If being a car person can be likened to belonging to one of those questionable quasi-religious groups then one of the Eleven Rules reads, “Under no circumstances can you or should you admit to liking anything with a Toyota badge on it.” And I should know — I used to drink that Kool-Aid hard. When I first started this job it was cool to hate and laugh at and ridicule the products coming out of Aichi. The Corolla. The Camry. The Aygo. The Yaris. Heck, anything was fair game.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, this unintentional foray into Toyota ownership was something of an eye-opener in terms of how well built and reliable cars of this marque can really be. Track days. Long trips. Short trips. Gymkhanas. Drag races. Whatever I threw at the little MR2 it shrugged off and asked for more. And from this stemmed an unlikely love affair with the brand so many ‘car people’ seem blind to acknowledge.
Best of all — and NB for those of us who haven’t seen an above inflationary salary increase in about eight years — it’s seriously light on fuel. Detractors will say that this just isn’t so; that an average car can achieve similar figures. Perhaps, but if you adapt your driving style and use that hybrid powertrain to your advantage then you can cover a lot ground for little financial outlay. Seriously, every time I’ve had a Prius on test I’ve been able to register less than 4.