"My Toyota Is Fantastic".

The above sentence was printed on the rear windshield in the first new car my father was able to purchase in Sweden.

After struggling through the pain of many used and often unreliable cars, in the late eighties my parents again found themselves in the position of being able to afford buying a brand new car. It was a Toyota Carina II. To this day my father thinks of the car fondly and recalls it as one of the best cars he ever owned.

As I already did not live at home at that time, I mostly experienced the car on the many trips abroad I took with my parents in the late eighties and early nineties. It was that car that took us back to Czech Republic for the first time after the fall of communism, it was the one which drove us through Berlin after the fall of the wall and it was in this car that I drove south with my parents, to the Mediterranean where the picture above was taken.
It was also my fathers Toyota that I drove as the first car with my father during the time in which I took my driving license.

Taking my driving license was pure hell. It was the worst and most costly experience I recall ever in my life. I had to borrow money to get it and and I failed the written test once and the driving test twice, before obtaining the license on my third try.
The license eventually cost me nearly as much as my current car. It was a terrible ordeal that caused me a lot of anguish and distress, but that is another story all together.

With that said though, I was lucky enough to have it once I moved to the US, where (as I learned very quickly) having a car was absolutely vital. The first year while living in North Carolina, I drove a red 77 Ford Thunderbird, which belonged to my friends. Driving this magnificent car was an experience of a life time, which I have described previously.

Once I moved back to Denmark, after having the privilege of driving my own car for almost ten years, I knew I could not go back to be using the public transportation system. I simply had to buy a new car. And this time around, just like my father did before me, I decided to buy a new Toyota. The reasons were many, but most of all the decision was based on price. Toyotas are inexpensive in Denmark, or reasonably priced at least. The Danes do not produce their own cars and furthermore, the state taxes the cars. To each car price, between 100-500% is added on taxes, depending on the make, the size, the fuel usage etc.

My Toyota Yaris, the first model from 1999, is an amazing machinery in every way. It is reliable and practical. It gets me where I need to go using almost no gas; during normal usage, I need to refill it only once a month. With its small size I can park it anywhere. It is a joy to drive, whether in the city, in the country side or on the highway. I have even driven it safely through a snowstorm, where other luxury makes found themselves unable to continue and ended up in ditches. It handles well anywhere and I love its manual transmission, that makes every drive so much fun. Small, yet very spacious and very safe. Even though soon ten years old, it looks and feels like new.

I love my car and I simply can not imagine my life without it. Yes indeed, My Toyota Is Fantastic!