Don’t look now, but we’re firmly entrenched in the final week of 2010. Which means, besides figuring out a way to return a few gifts, it’s time to take a look back at the year that was. Here’s one to get us started: What companies made the biggest blunders of 2010?

@funkmasterflex

In retrospect, number one seems almost comically easy. Clearly, British Petroleum and its merry band of PR professionals and executives deserve their very well-earned place at the top of the list of blundering companies of 2010. No arguments there. But it’s number two on the list, which just so happens to be Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, that we remember most vividly.

Recalls and safety probes are a natural part of building automobiles, but as Tim Calkins, clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern University told MSNBC, “If you look at what they did it was clear that they didn’t really understand the magnitude of the issue and the potential PR risk.” Truer words have never been spoken.