Cow poop is a leading contributor of nitrous oxide and ammonia into the atmosphere, adding heartily to global warming. Cars, as we all know, provide their own fair share of noxious fumes to the environment. But a British team of engineers and racers is working on a way to kill two birds with one stone (metaphorically of course) by developing a race car that can run on cow poop.

Realizing that most technology found in our daily drivers was often first developed for the race track, Oaktec has announced plans to develop a manure-powered rally car, giving all new meaning to the phrase “This car runs like crap!” [ed. note: cow farts and burps contribute far more GHGs than poop, but hey, you gotta start somewhere]

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As is tradition, a new year brings extra cause for moments of introspection. It’s a time to plot goals for what’s ahead, partly based on self-assessment of how we handled the year that’s just passed.

For me, one aspect of the environment-minded life stands starkly clear from the rest: personal transportation.

From time to time, since joining the sustainablog team in August, I’ve written about my varied ways of getting ’round town. Now that winter has set in and I’ve made another recent adjustment or two, I realized I’ve built a list of wheels through the last 12 months. Each has had its distinctive impacts.

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The headline of the ad says, “Highest mileage or lowest price. The 1976 Honda Civics.”

A chart in the ad says that the average sedan or hatchback with a manual 4- or 5-speed transmission (costing only $2,729) reached EPA estimates of 43 miles per gallon on the highway, 32 in the city and 36 mpg combined.

And where are we today? What has happened in 32 years of American “progress,” “advancements in technology” and “economic growth” (well, until these last several years)?

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Going from St. Louis to Chicago, then up past Milwaukee before backtracking that route home, my wife and I drove our 2008 Honda Civic, a 5-speed which is rated to get 36 miles per gallon on the highway and 25 mpg in the city (29 mpg combined).

On three gas stops, our mileage figured to 40.25, 39.29 and 39.48 mpg.

That included city driving, traffic stoppages, and miles and miles of construction slow-downs and more stoppages.

Could it be that driving the speed limits, usually 55- and 65-mph on the highways and interstates we used, gave us that boost to get from 36 to 40 miles per gallon?

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Not only that, their top ten list for new car searches (see below) now contains mostly fuel-sippers including the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic Hybrid, Toyota Yaris and Honda Fit.

The Prius first appeared in the top 10 most searched vehicles list last summer.

Patrick Olsen, Cars.com editor in chief, had this to say about it:

“It’s not surprising that the Prius became the No. 1 most searched vehicle on Cars.com at the same time gas reached a $4 national average. Surveys have shown $4 to be the tipping point in consumer purchase behavior, and we are seeing that ring true in shopping patterns on Cars.com.”

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Although it could be one of the ugliest car hacks I’ve ever seen, Mike Turner of Hodges, SC, modified his 1992 Honda Civic to get 70 MPG.

As you can see in the picture and video clip, the modifications are relatively simple use of aluminum siding and plastic, which decrease wind resistance (vaguely reminding me of Aptera’s Typ1 electric car) and lowering the vehicle’s drag coefficient. It’s a much more extreme version of the modification seen on Ernie Rogers’ 76 MPG VW Beetle.

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