How to make a Prius cool? Simple, slam it into the weeds then put some BBS alloys on it.
While most have perhaps long forgotten already, but there was a time back in the mid 2000s when owning a Prius was actually kinda cool. This was after all the period when the world began to lean heavily into the eco-culture (again), and to be seen driving around in this hybrid Toyota was nearly as cool as driving around in a Lamborghini.
Over the years however, one too many holier-than-thou hippy hogging the fast lane in their Prius has somewhat caused the coolness to have once been associated with this hybrid to evaporate to the point that even Angelina Jolie being spotted driving one around couldn’t help restore its image. What more to is that when the more eco-friendly all-electric Tesla came on the scene, the Prius basically had lost its only claim to cool.
This continued decline in the cool factor of the Prius however can’t solely be blamed on the ever-changing trends, as Toyota didn’t really do themselves any favours too by essentially turning it into a (to put it kindly) uniquely styled automobile for its third generation in 2015. In fact, with the Japanese automaker having now basically bringing its hybrid technology to nearly every single model in its lineup, there was speculation for this once-revolutionary nameplate to soon enough be put out to pasture.
Ever the contrarian though, Toyota has surprised many recently by revealing an all-new iteration of its Prius late last year. And in an even more surprising twist, this latest generation is actually more than a little cool again!
Now of course this all-new Prius does still retain all its eco-credentials to make it cool with the tree huggers, but even true blue auto enthusiasts — who once would have likened this hybrid to their antichrist — would now admit that this Toyota deserves a place at least bordering the cool section on the Top Gear cool wall. This is especially if the variant in question is the PHEV Prime variant, which can actually hit the century sprint in a A80 Supra-rivalling 6.6 seconds.
But what really earns this new Prius is cool back comes down to how rather (for the lack of a better word) cool it now looks. While having a rather low bar set by the previous generation on the styling front does certainly help things somewhat, there is nevertheless a general consensus among the automotive community for this new space-age yet sophisticated look of the Prius to actually be one of the main draws towards actually owning one.
And when this new look in black is then slammed into the weeds while riding on some BBS Super RS alloys, one could really make the reasonable argument for the Prius to finally be cool once more.
Photo credit: @789ken71 on Instagram
