I grew up with V8s too but then I outgrew most of them.
So you're accustomed to paying through the nose for your fuel because you've never known anything else. Once you get used to buying a lot less fuel, you will wonder how and why you ever put up with heavy fuel usage for as long as you did. Just about any and everything is funner to put your money into than a gas tank. At, say, 250 miles/week @ 8 mpg that is 31 g/week x 4.3 = 133 g/mo x $4 = $532 every month vs 30 mpg equalling $143/mo.....
And unless your V8s are built up and/or have low geared axles, they really aren't all that powerful- as in thrilling- anyway.
Taking this thought one step further, a useful metric is to think of your transportation costs in cents/mile; AAA says the average sedan costs 60.8 cents/mile to operate in '13!
I haven't run all the numbers recently but I'm at or under 10 cents/mile; in other words- take any particular trip for an example- for every time the average motorist makes that trip, I can do it
SIX TIMES for the same money.
All I can do is shake my head when people don't think twice about spending a couple bucks to go the same distance I easily walk in a short time.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...1-a-17052.html
http://newsroom.aaa.com/tag/your-driving-costs/