Forget Kowalski’s white Challenger, forget Steve McQueen’s Porsche 917K, forget Burt Reynolds’ Trans Am. There’s one movie car that really matters to the twentysomething car enthusiast, and I’m driving a nearly perfect example at full boost up a winding road. After less than ten minutes, my passenger is tired of me rapid-firing quotes at her: “I owe you a ten-second car.” “This will dominate all.” “There’s all kinds of family, Brian, and that’s a choice you’re going to have to make.” Each time I floor the accelerator, there’s almost enough time to spit out another one of Dominic Toretto’s outstanding phrases (“I’M IN YOUR FACE!”) before the boost spools. When it does… watch out.

Let’s get one thing straight: There are very few inanimate objects which inspire my personal appreciation, respect, and interest as much as the 2010 Toyota Prius does. It’s a happy faced, slick, aerodynamically-optimized, practical, comfortable and dead-reliable vehicle which exists for the sole purpose of letting concerned Americans feel like they are making a small but genuine difference in their efforts to reduce their consumption of the world’s finite resources.

Sitting in the new Toyota Prius, I suddenly blurted out, “Open the pod bay doors, Hal,” half expecting something to happen. Alas, I was still entombed in the resin chamber that passes for an automobile interior. If Ralph Nader had been an engineer, this is the car he would have designed, a vehicle for people who loathe automobiles.

I’ve been resisting calling Toyota “the new GM” for some time. And yet the world’s largest automaker is falling into the same traps that scuppered GM’s empire. By creating the entirely extraneous Scion “youth brand,” Toyota stole a page right out of The General’s poisoned playbook. Luxury brand reaching downwards, hoisting itself by its own petard? Lexus does as Cadillac did. Listen closely and you can hear ominous rumblings about Toyota’s declining build quality; a cancer that afflicted GM even as it soared to its zenith. And most damning of all: Toyota’s increasing portfolio of redundant, ill-conceived, poorly-executed products. Add the new Venza to that list.

Fact: high school reunions make their attendees change their long-standing beliefs about their former classmates. Consider the quiet girl nobody noticed who turned into a beautiful woman when nobody was looking. That’s my first reaction to meeting the Toyota Camry SE on a fast sweeper. And while the inner-teenager never forgot the person from yesteryear, do Pistonheads need to give the rarely mentioned, often overlooked Camry SE another chance? Or do some things never change?

My remedy for advanced bailout fatigue (and looming cold December): two weeks in Hawaii. I decided to leave the choice of rental cars in the hands of the island gods. And they spoke, with more wisdom and prescience than I might have imagined. Turns out that escape from the bitter truth about The Big 2.8’s death rattles is impossible, even on the most remote islands on the globe. How else could I be comparing a Dodge Charger with a fifteen-year old Toyota Camry?

If I didn’t know better, I’d bet carmakers choose model names via a Google simulation. A computer identifies search words that can be punted to page four within days of launch. In this case, it’s only a matter of a week or so before lornezovenza.com and Jac Venza slip into double digit obscurity. At the same time, I suppose Toyota settled on “Venza” because it sounds vaguely Italian– perfect for a car built in Georgetown Kentucky on a Camry platform. In truth, I don’t know what it is: the word, the car, the point. All I know is after spending time in the new Toyota Venza I’ve become a cautious and reluctant fan.

What the heck’s an Innova? While the Toyota website and Wikipedia give no hint to what the word actually means, I suspect it was supposed to evoke the feeling of being innovative, exciting, something new and vogue. Well, so was the Oldsmobile Achieva. And just like the Achieva, no amount of marketing and media shots of active couples rampaging around the country side will convince me the Toyota Innova is anything more than a marketing focus group’s bastard child. Then I found out that the platform and mechanical bits are donated from Toyota’s legendary Hilux pickup truck. Now we might be on to something.

During his first inaugural speech, given at the height of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said, “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” Once again, Americans find themselves living through days of economic infamy. Uncertain times and erratic energy costs have cured fearing suburbanites of their predilection for gargantuan SUVs. It’s time for practical pragmatism; inexpensive family haulers that dine lightly on 85 octane and stay firmly bolted together for years to come. To fully understand this segment, I tested and compared a quartet of economy sedans. First up: the Toyota Camry.