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)

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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