Why I Just Bought A Prius After Years of Only Driving Old Trucks

Hey there. I'm Caleb, The Drive's truck editor. Regular readers and our staff alike know me as the guy who prefers old pickups to just about anything. I even own a 1966 Ford dump truck! With that track record, I understand it may surprise some folks that I just bought a 2006 Toyota Prius. What might be even more surprising is that I'm totally stoked about it.

I'll start by saying I still have a lot to learn about this thing. Like I mentioned, I'm the guy my editors call to go to the desert and test Bronco Raptors or whatever; I don't have so much firsthand experience with econoboxes. I've been driving it for nearly a week at this point and while writing this blog, I had to Google the powertrain specs—it's a 1.5-liter four-pot that runs on the Atkinson cycle, apparently. That means I'm making do with only 76 horsepower and 82 pound-feet of torque, which is just crazy coming from the world of diesels.

I admit it's an odd pairing, me and this thing. But trust me, whatever you're thinking is no worse than what I've already heard from pretty much everyone who's seen me in it. Buying a Prius is bound to make you the butt of a few jokes where I'm from in the Ozarks, but ya know, it's worth it.