I actually think the only distinguishing factors between the highest-trimmed Expeditions/Tahoes and the Navigators/Escalades is opulence for its own sake. The formers exist so you can have everything from the latter while at least being sort of anonymous. 

Agreed wholeheartedly. I’ve always thought Farely seems like he would run a pretty good car company if the goddam shareholders would let him. I’m choosing to believe these quotes are him campaigning for that right.

I was thinking this too. The Apple Car seemingly got dumber the more information about it was made available, until it just got canned. It was so obsessed with appearing inventive, nobody bothered to ask if it should do something people wanted.

I think this guy is trying to have his cake and eat it too by tacking on a 90's nostalgia premium to something that should just be functional transportation for a bit longer.

This was my thought too. Usually the oldest you will find a 4R or Tacoma still for sale is 250-300k miles, and that’s for at most like 5 grand. After that, the stuff that goes wrong makes it worth more in pieces than put together. 

This would be awesome, but I also think it happening would fundamentally be a sign the Express was going out of production, which would be sad. 

I personally agree for probably all of the same reasons you do. It’s honestly just kinda funny we didn’t do it anyway because it would have tracked with all the other decisions that created the extremely problematic built environment we have now.

If stuff like this is a disqualifier, it rules out like 95% of all car reviews from reputable sources.

2nd: Would actually be kinda curious what this conversation is like among people who know better than Dolt 45. In a country where owning an automobile is practically a necessity for the majority of the population, and where people get to write off taxes for less essential things, it sort of begs the question why this…

Easy punchlines aside, I think the actual answer to your question is that it got too hard to thread the needle between traditional conservative apprehension for EV’s, and the world’s biggest EV manufacturer now being a conservative mascot.

Yes, although that deserves the caveat that this is like 90% of all automotive design language now. Awhile back, someone who claimed to be in advertising had a long-winded comment about how the majority of people just take themselves too goddam seriously and is horrified of appearing weak for any reason. Hence why…

i legit coughed on my coffee just from the thumbnail here. jesus christ. 

I get what you’re saying, but this particular case is a bit less rational. There’s a lot of vehicles between the 90's and now that do this van’s job better for less money. IMO this looks like what we see more with Radwood-era sportscars: some people want to huff the 90's nostalgia beyond reason.

My Dad’s first ever new car was an ‘88 Chevy Beretta, which got destroyed by a cherry picker while it was parked outside by a 7/11. I probably would have learned to drive on it in the late 00's if it actually made it that long (most of them didn’t, nor did any of the other GM crap cans from the 80's/90's i grew up in…

Good lord, that first gen Avenger from the 90's. I’m not sure a single one of those made it more than ten years.

That whole first paragraph of your comment has been accurate for like the last 7 years.

The Toyota allocation process is absolutely maddening. While it is kind of good business to maintain a small amount of artificial scarcity, what they do is ridiculous, and lets the dealer have you over a barrel.

I was back in the neighborhood I grew up in a few weeks ago, and the cops changed their white and gold paint job to black with almost-black lettering that I swear to god, you need 20/20 vision to tell apart in broad daylight.

1st: I wonder how much easier it would be to profit off EV’s if they fired the room full of 7-figure salaries that said “branding” them separately would be important to it’s success.

Seriously, I work in construction, and while it’s not as bad now as 2020/2021, the world is still adjusting to a new normal. Covid is going to ripple in the supply chain until the end of the decade.