Paul Bass Photo
Mayor Toni Harp’s days of tooling around New Haven in a Toyota Prius may soon be over.
Harp said Monday that the city is looking to buy a Ford Explorer as the new official mayoral vehicle. The Prius has trouble handling hills in the snow and ice, she discovered.
“I think we need more traction,” she said, as she and her driver, Police Officer Eric Scott departed Monday from a Martin Luther King Jr. birthday event at Wexler-Grant Community School (pictured above) en route to other mayoral appearances around town.
She and Scott said they haven’t yet settled on a specific model to purchase. It will have four-wheel drive, Harp said.
The Prius will remain in the city fleet for use by other officials, Harp said. She observed that the 2004 vehicle has accumulated over 130,000 miles since former Mayor John DeStefano started driving it. (He had previously driven a Lincoln Navigator.)
“I know people want the [Toyota] hybrid,” Harp said. “But they don’t deal well with the snow we have.”