Car Board.(Brief Article)

On the rare occasion you don't feel like getting there in record time, you can always take the scenic route.

Toyota PRIUS Price: $20,855 Engine: 1.5-liter I4, 70 hp, 82 lb-ft; 25-kW electric motor, 34 hp, 258 lb-ft Curb weight: 2765 lbs Drivetrain: fwd, CVT Zero to 60 in under 12 seconds and the quarter-mile at 76.6 mph. With those numbers you can be sure the NHRA isn't holding its breath for a Prius Pro Stock entrant. Toyota didn't design the Prius to be a smoker off the line-or a vehicle for smokers-but an environmentally friendly, fuel-sipping green machine ``so conscious of air quality that it will not feature an ashtray.'' All that tech-continuously variable trans- mission, electric motor, regenerative brakes, hydrocarbon absorber, etc.-also makes the Prius a much better vehicle for touring the 25-mph sites of our super land than it is suited to the superspeedways of Daytona and Talladega.

Hyundai ELANTRA Price: $13,860 Engine: 2.0-liter I4, 140 hp, 133 lb-ft Curb weight: 2635 lbs Drivetrain: fwd, four-speed automatic It's not that the Elantra is that slow. Granted, it's not exactly the fastest thing on four wheels, with its little four audibly (and palpably) working hard to keep up enough revs to maintain forward motion. More than that, though, the Elantra is a car everyone around you thinks is slow. After all, it's no Tiburon. Both cars use the same 2.0-liter dual-cam engine and the same transmission, but the Elantra screams econocar where the Tiburon-with its swoopy lines, hatchback design and two-door configuration-at least makes an attempt at ...