The most affordable Lexus, and a great city car. Can the Lexus CT 200h tow? Need to take your bikes along?

The most affordable Lexus, and a great city car. Can the Lexus  CT 200h tow? Need to take your bikes along?

Have you ever liked the idea of owning a small, efficient hybrid car, but have been put off by a lack of comfort and luxury features? The Lexus CT200h might be the car for you.

First introduced in 2011 with updates in 2014 and 2017, the CT200h is now getting quite long in the tooth, however, Lexus has tried to keep it fresh with additions to spec and safety features.

Lexus portrays the CT 200h as a sports car with a green heart, which is true if outright performance isn’t on your must-have list.

What Lexus has managed to do with the Lexus CT 200h is take a relatively lacklustre Toyota Prius and give it character, soul and a much-needed sense of luxury.

From the outside, it's a challenge to see the Prius underpinnings with Lexus redesigning the whole look and feel of the CT 200h. The familiar Lexus face is enhanced with LED daytime running lamps and a pronounced Lexus badge proudly presented across the bonnet.

Seating comfort is also typical Lexus, comfortable and with plenty of room for both front and rear passengers. The boot is a reasonable 375 litres, but does without some of the clever features of rivals’. There’s no variable-height boot floor and the rear seats fold in a conventional 60/40 split. Being a hatch you can always fold the rear seats perfectly flat to gain an impressive 985-litre boot space, which should be plenty for most.

Thinking of taking the bikes along on your next weekend trip.  Why not fit a towbar mounted bike carrier.

As with all luxury cars these days, safety is first-class. The CT 200h has eight airbags (dual front, side, curtain and driver and passenger knee) and all the standard electric nanny controls you can think of (ABS, electronic brakeforce distribution, brake assist, stability control and traction control).

The Lexus CT200h cabin was upgraded with a larger, 10.3-inch widescreen display for the infotainment system, and new choices of white or red leather-accented interior or all black.

The hybrid powertrain, of course, provides Lexus’s smallest model with great fuel economy, at least in the city and around the suburbs where there is greater opportunity to limit the use of the 1.8-litre petrol engine and rely on the electric motor alone.

Overall, the Lexus CT 200h makes a very compelling case for a city runabout or a second car.

Unfortunately, the CT is not rated to tow.  But, we do have a bike carrier only towbar available that will allow you to mount 50kgs of 2 wheeled fun on the rear and take your bikes along on your next weekend away.