Paris, Istanbul, Brussels, it's all too much. After yesterday's terror in Brussels we didn't feel much like presenting you the next car story and decided to show you a sample of recent history. On days like this we feel the need to stand together in Europe in order not to fall back to a past with many different countries each with their own borders. That's what the terrorists want and what we should never give them.
The picture is showing a plaque for participants in the 1977 rally Tour d'Europe, a long distance rally that was organised from 1956 to 1992. When you check the countries that were visited during this rally 39 years ago you suddenly realise what changes came over the past decades. Reading round the plaque we read the route: Belgium printed in the lower right at four o'clock. Then Holland, (West-)Germany, CSSR (the Czech Slovakian Socialist Republic), Austria, Jugoslavia (now divided in several countries), Italy, Spain, Andorra, Maroc, Portugal and France. The old Europe is showing cracks but it is our belief that these misled and frustrated people in fact create the opposite of what their leaders hope for: unity & strength.
Maybe you have a few minutes to listen to the best line Leonhard Cohen ever wrote :
"There's a crack in everything; that's how the light comes in. "