Chrisgb

Call Paccar.

In 1960, when Ford discontinued the Edsel, Ford had a sister car to the Falcon in the works that was to be marketed under the Edsel banner. The car debuted under the Mercury banner in 1962 as a Comet but with no Mercury badging inside or out until the 1963 model year. Anonymous '62 Comets don't have the same caché as split window 'Vettes, but folks bought them, anyway.

It takes a pioneering spirit. At the dawn of the ICE age, gasoline was sold mostly through coal companies and drug stores, that also sold kerosene for lamps. and not every vendor carried it. Gasoline was actually used first in "modern" stoves. Supply was spotty while refining was ratcheting up and dedicated gas stations sprung up. If you were traveling any distance, you wanted to carry enough gas for the trip, as you couldn't be sure there would be any available at your destination. Better to hitch the buggy; everybody had hay & oats.

I have had two nits to pick with NACTOY for a few years now, first of all their acronym; should be NACTUOY. Doesn't roll off the tongue as well when spoken, but it lines up with the longhand name. And their url, https://northamericancaroftheyear.org. doesn't even include "truck." Pretty long to type, but in the drag & drop age, needs updating. Second: Their logo. There isn't a Mexican flag. Sure they are included in the background silhouette of North America, but no flag.Why? Mexico exports vehicles here as well as Canada. Next time you're at the grocery store, walk down the ethnic foods isle. Mexican food? Check. Canadian food? Nope. I'm not Latino nor Canadian, But if the title of your organization starts: "North American," display all the flags or none at all.

Rather anticlimactic IMO. I was hoping for a new design language, but as the spy photos started rolling out, I became more and more disheartened. Real horses haven't changed much over the last nine years either, though.

Black Angus Package?

A lot of the young whippersnappers have never been blessed (cursed?) with the opportunity to drive a late 50's-early 60s foreign car- 44 hp Opel Rekords, 12hp Citroén 2CVs, 50 hp VW bus. Much like driving a loaded semi, you drove them with your foot to the floor in each gear even in traffic just to keep up. Sadly, there are some who drive that way with todays' vehicles.

I suspect you are correct, but Get Z and beyond (Gen AA? Z 2.0?) will need to find a replacement for the visceral sound and smell of even a poorly tuned ICE-er, that are an indispensable part of enthusiast car culture today, or just do without it. Either way, they will. Consider also that Lithium, neodymium, and samarium, critical materials in the motors and power packs of current BEVs, are finite resources and the latter two are commonly grouped as "rare earth" minerals. Pictured below are two examples of merchant marine technology. One is far more technically advanced and superior to the other, but which one appeals more to your right brain?

The embracing of the technology trails the advancement of it. For several years, Ransom E. Olds installed buggy whip holders on the dashboard of their cars, because customers were used to seeing one there. I imagine by 2060 or so, when the transportation inventory is ~95% ZEV, a certain percentage of ZEV owners will have figured out how to annoy those around them, just as their forebears do today with straight pipes.

I am impressed and very satisfied with the 2.3L EcoBoost Four in my Ranger, but having been restricted to the 4cyl Mustang ll in my 20s (save the eyeball-flattening 140 hp 4.9L V8 Cobra), 4- and 6-cylinder Mustangs were for people that wore wingtips and tie tacks or bought them for their daughters. I could never buy a 4-banger 'Stang. The cadence and sound of a V8 is as much of the experience as the power produced. If it came down to it, I'd take a 140 hp V8 over an EcoBoost with half the displacement and cylinders and twice the horsepower; I'm sure I'm not alone, here.

By 2035, I wonder if there will be enough impact from grid strain, environmental and political ramifications concerning lithium & rare earth sourcing and processing to the extent that all the battery production & grid infrastructure investment is written off and we start over with hydrogen? Maybe by then solid state battery technology & BEV efficiency will have somewhat relieved the negatives, but I think H2 is the best long term solution for transportation energy.

True that buyers want kayak racks, bike carriers, rooftop tents, etc, but often dealer inventory vehicles in those lines get loaded down with stripe packages, running boards Raptor Grilles, lift kits, lighting, aftermarket tire/wheel combos etc. No "market adjustment," just five or six grand + worth of bling.

Makes me wonder what will the competition sanctioning bodies, NASCAR, TRANS AM, FIM, IMSA INDY etc have planned for 2030 & beyond.

The 2023 will have "Active" badging For 2024, It will be decontented to "Activ."