VALDOSTA — The little oval silver gray car looked more like a flying saucer with four tires than it did the discontinued hybrid Honda Insight automobile that it was.

Parked in a handicapped slot in front of the Home Depot on Norman Drive, the car was turning almost every head that passed it. The large solar panel draped across the storage space under the rear hatch window had many thinking they were looking at a solar-powered car.

That would be a press-stopper in this energy crisis world of ours.

Although the solar panel is not connected to the car’s power train, as it turned out, the one who placed the solar panel in the vehicle, and why he did it, was just one of 1,000 things Charles Trainer of Boston, Mass., does to save energy and protect the environment.

Now many would stop reading at this point, hoping for a less sermon-like rant from some tree-hugger.

It is true. Charles Trainer is an environmental movement all unto himself.

However, Trainer, 48, of Ipswich, Mass., is not one to beat others over the head with his own personal beliefs.

Tracked down in the molding section of Home Depot where Trainer was working out a contract for the store, the affable, lanky fellow gave his mantra that “I don’t tell people what I believe unless they ask” during our brief chat to learn more about the man who drives the flying saucer-looking car with the solar panel.

To straighten the record, the hybrid Honda Insight driven by Trainer was a 2006 model — the year Honda discontinued America’s first hybrid car. That’s the Honda Insight. Trainer uses the solar panel to power anything one could plug into a cigarette lighter in a vehicle, a recharger for cell phones, a laptop, a lamp or any other device.

“The solar panel is a Solar Harvester made by SolarOne of Framingham, Mass., a standalone that can be used in a camp setting,” Trainer explained. “The company provides LED light clusters and water purification systems to power with the panel. I use it to power all the technology in the car. But it’s not legal to hook a solar panel to a power train, so no, the car is in no way propelled by any energy created by the panel. That would be illegal. They haven’t perfected such a vehicle yet.”

Also, he rides the battery powered, two-wheeled Segway around Home Depot because he is handicapped, not because he’s lazy. And anyone riding a battery-powered Segway that can go 30 miles per hour should be wearing the hard helmet we found Trainer in as he worked away to fulfill his promised work for a molding company that supplies Home Depot.

Trainer was busy rebuilding 149 molding bays in Home Depots across the South, making an overnight stop in Valdosta on his way to Albany. It was his first trip to the South.

“Southerners are very polite. They say please and thank you. They speak to you when they pass you,” Trainer noted. “In Boston, they may or may not make eye contact and they’d rather not speak to you. I really like Southerners.”

As for the Honda Insight, the 2006 model is not Trainer’s first. He owned a 2002 model that had 98,000 miles on it. MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) became interested in buying Trainer’s 2002 model when Honda discontinued the car and switched hybrid technology to other models like the Civic.

“The book value on the 2002 was $5,000, but MIT gave me $10,000 for it,” Trainer said. “I knew there were three more in my area, so I knew I could let go of it.”