a late-winter chill in the
air. As I expected, both looked prepped
for self-torture. While I hoped to prove
efficiency and fun could happily coexist
with my Fusion cop car, Miguel was
bundled up to deal with the cold—a sign
he wasn’t planning on running the HVAC
system in his blob-shaped 2019 Hyundai
Ioniq Blue. Meanwhile, Scott, driving
the MT Garage’s 2019 Honda Insight EX,
was armed with a Bluetooth speaker and
portable batteries for his phone so he
could produce the world’s most boring
Instagram stories. Glad I wasn’t riding
with either of them.MT’s lawyers are good,
but not get-out-of-jail-
for-impersonating-a-
cop good. Gaffer’s tape
over the word “Police”
would hopefully help
Christian avoid any
unwanted interactions
with law enforcement.The calm before the storm—or during, actually. Our
L.A. starting line had just been soaked by rain.MT 70th Anniversary
72 MOTORTREND.COM SEPTEMBER 2019