Call me a convert. Our little family of two has two cars, both Prius.

Picked up my '01 Prius used at the beginning of this year, when we initially started looking at a new Echo to replace my coming-off-lease '00 Echo. First dealership we found had a green '01 (exact same colour as the Echo, in fact) on the lot with less than 35,000 km on it, and cheaper than a new Echo with lesser equipment, so we jumped on it.

Loved it so much, that when my fiancee's Malibu was coming off lease (she was subletting it through her father's employer... it's all very complex), we decided to go with a "new" Prius. Went back to the same dealership, and found out that their demonstrator salsa red "B" package (Canadian option level for the '04 with everything but nav, voice, Bluetooth and HID, the latter you can't have up here anyways...) was on the block starting the next day, because an '05 demo had just arrived. (Odd, because it was the same car feature-for-feature as the '04....) So we grabbed that.

Fiancee's Prius is primarily used for commuting to work. I work at home, but we get more travel out of the '04 because we move around a lot on the weekends, especially, with our families spread around a radius of two hours from Toronto.

Both are wonderful cars.

Before that, I owned the aforementioned Echo, and a demonic, no-options, no-performance, barely-runnable '85 Ford Tempo, which I remember fondly because it was my first car, and inherited as a 17-year-old from my grandfather, who was giving up on driving after some 80-plus years behind the wheel. Horrid car, many near-death experiences as a teenager. Good times.

My fiancee thought she would seriously miss the power of the Malibu's V6, but thus far, she's over the moon for the '01. Since she's mostly commuting with it, the more-rapid accelaration doesn't mean much to her. But she hated the size of the vehicle... and finds the smaller footprint of the Prius, and its small size -- it's actually significantly more agile than the Echo, IMHO -- perfect for her needs.

And despite her former life as a leadfoot, it sounds like the Prius is changing her driving habits a bit, as I now find her complaining about raising L/100km as the weather drops... and even asking me occaisionally for tips on how to get the most out of it.