In San Francisco With a Gallon of Gas to Go Nick Czap for The New York Times ON THE ROAD The 2012 Toyota Prius C taking a break at the Beat Museum in San Francisco. THIS eye-pleasing city has plenty of popular tourist sites as well as a less famous but equally beguiling attraction, the 49 Mile Scenic Drive. This meandering route ties together many well-known landmarks - including Coit Tower, Fisherman's Wharf and the Golden Gate Bridge - while also venturing into areas seldom featured in travel guides. Devised to promote the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939-40, the scenic drive originally terminated at the exposition's fairgrounds on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. Today, the somewhat modified route is marked by signs featuring a sly-looking seagull, which peers down from lampposts across the city. I'd been meaning to take the drive for nearly as long as I've lived here - some 20 years - but until recently I never got around to it. Procrastination was a factor, but it was also a matter of waiting for the right opportunity. Such an occasion finally presented itself a few weeks ago in the form of a test car: an urban-oriented subcompact that could, in theory, complete the 49-mile loop on less than a gallon of gasoline. The car was the 2012 Prius C, the newest, smallest and - with a base price of $19,710 - least expensive member of Toyota's expanding Prius family of hybrids. Aimed at young, budget-wary city dwellers, this more petite Prius (the C is for city) deploys Toyota's gas-electric drivetrain in a sporty-looking four-door hatchback. On the face of it, a Prius C with a gallon in the tank should be able to handle the scenic drive with miles to spare: its city fuel economy rating is 53 miles per gallon. Toyota says its new hybrid baby has the "highest-rated city fuel economy of any vehicle without a plug." Still, I wondered how it would fare on an urban road course punctuated with preposterously steep hills and intermittently horrendous traffic, as well as some less congested stretches of curves and twisties that encourage the right foot to explore its primitive urges. Unlike its larger sibling, the familiar hybrid now called the Prius Liftback, which has the aesthetic appeal of a slug on wheels, the Prius C is an attractive little car. Where the Prius Liftback is all monolithic planar mass, the Prius C is all curves and flares and bulges. And while the Liftback's top-heavy look suggests a predilection for straight-line travel, the C's wide, low-slung, wheels-to-the-corners stance hints at a penchant for playing. The sense of sportiness continues indoors. The front seats are firm and assertively bolstered, with excellent lumbar support. The thick-rim, flat-bottom steering wheel has easy-to-reach thumb pads for the radio, navigation and climate controls, and for toggling among the hybrid information displays. The dashboard, clad in handsome plastics, is pleasingly spare and uncluttered. The test car, outfitted at the top trim level (the so-called Prius C Four, with a sticker price of $25,140) featured a touch screen with audio and navigation controls as well as the Entune interface for smartphones. After examining a map of the 49 Mile Scenic Drive, I chose a starting point: an Inner Sunset gas station, where I would fill the tank before and after. Like all Prii, the C displays trip fuel economy to tenths of a gallon, but I would take a redundant measurement. In the interest of staying on course, I enlisted my wife as navigator in chief, and on a partly sunny, partly foggy, altogether typical San Francisco morning, we set off. After filling up with regular-grade 87 octane at Seventh Avenue and Lincoln Way and clicking the hybrid system into Eco mode to hedge our bets - it slows the throttle opening and dials back the air-conditioner - we made our way toward Twin Peaks. At an elevation of 922 feet, it is San Francisco's second-highest point (after Mount Davidson, not far to the southwest). The road that winds to the top offers panoramic views, and for the skittish, an unnerving proximity to many long, steep drop-offs.