Twenty seventeen is shaping up to be a big year for Toyota and its iconic Prius hybrid. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the launch of the original Prius in Japan. Living in Tokyo at that time, I remember that unveiling very well and the huge buzz it created across the industry. Also the first Prius press drives up in a beautifully autumnal Nagano prefecture way back in 1997.
Fast forward to today and I’ve recently been spending time with this latest spec, fourth generation Prius, thanks to Toyota GB. It’s a car I really came to like and respect even if I can say the latest Prius shape is perhaps still not for the faint of heart.
Bold? Without doubt, and brave for Toyota to push the stylistic boundaries so far with such a hugely important new model.
So definitely something of a gamechanger for Toyota. Meantime, as you may recall, here are some they made earlier….
After the rather curious original Prius, Toyota played it far safer with the second and third generation Prius.’ But then they were built up largely around the concepts of efficiency and economy whereas this latest Mk 4 Prius gets all that plus a far more vibrant driving style.
Some aspects of the latest Prius design really are uber cool to my mind, such as those vertical rear lights in full glow. Just fantastic….
For me, the more cohesive, racy design of the higher grade Prius Plug in works far better. I mean, check out those lights and that amazing front end. Game on. Anyway, some 18 months on since its debut, let’s just say the Prius has lost absolutely none of its visual impact.
Last summer, I had a couple of days in Tokyo with this domestic market Prius finished in upscale heat deflecting Thermo-tect lime green. This was classic Prius: silent, seamless, efficient, roomy, a car which might not have set the pulses racing nevertheless totally looked and felt the part amid that ever futuristic cityscape that is Tokyo.
Just re-reading my notes, I see that I marked that Prius down as having quite a soft, almost French car feel. Actually, I quite liked that. On a corporate level, meantime, the Prius continues to be massive in Japan.
Prius is Japan’s number one best seller and in the last financial year, Toyota sold an amazing 225,066 of them. Today, it’s the CH-R that seems to be the Prius’ most serious domestic competitor; it’s the newier, funkier model and still has the latest Prius hybrid tech underneath. The Prius-CHR sales race to the end of the year will be an interesting one…
In Japan, buyers really go for the Prius’ smart modern, eco image, its roominess and practicality and, ahem, its low running costs (not least its extraordinary official economy of 40 km/l, equivalent to 113 mpg in the UK). To run one sends out the right message.
In the UK, the response is different, judging by some barbed thread comments and the odd “milk float” jibe. But then how many have act