To all those who gave me advice yesterday- I am now the proud owner of a Toyota Prius S 2000 - which is a NWH11 model (thanks Bob, I could check that) - for the last 90 minutes.
My confusion with the generations is that we deal with them differently here- the first was the trial period in Japan 96-98, the second was 98-2000, and the third 2000-2003, and then we get into NZ news- and of course they are the hatchback etc from 2004 on. Toyota do not recommend NZers purchasing anything below the generation 111 model, that is below 2000.
I love it , I am hooked, but sadly I guess I shall mainly be driving my old petrol guzzling Isuzu to and from town ( only 5 km) as Im always picking something up.I also fear that I might be driving more than I need to in the next month or two.
By the way, in NZ our petrol is now $1.70NZ heading to $2 by xmas??
Oh, and by the way, of course all the monitors are in Japanese. On our NZ internet buy-sell website, someone has a monitor in English for a second generation which they say can be just plugged in- selling price at the mo is $100. However I have bought through Toyota with a big warranty so I really cant fiddle with the technology unless someone tells me it DEAD easy!!!