Volt buyers are more likely to be environmentalists (and vegans who wouldn’t eat at Bob’s Big Boy anyway), says auto analyst Erich Merkle of Autoconomy.com in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“If I were GM, I don’t know if I would be courting Jay Leno for the purpose of getting an endorsement on the Volt,” Merkle told the newspaper. “Don’t get me wrong, Jay’s a big car guy, but he’s not your Prius, your Volt, your green car guy.”

“It’s not like when you pull into Bob’s Big Boy parking lot with the Volt, you’re going to open the hood,” Leno told The Detroit News, referring to the classic car hot spot in Burbank, Calif.

Still, he says he hasn’t ruled out buying one.

Leno is a huge car fan and big GM supporter. He helped GM introduce the Cadillac Sixteen concept car at the Detroit auto show in 2003, and was given the Volt by GM execs last year to test drive.

Customers who have left deposits and are waiting for a car will still get the original price, the company said.

The car celebrated its one-year anniversary on Saturday. As the world’s cheapest car, intended to replace motorcycles on Indian roads, there were hopes that it would be a big seller. But so far only 45,000 have been sold in a country with over 1 billion people.

Ford sells that many F-150s in a month.

Tata Motors says sales should go up this year, since it has recently opened another plant and will be able to satisfy orders more easily.

Selena Muhoberac, Scott’s wife, sent a few photos of her car tattoos. She has the GM logo on her back, a Cadillac hearse and a few of her favorite brands on her forearms. Selena as an all-American type gal so she keeps her tattoos domestic — Buick, Caddy, Chevy, Olds and Pontiac.

Michael Matthew from Dayton, Tenn., loves all kinds of cars, and between him and his wife, he says they have owned around 80 cars in their life. When he started getting tattoos four years ago, the logical theme was cars and motorcycles, he says.

devotion like allowing someone to take a sharpened needle, dip it into thick, goopy liquid and repeatedly pierce your skin until you’re bleeding and sore — also known as getting a tattoo.

Recently, we at Drive On wrote about tattoos relating to cars, and we asked you to send in photos of your car tattoos. Above is one from Michael Matthew of Dayton, Tenn. Below are some more:

Cheri Embree of San Diego has owned a 1968 Mustang for 25 years. She also serves on the board of the San Diego Mustang Club. But the realest sign of her affection? This tattoo of the famous Mustang symbol.

While waiting for my taxi driver to pick me up outside a popular Kabul bookstore, I counted vehicle makes that passed me by. Just counting the ones in the lane in front of me, the total was 93 Toyotas, three Suzukis and one Nissan, and one that defied any identification.

It is no exaggeration to say that virtually every automobile and SUV you see on the streets of Kabul carries a Toyota brand — or did until some owner peeled it off and replaced it with a BMW or Lexus sticker.

Yellow and white Corollas, often station wagons crowded with 10 or more passengers, are the basic shared taxi in Kabul — as ubiquitous as Kalashnikovs in the hands of police and private security on every block. There are plenty of Land Cruisers, often armored, with giant antennas protruding, and blast-proof glass windows. And usually they are carrying several armed, big guys with sunglasses and bulging arms. Hiluxes, 4 Runners and pickups are around, too. Even some buses are Toyotas.

Toyota’s image problems in the United States over unintended acceleration don’t seem to be having any spillover here in Afghanistan. Toyotas are the overwhelming four-wheeled motor vehicle of choice on the pitted and dusty streets of this capital city.

It is no exaggeration to say that virtually every automobile and SUV you see on the streets of Kabul carries a Toyota brand — or did until some owner peeled it off and replaced it with a BMW or Lexus sticker.

It takes its name from its first owner, C.B. Thomas, president of Chrysler’s export division in the 1950s:

Departing from its conservative styling history, Chrysler hired the visionary Virgil Exner away from Raymond Loewy’s studios to build several “idea cars,” RM says in its history of the car. Exner, in turn, contracted with Italy’s Carrozzeria Ghia to build them. Says RM:

There was some serious thought about making the “Thomas Special” for production, but eventually only six were made for Chrysler and Ghia built 12 for itself.RM says some of the styling touches — the perfect proportions, minimal chrome and big engines — are reflected in today’s Chrysler 300. Adds RM:

Michael Mahan, GE’s charger boss, says studies show the global demand for such chargers should top 1.6 million a year by 2015. He says GE knows there’s a chicken-and-egg argument — cars first? charging systems first? — but the company believes “if you put the infrastructure in, the vehicle adoption goes up dramatically”

The public chargers are operated with the swipe of a credit card. They will not be able to send the car batteries’ juice back onto the electricity grid. Utility companies want that feature so they can tap the stored energy, once there are large numbers of battery cars, as a hedge against brownouts.