If you were driving up to the red carpet for this year’s Oscars ceremony, the car in front of you was probably a Toyota. For the big stars of Hollywood, stretch limos are so last year. If not the year before. The thing to be seen in now is a lean, green, non gas-guzzling Prius.

Among the stars pictured emerging from these environmentally friendly saloons were Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom and Charlize Theron. Harrison Ford, Calista Flockhart and Gwyneth Paltrow are among a host of other proud-to-drive-Prius celebrities.

Toyota, which is on its way to becoming the world’s biggest car maker, has become an unlikely ally of environmental campaigners. Together they have been encouraging Hollywood’s finest to get behind the wheel of a Prius — powered by a “hybrid” petrol-electric engine — in the hope of saving the planet. Toyota, of course, hopes some of that Hollywood glamour will rub off and help it towards its target of a selling a million hybrids a year by 2010.

“Watching celebrities get out of small green cars is a visible symbol that you can be environmentally friendly and cool at the same time,” said Matt Petersen, president of Global Green, an environmental lobby group.

Can this be true? Is fast-living, high-spending Hollywood really casting off its luxury lifestyle and embracing this humble, economical Toyota saloon? Do they drive 65 miles to the gallon with pride? Or do they occasionally opt for something a little less green? Orlando Bloom, star of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, was certainly enthusiastic in his support for the half-petrol, half-electric Prius. “Hybrid cars help us conserve natural resources and preserve the planet,” he said at Oscar time. “Choosing a hybrid is something everyone can do today to help reduce our negative impact on the environment.”

Quite right, but let’s not forget that some of us have more negative impact on the environment than others. You might, for example, find it a bit rich being urged to go green by somebody like Bloom, who was previously seen about town in a bulky GMC Yukon, a car that could challenge the Hummer for the motor world’s heavyweight title and which struggles to do 20mpg.

And what about Scarlett Johannson, star of Girl with a Pearl Earring and Lost in Translation. She was one of the stars who was happy to be associated with the Prius at Oscar time. But when she had a minor crash in August this year she was driving a black Mercedes convertible.

Harrison Ford is also a fan of the Prius, and is often pictured in one. But the Indiana Jones star also has a collection of vehicles that are slightly less kind to the environment, according to reports last year following his divorce from Melissa Mathison. There was his Jaguar S-type, for a start, not to mention his Mark III Austin Healey. He also had a pair of Harley-Davidson motorbikes and six private aircraft.

Let’s not be unkind. When Ford and Flockhart arrived at the Oscars in their Prius in 2003 they were simply trying to do their bit for the environment. When DiCaprio drove his Prius to this year’s Oscars he had no choice. It’s the only car he owns. “I don’t fly private jets and I only have one car,” he said in December 2004. “Money is important to me. I want to accumulate enough so that one day I can do something really beneficial for the environment or for people.”

That’s true, although in the time between becoming a fan of the Prius in 2000 and forsaking other cars he has been snapped stepping out of a rather less economical BMW 7-series.

Cameron Diaz is another champion of Prius power, except on the occasions when she has been photographed riding with her boyfriend Justin Timberlake in his 4 litre Jeep Wrangler. That has a slightly higher appetite for petrol — 21.7mpg (combined cycle) to be precise.

Even Paltrow, who is sympathetic to environmental causes, has been pictured getting into a Range Rover, the car Greenpeace protested about in a recent campaign and during a sit-in at Land Rover’s Solihull factory where demonstrators briefly halted production.

The Prius was launched by Toyota in Britain and the United States in 2000 but it is only recently that it has begun to get a grip on motorists’ imagination. At low speeds it’s an electric car. The petrol engine turns on when it needs more power under acceleration or at speed, or when the battery needs recharging.

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