Nah, that's just boring. Go with a diesel Insight. There have been a few diesel swaps on the 1st gen Insights that manage the same or better fuel economy than the gas hybrid version.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/38291/this-2000-honda-insight-...

The Honda hybrid tech of that time is a lot easier to swap engines on. A Prius has the motors in the transmission, so it's harder to simply bolt a new engine on. You'd have to either drive the transaxle with your own control algorithms, or figure out another way to make it behave with a different engine. The Honda electric motor was on the engine crankshaft, and you could get the Insight with a manual transmission, so it's really just "bolt in the motor and go."

But of course you'd get a diesel Prius or Insight only to be "rolling coal" with it.

EDIT: Sorry, only watched the YouTube clip now -- OMG, seems that was the purpose! Sheesh, you think you're making an obviously absurd jokey take on something... America, you never (cease to) disappoint.

Anecdotally, macho gearhead types seem to generally respect the premise diesel-electrics, because freight trains. Because it's been so successful in locomotives, these sort see diesel-electric as proven, powerful, and sufficiently macho.