Toyota Prius C (the new small City Prius) leaks out

Toyota Prius C Leak - scanned from a brochure

Toyota are busy growing the Prius range in to a sub brand in all but name. We’ve got the regular Prius and the Toyota Prius+ (and Prius V and plug-in Prius), and now, following the concept reveal at Detroit, we get the Prius City Car – the Toyota Prius C.

The Toyota Prius C has leaked out via a brochure scan from Japan and, although European specs may be a bit different, we get the first proper look at Toyota’s baby Prius.

The Prius C is just 157″ long and 66.7″ wide, which makes it pretty much the same size as the Toyota Yaris. Which does make us wonder if the Prius C is actually a Yaris HSD to be under the skin.

The Prius C seems to have lost much of the flair of the Conept C we saw at Detroit, and is instead a very toned down production hybrid.

The Prius C gets a 1.4 litre 4-pot petrol engine delivering 74bhp and and electric motor with an extra 61bhp. But you can’t use it all to get a little Prius with 135bhp, with Toyota quoting the maximum output as 100bhp. And, surprise, the Prius C will get a CVT ‘box.

Fuel consumption is a bit tricky to work out, as the Japanese system doesn’t easily correlate to European economy tests. But what is interesting is that the Japanese figures say the Prius C will do 35.4 km/l. That sounds impressive until you note that the Japanese figures for the regular Prius are 38 km/l. As our colonial cousins would say, go figure.

It looks like the new Prius C will make its public debut at the Tokyo Motor Show in December and its North American debut at Detroit in the New Year. That probably means a European reveal at Geneva in Spring 2012 and a launch at the end of 2012.

More details when we get them.

Source: CarScoop

By Cars UK