PREMiERdrum

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Baby Bronco - Many Escape hardpoints with a unique HVAC and upper stack arrangement and unique UI. Bronco - Streamlined, retro-inspired, and no holds barred.

The exterior styling is a great effort from a studio that has been a bit polar lately. The "unique" interior, however, is an absolute mess. They'll sell a ton. Good on 'em.

A month later than initially planed, but, alas.... It begins.

As has been said all along... 🤷‍♂️

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The more things change....

With all this set, I should point out that leasing a Telluride or Palisade *is* under consideration for my wife once her current lease is up in May. I'm leaning towards buying a used 2016+ Explorer outright for cash to cut down our monthly obligations, but if there's a competitive lease option then we'll at least think about it. There's great products.

Don't sweat it... when you study and work in design long enough these sorts of long range perceptive quirks just get more obvious. In its most basic form, "good design" means giving the eye natural focal points and familiarity by utilizing proportion, scale, and balance to connect individual elements within the larger design. For example, the brains of most "design minded" people will recognize the front end of a car the same way it does a face. We naturally center our stare in the negative space above the nose (grille) and between the eyes (headlights)... the other facial features are picked up more peripherally which is why humans naturally use motion in their lips and eyebrows to convey feelings, emphasis, and emotion. Because we generally see in wide rectangles, not squares or tall shapes, we can usually keep the eyes and upper nose in focus together. Looking at the Telluride, a natural look at the front end from a normal angle reveals that - when focusing on the natural focal point - the "eyes" lie too far outside of the comfort zone where we expect them to be. When this design is new, it forces us to look around and notice other details of the fascia... the interestingly wide pattern of the grille, the dramatic LED halos in the light housings, the wideset lettering at the crown, etc. It's new... it's exciting. It seems more dynamic because the eye is always darting around the design looking at new details. Once it *isn't* new, it's visually unsettling. You've seen the grille mesh. You've seen the LEDs. You *want* your eye to rest on it like you can other cars, but because the proportions are outside what we see as normal, it's difficult. This is the same issue that the new C H E V R O L E T grille style has on the GM trucks... the only place for the eye to comfortably fall is on the little bowtie in the lower corner of the grille. It's visually unsettling, even if it at first appears dynamic. PERFECT, Remmy. There was a girl who was a year behind me in school. She was cute and had very interesting facial features that many young lads found alluring. She always wore her hair asymmetrical, covering one side of her face. As we grew, it became clear that her eyes were *very* far apart and the hair style was her attempt to offset that. She's a sweetheart and a lovely woman, but even knowing her for 21 years now it is still a bit jarring whenever I see her. The same case of visual norms applies above.

To each their own, of course, and to a certain degree styling remains subjective. However, much like meeting a cute girl whose eyes you later realize are just a few millimeters too far apart, deviation from the basic norms of what we consider attractive eventually become exposed, even if those same issues are initially appreciated and recognized as "different," "exotic," etc. And FWIW, I don't *not* like it... I just know how dated I believe it's going to look soon.

From what I've heard, launching with a truck first - a model that wasn't commonly available under the brand's last iteration (H3T be damned) - is in part cover from any disgruntled former dealers who invested in Hummer franchises only to have them ripped away and shuttered in the bankruptcy. If the truck does well, they can later launch the SUV as a response to market acceptance. Of course, burying Hummer as a sub-brand under the GMC banner is insulation as well, but more than a few at the RenCen are concerned at how the alleged "separation" of New GM and Old GM would hold up if it ever made its way to a courtroom. Pre-BK GM aside... This is *stupid*. They've already said that Cadillac's future IS electric vehicles. AND they prop up an entire BRAND of trucks and utilities based on better styling and "professional grade" marketing. By launching their first major electric truck/utility combo under a zombie brand that died with an overwhelmingly negative Q-rating, they're showing just how little they trust their current "luxury" brands to carry this flag. So, they're supporting a SUPER BOWL advertisement ($$$) with a mega famous athlete ($$$) (P.S. I love LeBron. Just a kid from Akron) in an attempt to completely reshape public option of a brand that was ill-conceived to begin with, all to hopefully sell a VERY SMALL number of electric trucks and utilities until they can finally get a VOLUME electric truck/utility strategy that makes sense. In my opinion, it's an early attempt to steal some thunder from the eF-150 and to get at least a couple electric shoppers into GMC showrooms, even though they don't have enough faith in that brand to carry this product alone.

There are a few Tellurides running around town here - I see them pretty regularly at the grocery. Generally, it's a very successful design compared to Kia's other attempts at unique utility styling. However... the scale and vertical division between (headlight) [-------------grille-------------] (headlight) is not going to age well. The scale and layout are more suited to a concept car... a sort of deviance from the norm that garners attention on the show stand and it has served it well for launch. The more the design ages and becomes more prevalent though, the more off-putting the lack of a visual reference point on the front end will become. /soapbox

All these renders are nailing individual elements, but completely losing scale and interaction. I don't envision too much protesting around here come May... or sooner.

Add in the relocated vent on that side and it's a mess of form over function.

Aside from the Z71 looking absolutely terrible, the other variants are... fine? Proportions still aren't as good as they should be but they're far better than other recent GM launches. The Escalade is the real disappointment here. There was a much more evocative concept that got scrapped very late in development. Great for Lincoln but bad for "the standard of the world."