QOTD: All Car Production Ends Tomorrow - What's Your Forever Vehicle?

Corey Lewis
by Corey Lewis

Time to suspend disbelief, much like you do with your favorite television show featuring dragons and incestual relations (between people, not dragons). A new government regime has outlawed production of the private automobile. All new car sales will end in 48 hours. Much like Jack Bauer, you’ve got to make an important decision in that timespan: Purchasing your last car of choice.

Which automobile will you pick, knowing it’s the last one you’ll ever have?

An interesting question to ponder, as many variables hang in the balance. We’re going to make it a bit easier and simplify things with Three Simple Tricks Rules.

  1. The single (just one) forever car you choose must be new, and in production in 2017 somewhere in the world.
  2. You are not limited by wallet size in this particular purchase.
  3. Sales or exchanges later are also outlawed; this is the car your household will have for the rest of your life. Upon your death, the car will be crushed.

The knee-jerk reaction when given unlimited funds is to pick something hugely expensive, and perhaps rare (like that glorious Bentley above). However, with new car production outlawed there will only be so many companies left to maintain the deteriorating cars left on the roads. Cars with stratospheric prices are often frail, riddled with electronic gremlins, and limited in parts supply. Other things to consider:

  • Enjoyable driving
  • Cargo versatility
  • Present and future family and household needs
  • General robustness

Those things in mind, the choice for me was fairly easy.

It’s the GMC Yukon, in less-than-Denali trim. Robust, sure availability of parts, reliable V8, versatile for cargo and people. As a bonus, the Yukon can go off road a bit when I want to escape the totalitarian state that banned new car sales. It’s luxurious, but not so much as to make certain Americans swell with rage in these trying times. The Yukon is always acceptable, in all American situations.

Your turn, think it through.

[Images: Bentley, General Motors]

Corey Lewis
Corey Lewis

Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.

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  • Lightspeed Lightspeed on Aug 31, 2017

    Lexus LX, a Landcruiser with luxury, should last about forever

  • Xidex Xidex on Aug 31, 2017

    F350 diesel lariat 4 door with 4wd tow anything, haul anything, carry 6 people, diesel will last for long time and is cheaper fuel then a gas truck (least in canada)

  • Analoggrotto I don't see a red car here, how blazing stupid are you people?
  • Redapple2 Love the wheels
  • Redapple2 Good luck to them. They used to make great cars. 510. 240Z, Sentra SE-R. Maxima. Frontier.
  • Joe65688619 Under Ghosn they went through the same short-term bottom-line thinking that GM did in the 80s/90s, and they have not recovered say, to their heyday in the 50s and 60s in terms of market share and innovation. Poor design decisions (a CVT in their front-wheel drive "4-Door Sports Car", model overlap in a poorly performing segment (they never needed the Altima AND the Maxima...what they needed was one vehicle with different drivetrain, including hybrid, to compete with the Accord/Camry, and decontenting their vehicles: My 2012 QX56 (I know, not a Nissan, but the same holds for the Armada) had power rear windows in the cargo area that could vent, a glass hatch on the back door that could be opened separate from the whole liftgate (in such a tall vehicle, kinda essential if you have it in a garage and want to load the trunk without having to open the garage door to make room for the lift gate), a nice driver's side folding armrest, and a few other quality-of-life details absent from my 2018 QX80. In a competitive market this attention to detai is can be the differentiator that sell cars. Now they are caught in the middle of the market, competing more with Hyundai and Kia and selling discounted vehicles near the same price points, but losing money on them. They invested also invested a lot in niche platforms. The Leaf was one of the first full EVs, but never really evolved. They misjudged the market - luxury EVs are selling, small budget models not so much. Variable compression engines offering little in terms of real-world power or tech, let a lot of complexity that is leading to higher failure rates. Aside from the Z and GT-R (low volume models), not much forced induction (whether your a fan or not, look at what Honda did with the CR-V and Acura RDX - same chassis, slap a turbo on it, make it nicer inside, and now you can sell it as a semi-premium brand with higher markup). That said, I do believe they retain the technical and engineering capability to do far better. About time management realized they need to make smarter investments and understand their markets better.
  • Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Off-road fluff on vehicles that should not be off road needs to die.
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