Who Knew a Prius Was a Hot Rod?

As the exhaust clears following Al Gore III's joy-ride drug bust, an astonished public has zeroed in, not on the former veep's son, but on his little-Prius-that-could. Clocked at over  100mph before he was pulled over, Gore shattered the assumption that the Toyota hybrid sacrifices speed for fuel efficiency, the LA Times reports.

Rush Limbaugh was hardly alone when he asked, "How in the world do you get a Toyota Prius to go 100 mph without a cliff to go over?"  In fact the environmentally friendly sedan, one of the most aerodynamically optimized cars on the road, can officially sustain speeds up to 103 mph, Toyota says. Some see a marketing opportunity. "If Toyota is smart, they'll have a specially prepared Prius Pace Car for the next Indy 500," says one blogger. (More Al Gore II stories.)