Coming up on April 1st, Wednesday of next week for those of you keeping score, the 2009 Denver Auto Show will open its doors to the public for another year of exciting car news, concepts and hands-on automotive fun. To kick-off this growing event in Denver, the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association (CADA) and the Metro Denver Auto Dealers Association (MDADA) left yesterday afternoon to begin their Statewide Green Car Convoy.

Even the best made plans have some challenges and Green Car Convoy is no exception. The first leg of the tour was to being in Montrose, CO yesterday, March 26th. However, this also coincided with the first blizzard in Colorado for 2009. This didn’t deter this group whose soul purpose is to demonstrate fuel-efficient vehicles that are available to the automotive buying public from local dealerships today.

2009 Volkswagen Touareg TDI

2009 Volkswagen Touareg TDI

 

How did the Green Car Convoy fair during the blizzard? I have first hand reports from organizer Tim Jackson, President of the CADA and EVP of the MDADA, that the convoy made it to all 5 locations scheduled for today’s tour, which included well known locations such as Glenwood Springs and Vail. Vehicles on the tour include the Mercury Mariner Hybrid, Volkswagen Touareg Clean Diesel and BMW X5 Clean Diesel.

The best part of this story? After 589 miles the Mercury Mariner Hybrid maintained an average of 29.5 mpg. I don’t know about you, but that is almost double what my 1998 Toyota 4Runner would get when it was new. So maybe after 10 or more years we really are seeing progress and not just in vehicles like the 2010 Toyota Prius.

Stay tuned for more updates on the progress of this green car tour and the final stop at the State Capital in downtown Denver. You can learn more about the Statewide Green Car Convoy and Green Tie Charity Preview at GreenCarDenver.org.

 

Do we have your hybrid juices flowing and have you craving more? Check out our partner sites allaboutprius.com and allcarelectric.com for your green car news fix. Also, check out the rest of the Allsmallcars.com for more small car newsphotosreviews and more!