It's not the door prizes and free food car shoppers are interested in. These days the hot marketing commodity is free gas cards, offers for free gas for the rest of the year, and at Westway Ford they're giving away $1500 in gas to keep up with the competition.

"Dodge is offering $2.99 a gallon of gas for three years. I mean everybody is getting out there in this gas market,” said John Thull, Westway Ford.

The offer of $2.99 gas is just one way Frank Para Jeep lured Jeff Livingston, who opted for zero percent financing instead of cheap gas. "If gas goes up to $6 a gallon I may regret that decision and wish I had locked in this way," said Livingston.

And even as expensive new fuel gets delivered to a 7-11, next door at Boardwalk VW, shopper Michelle Gentry looks for a replacement to her gas guzzling SUV. "It'll make a big difference just simply because I get about 15 miles to the gallon now, and I want to get into the twenties," said Gentry.

The Sipes family from Plano is also looking for a low mileage car as opposed to a hybrid. Sid Sipes has done his own spread sheet and found that short supply and high demand makes hybrids a lesser value. "It might be better to get a vehicle that gets say 20 miles per gallon, but costs less to drive every month," said Sipes.

And at a lonely Hummer dealership in Dallas, 20 miles per gallon right now sounds pretty good.

E-mail bshipp@wfaa.com