Hollywood's enormous impact on the Prius's fortunes surprised even Toyota, which has simply been unable to deliver in sufficient numbers.
"I own a Toyota Prius; it's a step in the right direction. It's a gasoline-electric midsize car that gets about 50 miles per gallon. We have the technology to make every car produced in America today just as clean, cheap and efficient.", Leonardo DiCaprio says.
Local news reports claim DiCaprio liked his Prius so much he bought another three for his mother, father and stepmother.
"My family and I drive them all over Los Angeles. I cant find any downside", he told a local paper.
The hybrid combination of using an electric motor to assist a small petrol engine dramatically reduces not only petrol consumption but the greenhouse emissions from the tail pipe by up to 50 per cent. While the steep purchase price (approximately double that of comparable small car) makes it uneconomical in terms of fuel cost savings; for the rich and famous its about more than the hip-pocket.
Celebrities just love them, the new-car manager of the local Toyota dealer in Santa Monica said.
Leonardo DiCaprio Biography
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio was destined from the beginning to be a wild and spirited boy. He received his first name after swiftly kicking his mother from her womb as she admired a Leonardo DaVinci painting in the Uffizi. He was born in Los Angeles, CA on the eleventh of November of 1974 to George and Irmalin DiCaprio. Leo was an only child (though he does have a stepbrother named Adam), and his parents divorced each other within a year after his birth.
As the blond, blue-eyed icon for millions of teenage girls and more than a few boys everywhere, Leonardo DiCaprio emerged from relative television obscurity to become perhaps the hottest under-30 actor of the 1990s. After leading roles in William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet and James Cameron's Titanic, the actor became a phenomenon, spawning legions of websites and an entire industry built around his name.
In high school, DiCaprio acted in his first real play and began doing commercials, educational films, and the occasional stint on the Saturday morning show The New Lassie. In 1990, after securing his first full-time agent at the age of 15, DiCaprio landed a role as a teenage alcoholic on the daytime drama Santa Barbara. He also continued to appear on other TV shows, such as The Outsiders and Parenthood, and made his film debut in the 1991 horror film Critters 3.
Starring opposite Kate Winslet in the 1997 smash Titanic, DiCaprio got to be part of film history, as, in addition to being the highest-grossing movie ever, the film garnered 14 Oscar nominations, winning 11, including Best Picture and Best Director. DiCaprio's much discussed exclusion from the nominations did nothing to hurt his popularity, and somewhat ironically, he next chose to parody his own celebrity with an appearance in Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998) as a badly behaved movie star.
About Toyota Prius
The new base price for a mid-sized Prius for 2006 is $31,280, which is up from $30,530 from 2005. A Prius equipped with the B package of options is priced at $35,360 (up from $34,595), while the C package has an MSRP of $38,710 (up from $37,945).
Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive (HSD) is defined as a "full hybrid system," which is capable of operating in gas or electric modes, or with gas and electric power together.
HSD combines a 1.5-litre four-cylinder gasoline engine producing 76 hp and 82 lb-ft of torque with an electric motor producing its maximum power of 67 hp from 1,200 to 1,540 rpm, and peak torque of 295 lb-ft from 0 to 1,200 rpm.