It's A Small World After All, Hybrids Aplenty From The Toyota Womb, And A Corolla You Really Want To Drive.
Prius Public ServiceWe've seen it around the world-well in Canada, at least-cab drivers are turning Toyota's hybrid Prius into taxicabs. But when it comes to putting the 40-mpg hybrid on the road for the public good, credit the cops at Northern Illinois University, where the Department of Public Safety is turning them into law enforcers. The university believes they're the first police department in the nation to use the new Prius for patrolling the campus. NIU has a fleet of six Priuses and plans to convert its whole fleet to Priuses in the future. They expect it will use up to 80 percent less fuel than the Crown Victorias use now. "It just makes good sense. On a campus this size we don't need big vehicles that are expensive to operate, cumbersome and environmentally unfriendly," says NIU Police Chief Don Grady.
Nissan 360:It's A Small WorldYou know and drool over Nissan's current lineup in the States-and who wouldn't? The 350Z is a classic in the making, the Altima's great if you have kids and the Titan/Armada trucks are perfect for consuming everything in their path-including the occasional parking berm. (Don't worry, it'll rub out.)
But Nissan's portfolio isn't just made up of the jazzy models we see here in the U.S. And that's the point of the Nissan 360, a massive month-long press event held this summer in San Francisco, in which we drove nearly everything Nissan sells around the world: from the Elgrand minivan to the mini Moco city car. Of course, since we got to them after the Australian and the Spanish journalists, most of them were stripped of all their tire treads and a few were missing radios-damn Aussies and their five-finger discount!
But over the course of a day, we found out that a few of the international models, perfect for zipping through Japanese tollbooths or cruising European cities, would feel surprisingly at home on the streets of San Francisco. We also found several exhausted Nissan PR people tucked away, napping, inside the Elgrand. Read on to see which of the global fleet we found the most fun.