Baby you can drive my car...

Further to traffic jams and skidding downhill.... Gotta throw in my two cents' worth about Toyotas. I love mine. Knock on wood, it has never let me down or taken me anywhere I didn't wanna go.

Yes, it's bad, very bad, the recall of 270,000 cars. Annoying, worrisome and potentially horrifying for their drivers, not to mention a blow to Toyota's reputation.

On CBC TV news the other night they were playing up the worry factor, the issue that Toyota has let its customers down when it comes to safety.

And this is true.

But I don't think people buy Toyotas thinking they're safer than other cars; they buy them because they're more reliable.

That is, you trust that the thing will start when you turn the key. You have faith that it won't die on you in the middle of nowhere.

Then there are the aesthetics.

A few days ago the Globe and Mail ran a hysterically funny list of the world's all-time worst cars. Death-trap travesties of design. The Ford Pinto, the GMC Gremlin, Pacer, Aztek, etc etc etc. Things you would not want to be caught dead in, but, let's be honest, might have driven. (I got my license in my parents' Pinto!)

Worse than clunkers, lemons, beaters. Notoriously dumb, hideous, embarrassing.

But there it is: sometimes things fail, ideas nose-dive.

You have to get past it.

Everything's a leap of faith--whether lifting the pen or puttin' the pedal to the metal.

Today let your designs be gorgeous. Foolproof. Reliable.

Let them be timeless and fuel-efficient and their suspension give you an elegant, happy ride.