"HUMU" for "Humu humu nuku nuku apu'aa" the Hawaiian triggerfish which is what Car and Driver thought the Prius looked like.
I had an '88 Acura Integra that I referred to as "Wiggy" because its license plate was WGY-003. I had an '02 Mini that was replaced by the new Prius. During its first week, I was washing it (the Cooper) and the 'C' fell off. I felt the car was trying to tell me something, so it became "ooper". For some weird reason, my wife and everyone at work were mad at me for getting rid of ooper. I was leaning towards "Nimhrod" for the Prius (about 2 weeks old now), but it has a slightly negative sound to it and a google search indicated someone else already thought of it. I guess it will have to do until the car lets me know otherwise.
Long ago, someone wrote in a post that the car looks like a "Jellybean," so that's what I call it. I'm basically driving around the world's coolest (and priciest) licorice jellybean!
Since my very first car, I've always named my cars. My '04 has the Nav system and she's named "ERNESTINE" after Lili Tomlin's telephone operator character. When I issue a verbal command, Ernestine sometimes responds with a completely unrelated response, thus the name. If I say, for example, "Go Home" she might say "Showing Post Office Icons," or when I request "Single Map Mode" she might respond "North Up Mode." While some Prius drivers might be irritated and complaining, I choose to view this as entertainment and get a chuckle.
I broke down and named the car. I choose a neuter name. I called it the "Delta Flyer" [Broken External Image]:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/52/Delta_Flyer.jpg/300px-Delta_Flyer.jpg
My friends call her The Cranberry because it is more of a cranberry color than Salsa. I call her the Rebel as my plates include RBL 247, and that does tend to be (my) our approach to things!
It's a car. I refer to it as "my car", "the car" and occasionally "the Prius". My brother has referred to it as "the golf cart". I've never had names for my cars. My mother did call my 1960 Caddy "the silver bullet". Mostly I called it "the Caddy" to differentiate it from "the Saturn".