Do you like prius 2011 body design?
Yes
No
Only registered users can rate items.

Author Message

RedCarDriver

us
Posts: 1211

Location: United States Arizona
Occupation: it's complicated... more complicated than my relationships
Age: 30
V$: 86310
#27291   2013-06-21 04:20          
First thing: Regardless of what I'm about to say about the design of the car, I absolutely love the mod and how much detail you've put into it. It's made at an exemplary level of quality that all other SLRR modders should aspire to reach. :)

I like the 2010+ Prius marginally better than the 2003-2009 design, which I would characterize as looking like a beached whale. The 2010+ Prius looks like the same beached whale from before has now had a meat cleaver taken to it. It's a noticeable, but not sufficient, improvement over the totally bland previous design.

The cetacean nature of the Prius is mostly apparent from the front, which is mostly a featureless blob. There are actually a few cool touches on the rear. The tail lights scream "trying too hard to be technologically savvy", but the split window is cool because it reminds me of the Honda CRX. As Davidov pointed out, though, it's hardly an original styling element, and with the Prius, the Insight, and the CR-Z all using it, it's becoming more and more tainted as a feature of bland hybrids.

The interior, to me, demonstrates much of what's wrong with modern interior styling: slab-like dashboard, with no instrument cluster to speak of; plastic everywhere; too many touch-screens all over everything; and the doors are a foot thick thanks to safety regulations, making the inside of the car much smaller (and the outside much bigger) than it ought to be.

(The rest of the comments aren't really about the styling.)

Some close friends of mine have a 2004 Prius. It's a nice enough car to ride in. The suspension is cushy but not nearly as numb as that of a similar model year Avalon, the seats are comfortable, and the car is actually pretty decently responsive. Surprisingly, you could fit an impressive amount of stuff in the trunk. (Not kidding. We used to haul metal pipes, cardboard boxes filled with paper, and other cargo inside it, with four or five people still in tow.)

Performance-wise, I wouldn't call the Prius a "bad car" by its own merits. I think that it falls short of what it's meant to achieve: fuel economy and environmental consciousness. An all-electric car is a much better way to go, or even a much lighter gas-only car - the hybrid drivetrain wastes a lot of weight, no matter how much it makes up for it. It's also an auto enthusiast's bane, given that (trendy body kits and wild all-electric conversions aside) there are no meaningful modifications one can perform on it.