We’re not in the Prius equivalent of Kansas anymore Toto!
Last week when we were offering a friend of ours some suggestions about what car she should buy we avoided mentioning the Toyota Prius to her because … well … because it has an image problem.
It’s a great car and it does what it sets out to do really well but it looks like … well … not the sort of thing an empty nester who likes to let her hair down would care to drive. The Prius looks mundane … ordinary … plain.
And then we saw this Toyota Prius. Once it was one of those plain and ordinary looking cars that you wouldn’t want to drive … then Toyota in Japan passed it to their Conversions and Accessories group and it’s not plain and ordinary any more.
Light-weight carbon fibre is used for all exterior panels, except the doors. This includes aero side skirts with vertical spoilers, front bumper and fender flares with radically large air intakes, the bonnet, roof, rear hatch, rear spoiler, rear bumper with vertical spoiler, and rear garnish.
Other exterior features include an exterior-mirror camera system, smoked rear combination lamp with a translucent rear side spoiler, styled exhaust tip and illuminated Toyota badging.
Sport suspension lowers the concept by 10cm in the front and 15cm in the rear. It rides on 18-inch forged wheels with aluminum aero rings and 215/40R18 eco sport tyres.
The interior also gets a workover with black suede highlights throughout, Recaro seats with embroidered “C&A” logos, and an additional gauge on the instrument panel featuring “G” output and mileage meters, along with a water thermometer and voltmeter.
A Denso navigation system features an eco function that displays total electric motor and engine kilowatt output, steering angle, speed, accelerator open angle, and mileage.
It’s a pity it’s a one-off … our friend would have jumped at the chance to drive one of these.