A February Prayer

So, God, about that winter home in Key West . . .

Oh What A Feeling!...Of Unintended Acceleration

It's quite possible that I'm enjoying the current Toyota recall a bit too much. Really though, it's hard not to. Ever since Toyota killed off the MR2 and Supra, they have only built bland vehicles. Driving them is as much fun as clipping your toenails. A few years ago I would have said that all their cars have bland styling (which I suppose is still true of the Lexus brand), but that's no longer true. Now most of the Toyota- and Scion-branded cars are fugly. That's not exactly an improvement though.

Knowing that, it's hard for me to imagine how they overtook GM (who decided to take a few decades off from building quality cars) as the largest automaker in the world. Then I remembered that I'm not at all part of the target demographic for Toyota. Toyota owners simply want a car that, once they've bought it, they never have to think about. All Toyota has to do to maintain their position in the automotive world is to continue to build cars with bullet-proof reliability. That's it. Just one thing.

If you're that big of a corporation and you only have to continue to do one thing to be successful, how do you screw it up? That's why I'm enjoying watching Toyota get raked over the coals for this. They've let quality slip over the past handful of years, and now their reaping the benefits of that. Ah, I love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning!