One more thing. You mentioned the V-8 as being inefficient. I had three cars in my stable before I bought my Tour.
Mercury Grand Marquis with a 5.0 V-8
BMW 325e with a 2.7 I-6
Mazda RX-7 with a 1.3 Rotary
The Merc gets the best fuel milage of the bunch despite the fact it is way heavier than the other cars. I could still smoke the tires from a dead stop after 170,000 miles too. Yahoo!
The Mazda with the 1.3 got the worst fuel mileage, but man was it FUN! With some mods you can pump a bunch of ponies out of the engine, but why spend all that time/money when all you have to do is pick up a 5.0 HO engine/tranny from an old Lincoln Mk VII & drop it into the RX.
The BMW is a competent car, I still use it as my weekend beater fishin' car, or haulin' concrete or whatever.
The Mazda is gone, the Merc will be leaving in the next few weeks, & the BMW will likely be sold/given away this summer.
