The hybrid revolution is well under way. Honda is rolling out the new Insight, the third-gen Prius is coming and even Ford's got a winner with the Fusion Hybrid. Nice cars one and all, but about as much fun as a root canal. Not one of them is something you'd back out of the garage on a Sunday morning to take for a quick blast up your favorite twisty road.

But don't worry. Affordable eco-conscious sports cars are coming, and soon.

We were impressed by the Prius, we love the Insight and we're thrilled to see Toyota rising to Honda's low-cost challenge with a Yaris-based hybrid. We're also eager to get behind the wheel of a Fusion hybrid. Cars like these are smart answers to thorny questions about fuel efficiency, oil dependence and CO2 emissions.

But they don't get the blood racing.

If automakers make green cars people want to drive as opposed to cars they think people should drive, everyone wins and the technology catches on that much faster. Tesla Motors gets it, but the Roadster runs 100 large. The Fisker Karma and electric Porsche that Ruf is working on won't be much cheaper. Make a green(er) car that's fun to drive, pleasant to look at and affordable and people will line up for them.

The auto industry is beginning to get this, and there are at least three cars - the Honda CR-Z hybrid, the Volkswagen BlueSport Roadster and the Toyota MR2 hybrid - poised to prove sports cars can be environmentally responsible and reasonably priced.

Of the three, only the CR-Z (main photo, above) is a sure-thing. Honda says we'll see the gas-electric two-seater - which beautifully updates the awesome CRX - in 2011. Word is it'll have a 140-horsepower motor mated to the IMA system found in the Insight and - importantly - a manual transmission. With a curb weight in the vicinity of 2,800 pounds coupled with a torquey electric motor and one of Honda's high-revving fours, how could it not be fun?

We're eager to see VW build the 42-mpg Concept BlueSport Roadster it brought to the Detroit auto show. It's got an aluminum body, six-speed paddle-shifted DSG transmission and the 2.0-liter turbodiesel you find under the hood of the Jetta TDI. Zero to sixty comes in 6.2 seconds and VW says the car is good for 140 mph.

The BlueSport Roadster was a highlight of the show, and VW hinted it could see production in 2011. Unfortunately VW has a habit of teasing us with sweet concepts that never see the light of day, but it should build this one. The concept was assembled with off-the-shelf parts, so development costs would be low, and the car could provide a platform for entry-level models from from corporate siblings Audi and Porsche (914 redux, anyone?).

Perhaps most tantalizing is the recent report that Toyota may use a modified Synergy Drive hybrid system from the Prius to build a hybrid version of the MR2 that Toyota killed two years ago. Auto Express says the car, a response to the CR-Z, will sport rear-wheel drive and a paddle-shifted transmission. Judging from the rendering over at Auto Express (it's copyrighted, so we can't post it here), the car would look more like the second-gen MR2 shown above than the third-gen Spyder.

"We are aware of the fondness with which the MR2 is held in the UK and Europe, and we are developing a small hybrid sports car," Toyota executive vp Masatami Takimoto told the magazine during the Geneva auto show. "We have set a tough price point (expected to be about $28,000), as it will be easier to sell if it is affordable."

Yes. Yes it would, Mr. Takimoto.

There undoubtedly many other eco-friendlier sports cars that automakers could, and perhaps should, build. Use the Reddit widget below to submit some of your favorites.

Photos: Honda, VW and Flickr / Rockets, respectively.

Submit a car

While you can submit as many cars as you want, you can only submit one every 30 minutes. No HTML allowed.

Back to top