Attacking masculinity + Toyota.

I noticed this article at  CBC.CA on how a Canadian is heading up Toyota’s Risk Management group.  I see this as a good thing for Toyota, and score for Canadians working in Risk Management.

I couldn’t help but notice the comments being quite derogatory towards Toyota, especially attacking someone’s masculinity for driving a Toyota.

WTF?  My Prius is a seriously cool car and, at this point, it is my dream car until we get long range electrical vehicles.  And the looks when I had my two Echoes when we had 4 guys my size or bigger coming out of the car was priceless.  Honestly, all three of my cars have been pretty zippy, certainly more so than the Nissan Sentra I was driving earlier this week.

Here is my response to the article as posted:

I’ve owned three Toyotas – Two Echos and now a Prius (2nd gen). Personally, the fuel efficiency of the Echo is what won me over relative to the other manufacturers, and it’s what I could afford at the time.

I LOVE my Prius. It has great get up and go, the styling is great and the features are pretty much ahead of it’s time.

While Toyota was slow to respond initially, I have no doubt that they are working hard at changing. I was concerned about the braking issues, but Toyota also worked with top notch organizations to confirm and pick apart their design. They’ve addressed the issues (adjusting the pedals where appropriate) and also confirmed that it wasn’t a fault in the software of the vehicle.

As far as I am concerned, Toyota has addressed the issues and I will buy a fourth one in the future. As for attacks against my masculinity for driving a Toyota, grow up people.

2 thoughts on “Attacking masculinity + Toyota.

  1. Prius?! People, we have Code Red over here!

    C:/>prius_urgent.bat Iain
    Removing RSS subscriptions…
    Photoshoping truck on top of Prius…
    Purging visual of manly boots inside Prius…
    Done!

    Ok, on serious side, it’s nice to know someone who likes Priuses, I have yet to have a car ride in one of them! I’ve seen a profile online not so long ago that said something along the lines of “if you drive Prius, we don’t have anything in common”. As you said, “grow up” people. 🙂

    When time comes to get my own car (current job is very accessible via public transit), it will be either a Honda or Toyota. My friends call them bland, but I want something that just works, period. I don’t know squat about cars, so reliability is good.

    • My first car was going to be either a Toyota Echo or a Honda Civic. The Echo was cheaper at the time and got an amazing deal on it.

      The thing is, they’re not *that* bland. A Yaris or Echo, sure. Corollas are not that bad and are pretty zippy. Camry’s when you have a red car with a black interior, it’s not that bad.

      But the Prius gets dumped on WAY more than it should. It’s a very cool car.

      My first Hybrid ride was a NYC Taxi – A Ford Escape that uses Toyota’s technology – and is MUCH more bland than the Prius. I don’t get why people think they’re ugly – maybe the first generation, but the second and third a great!

      If I could have, I would have gone with a Ford Focus Hybrid, but they’re too expensive.

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