Well now. The Easter Bunny has come and gone, leaving a telltale trail of chocolate droppings around The Garage, the spiral ham is in the oven and the guests are on their way. Time for Gary to get his butt in gear and start working on this week’s Carnival of Wheels. I’ve got lots of reading to do before I start, so here we go.

Easter is a time for rebirth or something like that, but over at 8racingfan all Mike sees is a bunch of crybabies. Gordon doesn’t like being beaten by anyone and the sponsors are upset that they are being beaten by other sponsors. I can see we’re heating up for the battle of Huggies Vs. Depends!

Whether you celebrate Easter, or Passover or some other religious excuse for a long weekend, this is a family time of year. Jeff at DrivingEnthusiast points out how much of the families’ money Billy Ford has lost. Do you think he’s still welcome at the family table this weekend with numbers like that?

If you live in the States and were hoping to pick up a Toyota hybrid and still pick up the tax rebate, your time is up. Now you’ll still get a tax credit, but it’s about half of what you’d get before. Kay at Don’t Mess With Taxes has all the dollars and cents details.

There seems to be a growing trend amongst the Ford guys that the new Shelby GT500KR is a pretty lame combo of add on bits and pieces. Jeff is no different. He thinks the car is a poor excuse for a Shelby. Personally, I think the new Eleanor is pretty cool.

Sorry, excuse the dinner break. On with the CoW.

It’s no secret that I love to study brand here in The Garage, and Heep Jeep is one of my fave examples. Leroy Brown from Houston Cars likes Jeep too, but thinks that thinning out the lineup might strengthen the brand. All I have to say is that the 4 door Wrangler should stay! As a father of 3 who enjoys real off roading, 4 seats and 2 doors are what’s kept me from buying a YJ/TJ in years gone by. The next new purchase here in The Garage may just be a 4 door Wrangler.

Remember when you could buy a cheap car? Here in Ontario, an early Eighties GTI would set you back about 4 grand. Today, the current GTI is close to 30. Is it just inflation, or is there other factors at work here? Steve from Debt Free has put some thought to it & he’s come up with more than a few reasons as to why cars cost so much today. Somehow he forgot to mention the whopping pay packages those manufacturers execs are taking these days.

We’ve all heard about the guy who goes golfing with the corporate boss and lets him win, because it’s whats needed to keep his career intact. Nobody’s ever going to accuse Jimmie Johnson of giving in to his boss, Brian at RaceDriven thinks that Jimmie’s boss may just run the kid off the track to get by.

And finally, we have the Aussie Knob of the Week award! The question is, who us the knob? Is it the guy who keeps eating gear boxes, or is it the guy with the messed up back who’s still slingin’ trannies? And I don’t mean Nina. Craig at Autofix is workin hard to pay the bills and his hyped up Pulsar customers are keeping him busy by breaking their toys.

That’s it for this week’s Carnival of Wheels. The Easter bunny has gone to sleep and I’m not too far behind. Be sure to visit again next Sunday. You can submit your blog post here.