Exclusive ‘Yaris’
The glory days of the Toyota Prius are over, but ‘Prius’ will remain a household name for a long time to come. In addition to being a teardrop-shaped hatchback, the car was also available as an MPV, but did you know that there was also an extra compact variant? Now it is.
All right, well, the Prius started life as a sedan. Anyone who finds a sleek copy of such a primal Prius can submit it, but for many, the Prius is still that five-door liftback with the spoiler halfway up the window. In the form of the Prius+, which for some reason only had to be called Prius Wagon in the Netherlands, there was also a seven-seat MPV under the Prius label, but that was it. However? So no. This is a Prius C (from ‘city’), a compact, B-segment hatchback with – of course – a hybrid powertrain.
This makes this model ideally suited for a European career, but we never got to see it officially here. Instead, Toyota presented us with a hybrid Toyota Yaris, which in technical terms has many similarities with this Prius C. That Yaris was also available as a non-hybrid in the United States and Canada. Nevertheless, Toyota chose not to introduce the hybrid Yaris, but the Japanese Toyota Aqua on the North American market. That became the Prius C in 2012, of which we see a copy of this after the first facelift. The updated version appeared in 2014 and distinguishes itself with an optically larger grille, differently arranged headlights and different taillights.
This bright blue example came to the Netherlands in 2018 and has been working on its second private Dutch owner since last spring. He is in good shape, but that should come as no surprise given his age. Anyone who buys a Prius C in Europe becomes the owner of an economical, reliable and compact car that is still quite exclusive and therefore interesting. An opportunity, as far as we’re concerned. This blue specimen is not entirely unique, because in 2017 we already encountered an (older) red one.
Photos: Mick Kleijwegt
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl