Toyota’s President Akio Toyoda today thumbed his nose at coming to the USA to attend congressional hearings – saying he “wanted to focus on improving quality worldwide.” Yea sure and if you believe that, call me as I own this great bridge that serves the island of Manhattan that I will sell you for pennies on the dollar.

We would wager a goodly sum that if the US told Toyota that it could no longer sell it’s product within the US that the dude would be on the first plane to the US. To quote Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons”: “In War and Peace its nickels and dimes.”

The Corolla is the world’s best-sell car (or at least it was until now) – and with Toyota trying to salvage its reputation over the alarming disclosures that the firm produces hunks of junk, another recall could be the straw that breaks the back of Toyota. The finger pointing has already started as Toyota looks for someone other than itself to blame: its the tires, no its the steering, no its the software – oh, heck, we don’t know what it is, but its certainly isn’t us (or, perhaps, just don’t care, in spite of the apologies.)