Toyota Prius hatchback 2005 review

We have managed to clock up more than 6600km behind the wheel of the Prius in a three-month period.

And surprisingly, in that time, the car has managed to endear itself to our family more than I could have anticipated.

It is more practical than it looks and sounds, and the two-week interval between fill-ups is especially welcome.

As the cost of petrol continues to soar, we'd have been reluctant to part with the car, except for the fact that Honda has offered us a hybrid Civic for comparison,

For the uninitiated, Prius is one of those new fangled hybrid petrol-electric cars that runs on the smell of an oily rag, using a combination of petrol and electric power.

It has an electric motor as well as a small 1.5-litre petrol engine, that work in tandem to produce a maximum 82kW.

Toyota claims Prius uses up to 50 per cent less fuel than an equivalent-sized conventional car.

Bold words from the Japanese company but a claim that has certainly be borne out by our family.

During the last three months, we have averaged 734km from the 45-litre fuel tank, which we ran right down and refilled to the brim each time.

Prius takes ordinary unleaded and the tank consumed an average 40.6 litres of petrol at each fill.

During this time, our best figure for a single tank of fuel was 777km before we finally bailed and went looking for a servo.

Although Prius has an elaborate trip com- puter, the one thing the car cannot tell you is distance to empty - that depends on too many factors.

Prius can probably run on electric power alone for a short period but we didn't want to risk it.

After 777km the car took 42 litres of fuel which still left three litres in the kitty so it probably could have made the 800km mark had we persisted.

Totalling the kilometres travelled and the fuel we used for the three months, our average fuel consumption for the period was 5.52 litres per 100km.

In fact, hard as we have tried, we were unable to push the car into using more than 5.7-litres per 100km.

Prius is front wheel drive with a continu- ously variable (CVT) automatic transmission.

The transmission performs the dual role of splitting the delivery of energy between the front wheels and generator which powers the electric motor.

Any surplus energy generated is stored in the extensive battery system for later use.

Braking also regenerates power, so stop-start city driving is not necessarily a bad thing.

The petrol engine automatically switches off when the car is stationary or coasting.

Apart from its obvious fuel economy what really impressed us about the car was how practical it actually is.

We did not have high expectations but once we got used to the car's little idiosyncrasies, it quickly impressed.

It's a lot bigger inside than it looks, with plenty of head and shoulder room and plenty of legroom in the back for two adults.

It is classy, well finished and has a high level of standard equipment including electronic stability control.

There's still room for improvement in the suspension department and the front seats are fairly flat and lifeless, but apart from that its all good.

Cars such as Prius start to make more sense the higher the price of petrol goes.

In fact, the higher the price the greater the saving driving cars likes this is going to be.

Prius is priced from $36,500 plus on-road costs.