It wouldn’t take any irreversible modifications to achieve the look, though; you could achieve a more convincing bare polished metal look with a good wrap, and the surface detail’s mostly just that, labels etc. that go on the surface. even if you just left it at that, it would be a substantial improvement.

Honestly, that’s a pretty lacklustre replica (if that’s the right term?);

Who cares? tastes change, big whoop. they’re on their second loop retro-revival anyway. Not everything has to be timeless, and things kinda get boring and bland if you try. This livery’ll be on the car for what, a year or so maybe? Doesn’t really matter if it looks dated in a few years, as it’ll have been replaced by…

If you’re lucky, the weight transfer of the water movement might be enough to bottom out the front suspension & ram the front bumper into the tarmac, giving you a bit more braking force

I hear they’re out standing in their field...

Wonder if it’s maybe to do with the printing process? easier to make a acceptable quality print of an illustration that a photograph, at least on mass. Bit like if you print off a photo on an inkjet printer on standard paper, it looks a bit naff.

I am confused by this whole transit pickup thing. A transit pickup is already a thing, and a pretty common thing:

Kinda comes down to failure of design or construction fault; one comes under design engineering, the other comes under quality control engineering and/or process development engineering, all three of which would fall under the broad umbrella of automotive engineering when applied to a car.

Nah; that’s like saying that if you’re not an automotive engineer, you can’t complain about the wheels falling off your new car. You don’t need to be an expert to see an issue.

TBF, three-phase is pretty standard for EV motors

I was going to comment the same thing; the finish on that looks atrocious. cheap, shitty unevenly-lit buttons, a naff badly-bezeled LED matrix, wonky phillips self-tappers, and scuffed, wonky-looking panels. Something like that’s enough to make me question the quality of the rest of the build.

“This 2008 BMW 128i was, at the time of its manufacture, the smallest four-wheeled vehicle you could buy from the company”

There were also conversions for the C3;

Wonder if anyone’s done a swap?
I’d forgotten about the geo storm; also the closely related isuzu impulse:

Can anyone find any estates with pop-up headlights? so far all I can think of are the Honda accord Aerodeck & the volvo 480, although they’re both more shooting brake/hatch than proper estate:

My only comment is I kinda wish they’d kept the kid’s drawing style a bit more, rather than the photomontage look

Like this? Can’t offhand find a price for an AWD dropside crewcab, but the chassis-cab with those specs sits at £37K (~$47K) new.

I’m, like, 70% sure it’d just let out some nice white smoke if it goes pop; I doubt you’d get any proper fire. CO2 or dry powder should be ok, i guess?

Exceedingly terrible idea:

(vaguely) Sensible option: