“Toyota Hybrid Hoax,” my piece in Forbes Online

Yes, you suspected it all along. Now I’ve proved it. Mr. Sikes’s wild ride was a fabrication.

The only reason his accelerator was stuck was because the was a size 10 on it. I’ve nailed him on all counts: the brakes, the shifter, the off button. And to test his claim that he actually reached down and tried to pull the accelerator up but it wouldn’t budge I did something that apparently occurred to no other reporter in the country. I actually got in a 2008 Prius to see if it was physically possible to reach that far. I couldn’t get anywhere close. An orangutan could, but whatever Mr. Sikes is, that doesn’t seem to describe him.

Also, as I knew would be the case, all sorts of things are coming out about his shady background including being deeply in debt, including to Toyota, and making lots of insurance claims for allegedly lost or stolen property. It’s all in the piece.

Nevertheless, and I plan to write more on this theme, the real hoaxter isn’t James Sikes. The red flags were popping up right from the beginning and the media ignored them because they wanted to ignore them. There’s a Toyota feeding frenzy going on and reporters just want their chunk.