Don't put flex-fuel in the tank
Family Friendly Ford Flex

It's like a Scion xB on steroids. It has a retro look that's kind of like a sixties surfer wagon gone next millennium. "Manejalo," advises the 2009 Ford Flex ad campaign, meaning "Drive it." We did.

In addition to being visually pleasing, the Flex is a great ride. The word limousine crossed our lips more than a few times during our test drive. We've heard stories about the Flex filled with Hollywood folks heading out to a night of parties and events like they were in a limo, but we're not going to repeat them here. We will say that the Flex is extremely family friendly.

For safety's sake it has a safety canopy in the first two rows of seats, as well as a tire pressure monitoring system that should alert you well in advance of any potential blowout, and the "latch" child safety system.

Given the vehicle's name, you could be forgiven for thinking the Flex is a new-fangled, flex-fuel driving machine. It isn't. Don't put E85 flex-fuel in the gas tank. You wouldn't want to risk ruining the powerful 3.5 liter V6 engine that supplies roaring power to the Flex's automatic overdrive transmission.

We loved the white two-tone top with the MASSIVE panoramic vista roof. The ten-speaker, 390 watt sound system was also a pleasure! We enjoyed the Sirius satellite radio, along with the handy presence of the Microsoft "SYNC" voice activated system.

At one point while we were test driving the Flex, we listened to a scientist on the radio (90.7 FM in LA), who said, "Recently I conjectured that it might be worth looking inside the genome hoping to see if in the junk DNA, which seems to serve no useful purpose in these organisms, that there might be a message from ET. Now of course this is a wildly speculative idea, but I don't think its any more speculative than looking for messages with radio telescopes."

We're speculating that if you try a test drive in the Flex with your family or entourage,  your junk DNA might just send you a message, "Manejalo! Drive it home."