With gasoline topping $2 per gallon, more local car buyers are asking about fuel efficiency, say car dealers, but the thirst continues for some gas-guzzling SUVs and powerful full-size pickups.

Auto dealerships in central and southern Maine said Tuesday they’re selling a greater number of 60-miles-per-gallon Toyota Priuses and 40-mpg Nissan Sentras than in recent years. Yet they also say they’re selling more 12-mpg Dodge Hemis and Nissan Titans.

Remarkably, sales this quarter of the ultimate SUV, the Hummer H2, are outpacing first-quarter performance by a slight margin at Maine’s only sanctioned Hummer dealership in South Portland. There, said sales manager Mark Cookson, the number of the boxy behemoths expected to roll off the lot this year is right on track with projections. The dealership sold 12 in the past month and a half.

Cookson noted, however, “People are asking” about gas mileage on the H2, which has a $54,000-plus price tag and a 32-gallon tank. “It’s not that they can’t afford it,” Cookson said. “They just want to know what to expect.”

That would be about 12 miles per gallon – or about 384 miles for a $64 fill-up.

Not everyone enjoys seeing more and more of their weekly paycheck coming out of the exhaust pipe.

Joe Gizinsky, a salesman at Lee Nissan in Auburn, said Tuesday morning that he just saw “the second Ford Expedition traded in 24 hours.” Both customers “wanted better gas mileage,” he added.

He also said customer interest in Nissan’s 40-mpg Sentra is picking up.

“We sold three or four of them in just the last week,” Gizinsky said.

Across the lot at Lee’s SUV headquarters, sales manager Mike Hanson said people are still willing to buy big trucks with big engines that get low mileage numbers.

“It all depends on what they need,” Hanson said.

His lot’s sales in the days leading up to $2-a-gallon gas prices included four Nissan Titan full-size pickups, complete with four-wheel-drive and 5.4-liter V8 powerhouses. He also just moved a couple of Dodge Hemis, giant four-wheel-drive pickups with slightly larger motors than the Titans. They get about 12 miles to the gallon.

Some customers are also showing interest in diesel-equipped pickups, Hanson said, but more for their power than their fuel efficiency.

“Pickup sales have been strong,” he said.

On the other hand, Hanson said he has noticed a slowing of sales of large SUVs, such as Dodge’s Durango

On the other side of Auburn’s auto row, Vinnie Goulette, Emerson Toyota’s general manager, said he has seen a sharp spike in sales of Corollas, fuel-rated at 35 to 38 mpg.

“And I’ve got a stack of orders 10 deep for the Prius hybrids,” Goulette said.

That top-ranked gas miser coaxes 62 miles from a gallon in city driving, according to federal Environmental Protection Agency tests.

Slipping slightly in sales of late are the Toyota Sequoia and 4Runner SUVs and the full-size Tundra pickups, although each is listed at 18 or more mpg, Goulette noted.

He said he couldn’t with certainty say that record-high gasoline prices are behind the higher sales of Corollas and Priuses or slower sales of larger vehicles.

Like Hanson, he noted that customers tend to arrive in showrooms well-schooled in the details of the vehicle they’re interested in. Window stickers advise would-be buyers of prices and accessories as well as fuel-efficiency ratings.

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