We have a winner!
The group behind the Prius Challenge drew a winner, and we drove over bright and early in the morning to surprise Travis Unwin with a new Prius! The whole thing was broadcast live on Fox 10 here in Phoenix, and I was thankful he wasn’t in the bathroom when we showed up. Big congrats to him on winning the car!
That wraps up the Prius Challenge, and I’ve turned my loaner Prius back in. It was a lot of fun and extremely educational. As a final send-off, you may want to check out some of the Uncensored Thoughts some people had about the Prius.
The Prius Challenge
Over the summer I was excited and more than a bit surprised to find myself participating in the Prius Challenge, sponsored by the Valley Toyota Dealers.
The challenge involves loaning one of the different models of the Prius to seven different people/teams around the Valley for us to play with, shenanigan with, and comment on. Then at the end of September they will be giving away a Prius c to someone who enters the Prius Challenge contest on Facebook!
The Surprise
I am not entirely clear how my name got added to the list of media celebs, DJs, and credible business people, but I’m rolling with it. My wife and I have been Toyota fans for several years, but I really don’t talk about it much. I can’t recall ever talking about cars at all. Ever. Unless some fool cut me off in traffic.
Now, being surprised does absolutely nothing to curb my desire to have as much fun as possibly can with my given situation. The bigger question is if I can make it through two months with this car and not do something goofy enough to get blacklisted from every Toyota dealership ever. Maybe…
The Excitement
However I got here, I now have a new car for two months that I get to putz and poke and prod, and do all manner of silliness with. Sweet! We already had some road trips planned for the next month, and now we’ll get to do them in a shiny new, gas-sipping technocar!
Plus, I really, really, really want someone I know to win the car at the end of this contest. Because not only does that appeal to my competitive nature, and the Prius really is a nice little car, but I know a lot of really cool people and I would love to be responsible for one of them winning a car!
And, to be honest, if someone wins a car because of me I should be able to mooch a bunch of free coffees off of them for quite a while. Just being realistic here.
How to play along (and win a Prius)
If you follow me on any of my social channels, you’ll be hearing about this a bunch. I’ll try not to get too annoying, but you’ve been warned.
You may want to subscribe to this blog, or you can just read just my posts related to the Prius Challenge. You can also subscribe to my Facebook updates or follow me on Twitter if you have a strong tolerance for puns.
Enter the Prius Challenge contest: PriusChallengeAZ.com
My plan is to not only share Prius info, but also try to help as many people as I can enter this contest. Track me down to take a picture with my Prius to get some more entries for the contest, and here is a map of the Valley Toyota Dealerships to help with the other nine entries you can get (click it to embiggen)
The whole team is using the Check out tweets about the Prius Challenge on Twitter with the hashtag #PriusChallengeAZ.
The rest of the Prius Challenge Team
The other really entertaining part of this for me is meeting the other people they selected. I didn’t know any of them prior to this kicking off, and meeting new and interesting people and bugging them with annoying questions is one of my favorite passtimes.
- DJ Dave and DJ Drea Strickler – Local Phoenix DJs with some mad music skills trying to see how much dog and gear they can cram into one car.
- FOX Sports Arizona Girls – I’m hoping Danielle and Mallory get to take a Prius out onto Chase Field before a Diamonbacks game and do some donuts.
- Lisa Kasanicky – The founder of AZ Spa Girls, I’m trying to convince her to see if someone can get a full pedicure in a Prius while going down the freeway.
- Melissa Hurst – Coupon and savings maven at Saving Cents with Sense. She’s planning on driving the car for a month only using recycled electrons.
- Nadine Bubeck – TV personality and lifestyle columnist, I expect her to replace the class in this effort that I will invariably drain away.
- Nick Calderone – Host of Right This Minute, I want to see him making some sweet videos, like him getting struck by lightning while driving the Prius to recharge it when the batter gets low.
See? No idea how I ended up on this list. It’s a great group of people, but I want somebody I know to win this car!
Follow along for all sorts of interesting tales over the next two months!