There’s a few categories of cars that seem to have just sort of disappeared. Anything with a rumble seat, for example, has been effectively gone for many decades, likely the result of people’s decreased willingness to be force-fed insects at 60 mph and an increased interest in preserving human lives. More recently, there’s a kind of vehicle that was once around up until about the 1990s that’s gone today: the truncated-truck fun car.

I suppose some of the earliest examples of these may have been the Ford Bronco, or, really, the second-gen Bronco from 1978, when they were built from shortened Ford F-100 pickup trucks. Though, now that I think about it, the Chevy Blazer, starting in 1969 to compete with the International Scout and the original Ford Bronco, was made from shortened K10 pickup trucks, so that may really be the first of this kind.

These were inherently a fun idea, and in most of these types of vehicles the division between cab and “bed” was eliminated, creating a very open, flexible sort of interior, and, even better, usually the bed area had a removable hard top or soft top to let it be enclosed or open! The one of these I was specifically thinking of today was the Isuzu Amigo:

The Amigo was a great example of one of these shortened pickups, and was based on a pickup I used to own, which was just sold under the very creative name Isuzu Pickup here in America. I guess you could get one at your local Building Full of People Who Would Sell You Isuzu Vehicles back in the 1990s. This was mine:

From the doors forward, this was pretty much the exact same as an Amigo, but where my truck had an all-business truck bed, the Amigo had seats and a soft top and a lot of potential for fun.

I mean, look at that thing! I even like the clunky way they made those rear shoulder belts work, with the pair of rounded-triangular tubes back there. And you have to respect the novel CHMSL solution, giving the third brake lamp its own little rollbar on the roof!

These were just useful, fun little machines. You could easily commute to work in them – these rode well and were pretty comfortable, at least based on my experience with the pickup variant – they were small and easy to park and maneuver, they could haul a decent amount of stuff with the rear seat removed, like a little truck, and you could carry three other friends in near-convertible-like open-ness, going off-road as desired thanks to the four-wheel drive.

These were Swiss Army Knife vehicles, and I don’t know if anything like this is available new today. The Jeep Gladiator is too big to really be like this, and it’s the only open-top truck-like thing on the market now. A cut-down two-door Ford Maverick could be adapted to something like this, but I don’t see Ford doing that any time soon, sadly.

The truncated truck needs to come back. These were a good example of how fun cars could be before everything had to get so stupidly “premium.” I miss when cars could just be a bit silly. For example, look at this late ’90s Amigo commercial:

It’s a parody of this classic Slinky commercial, in case you’re not as miserably aged as I am and don’t remember this:

Also: holy shit, Slinkies were clever! It’s just a spring, a helical spring, repurposed into a toy. A naval engineer saw some coiled wires fall off a shelf and sort of “walk” and that inspired these things. He experimented with the right kind of steel to make the springs from, and boom it was a hit. Later he left the company and became a missionary, but his (then divorced) wife kept it going, well into the plastic Slinky era.

I miss these sort of fun cars. I think our overall mental health as a nation would improve if there were cheap cut-down pickups with back seats and soft tops in fun colors, just out there in the world.

Oh! And also, because I think one commenter kept bitching about it, I’m trying a new variant of the Cold Start graphical bug. Do we prefer this one? Let me know!

The post I Don’t Think These Sorts Of Truncated Trucks Exist Anymore appeared first on The Autopian.

You know where I’m clearly not spending enough time? Orchards. I bet many of us can say the same. The reason I’m saying this is not because I have an unquenchable appetite for pears, especially Bosc pears, which I like to hold sideways and eat like it was a chicken leg, though that would be a pretty good guess. But, again, that’s not why I’m all into orchards now. The reason why is that I just found out about self-propelled orchard spraying vehicles, which look remarkably like sci-fi movie vehicles.

How have I never heard of these before? I mean, other than my near-total lack of any association with orchards or, let’s be honest, almost any organized agriculture at all beyond growing various molds and funguses in my non-running car interiors. But I feel like as someone interested in both vehicles, real-world space travel, and fictionalized interpretations of the intersections of both of those things, I should have been aware of these self-propelled orchard spraying vehicles.

I say this because these machines have such an incredible sci-fi look about them, with their low bodies, large wheels, heavily angled front ends, and rear-mounted sprayer equipment that could easily pass for, say, a fusion reactor in the right context. I mean, just look at this video of an Atom 2000:

It’s got four-wheel steering, a dramatic, low-slung forward cab, and the whole thing just feels like some plans for a future lunar or Mars rover. For example, look at this NASA concept vehicle for a possible future Mars rover:

I mean, the orchard sprayer really doesn’t look that much less futuristic or advanced than that rover, does it? And compare this Tifone Cobra Interceptor 2000 self-propelled orchard sprayer to this 2019 Toyota lunar rover concept done for JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency:

…and to drive the point home just a bit more, here’s the Cobra Interceptor in action in a video:

I’m just really taken by these things right now. Let’s see how this Andreoli Engineering Atom 2000 looks in the context of a lunar base:

Look at that; it fits right in! What do these things remind me of – oh, right! The M577 Armored Personel Carrier from the 1986 Ridley Scott movie Aliens:

Even the interiors look pleasingly sci-fi:

Look at that aircraft-style joystick there! I think that was used to control the sprayer system. It does feel pleasingly spaceshippy in there.

I suppose what’s especially weird here is the sort of convergent evolution we’re seeing at play here. Why should the peculiar and very specific requirements and demands of something made to spray rows of trees in an orchard have anything at all to do with the demands of ground travel on other celestial bodies, even if, so far, all of that is still mostly speculative if not entirely fictional?

I suppose these need to be low enough to get under the low-hanging branches of trees, yet still have enough volume to carry all the fluid, a combination that would sort of dictate the low, long body design, and the tight turns that such a vehicle would need to navigate would likely require the four-wheel steering. It seems tow-behind sprayers are more common, but these self-propelled ones just seem so much cooler.

Now, the real question that is very likely bouncing around in all of our heads is how possible would it be to find a used one of these and convert it into everyday street use? I’m sure it’s possible, but I suspect it wouldn’t be cheap, as these things go for hundreds of thousands of dollars new and can still sell for around 100 grand used. Maybe if you found one where the whole spraying mechanism had failed? Think what an amazing little camper one of these would make! They kind of feel like modern Brubaker Boxes. [Ed note: Fittingly, a Brubaker Box was one of the coolest sci-fi vehicles of the pre-Star Wars era. Configured as T-top and dubbed the Roamer, it deployed from the titular Ark of Ark II, a forgotten relic or early-70s live-action kid-vid. – Pete]

The world of motor vehicles is so vast and wonderful and it’s a good reminder that there’s always some strange gems lurking around where you least expect it, like in between apple trees, spraying poisons.

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The post We’ve All Been Sleeping On Orchard Sprayers As The Coolest, Most Sci-Fi Looking Agricultural Vehicles Out There appeared first on The Autopian.

Tesla has sold millions of cars to millions of people in the last few years. Now, with Elon Musk becoming more political than ever, a sizable number of those people want nothing to do with the brand or its CEO. With many owners looking to sell, Polestar saw an opportunity to win itself some new customers.

As covered by InsideEVs, the Swedish EV brand is offering big incentives on new Polestar 3 leases. On top of already-existing $15,000 incentives, those trading in a Tesla can score an extra $5,000 bonus. Stack those, and it adds up to $20,000 off a Polestar for dropping your Tesla.

Polestar isn’t being shy about this in the slightest. They’ve named it the “Tesla Conquest Offer,” and it has apparently proved remarkably popular.

According to Polestar’s US Head of Sales, Jordan Hofmann, the move was successful. “This week saw some of the highest order days for Polestar 3, and the response to our Tesla Conquest Offer has been incredible,” Hofmann posted on LinkedIn. “Manufactured in the USA, Polestar 3 is turning heads and drivers are making moves — it’s clear they like what we bring to the table.”

With the existing $15,000 incentive on the hood, a Polestar 3 lease starts at $599 a month with a $5,000 down payment. A further $5,000 Tesla Conquest credit will bring that down further, possibly well below the $500 a month level. Polestar’s standard lease term is 27 months including 10,000 miles a year.

Polestar initially offered the deal from February 21 to 28. However, this appears to have been extended to March 2. It’s unclear if Polestar will continue the deal further; The Autopian has contacted the automaker regarding this detail. To claim the credit, Polestar required a copy of US registration or insurance documents outlining one’s name, address, and the Tesla’s VIN to qualify for the credit. The Tesla can also be owned by someone else in your household. You don’t actually need to trade the Tesla in, as Tesla doesn’t allow other companies to buy out its leases. You’d have to handle that side of things directly with them instead.

On top of existing owners looking to sell, Tesla has also faced a 50% drop in new sales in Europe in January. It comes in the wake of CEO Elon Musk being more and more vocal about political topics and now working hand-in-hand with president Trump. As covered by Newsweek, Musk’s powerful personal brand has turned Tesla vehicles into a political symbol, which some owners don’t necessarily wish to be aligned with.

The furor towards the brand has reached fever pitch in recent weeks. As reported by Reuters, Saturday saw nine arrested at a major protest at a New York Tesla showroom. Earlier in February, a carpark full of Teslas had their wheels stolen in Houston. These incidents are just the tip of the iceberg. It makes earlier bullying towards early Cybertruck owners look tame in comparison.

Polestar isn’t the only company taking shots at Tesla, either. Kia Norway took to Instagram to post a photo of an EV3 wearing a sticker that reads “I bought this after Elon went crazy.” It riffs on a popular sticker making the rounds with Tesla owners right now, that reads “I bought this before Elon went crazy.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Kia Bil Norge AS (@kiabilnorge)

Supply and demand work in a straightforward manner in the automotive world. All the signs suggest that demand has cratered in some markets, which could see resale values tank for owners looking to dump their cars; selling depreciated cars directly could yield disappointing prices. Such conditions could make Polestar’s offer look more attractive to Tesla owners looking for the proverbial off-ramp.

Image credits: Polestar

Hat tip to Shiroi—thanks for the tip!

The post This Automaker Is Offering An Up-To-$20,000 Discount For Tesla Owners Done With Elon appeared first on The Autopian.

A Texas health authority is warning against "measles parties" as the outbreak in West Texas grew to at least 146 cases, with 20 hospitalized and one unvaccinated school-age child dead. The outbreak continues to mainly be in unvaccinated children.

In a press briefing hosted by the city of Lubbock, Texas, on Friday, Ron Cook, chief health officer at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, offered the stark warning for Texans in his opening statements.

"What I want you to hear is: It's not good to go have measles parties because what may happen is—we can't predict who's going to do poorly with measles, be hospitalized, potentially get pneumonia or encephalitis and or pass away from this," Cook said. "So that's a foolish idea to go have a measles party. The best thing to do is make sure that you're well-vaccinated."

Lubbock sits about 90 miles northwest of the outbreak's epicenter in Gaines County, which is one of the state's least vaccinated counties. It has recorded 98 of the outbreak's 146 cases. While Lubbock has only reported two of the 146 cases, patients from elsewhere have been treated in Lubbock. That includes the first two cases in the outbreak as well as the child who died of the infection earlier this week, who was not a resident of Lubbock.

It's unclear if any measles parties are occurring in Gaines or elsewhere; "It's mostly been... social media talk," Cook said in response to a follow-up question from Ars. He noted that measles parties and chickenpox parties were more common practices decades ago, before vaccines for both diseases were available. But he again warned about the dangers today. "Please don't do that. It's just foolishness; it's playing roulette," he said.

Cook, along with Lubbock's director of public health, Katherine Wells, said they see no end in sight for the outbreak, which now spans nine counties in Texas, many of which have low vaccination rates. "This outbreak is going to continue to grow," Wells said, declining to forecast how high the final case count could go after a reporter raised the possibility of several hundred.

So far, 116 of the 146 cases are under the age of 18, with 46 being between the ages of 0 and 4. Only five of the 146 were vaccinated with at least one dose of the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine.

Messaging

On a more positive note, Wells reported that the outbreak has seemed to sway some vaccine-hesitant parents to get their children vaccinated. Just yesterday in Lubbock, over 50 children came into the city's clinic for measles vaccines. Eleven of those children had vaccine exemptions, meaning their parents had previously gone through the state process to exempt their child from having to receive routine childhood vaccines to attend school. "Which is a really good sign; that means our message is getting out there," Wells said.

So far in the outbreak, which erupted in late January, messaging about the disease and the importance of vaccination has exclusively come from state and local authorities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention only released a brief statement late Thursday, which was not sent through the agency's press distribution list. It did, however, note that "vaccination remains the best defense against measles infection."

During a cabinet meeting Wednesday, US Health Secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded to a question about the outbreak, offering a variety of inaccurate information. Kennedy downplayed the outbreak, falsely claiming that "it's not unusual." But, this is an unusual year for measles in the US. As epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina noted on Bluesky, the number of US measles cases this year has already surpassed the total case counts from eight of the previous 15 years. And it is only February.

Kennedy also said there had been two deaths—fortunately, only one child has died. He further claimed that measles patients were being hospitalized "mainly for quarantine," which is false and a misuse of the word quarantine. A quarantine refers to separating people who have been exposed to an illness to see if they become sick. For people who are known to be sick, the term is "isolation."

In the press briefing Friday, Cook refuted Kennedy's suggestion that infected people were being hospitalized largely for isolation purposes. He described measles patients being hospitalized with severe symptoms. "Most of them are either severely dehydrated from just the infection itself, and/or lots of low oxygen levels—hypoxia. And that's from the inflammation in the lungs," Cook said. In some patients, their oxygen is so low they need supplemental oxygen or intubation and ventilator support, which can lead to antibiotic use to ward off secondary bacterial infections, he explained.

While the end of the outbreak remains uncertain, so does the beginning. Rumors are reportedly circulating in Texas that the measles virus was brought into the area by an undocumented immigrant. Wells shot down that rumor, indicating that there is no evidence to support it and that most measles outbreaks in the US begin with an unvaccinated citizen traveling abroad and bringing the virus home with them.

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We’ve become used to the slow addition of Nintendo classics to the Nintendo Switch Online service since it launched in 2018, but some subscribers will apparently lose access to an old-school game on March 28.

Nintendo shared on Feb. 27 that Super Famicom game Super Formation Soccer — known as Super Soccer in the west — will be delisted from Nintendo Switch Online in Japan next month. And while no reason was given, the announcement did make a point to mention Super Formation Soccer’s status as a third-party property. As such, it’s possible Nintendo’s license to the game simply expired.

We’ve reached out to Nintendo for more information but did not hear back immediately.

Super Formation Soccer was first released on Super Famicom in 1991 by Clock Tower developer Human Entertainment, and was one of several properties acquired by Spike Chunsoft that same year when Human attempted to restructure its debt. Human would eventually file for bankruptcy and dissolve in 2000.

It’s currently unclear if Super Soccer will also be removed from the Nintendo Switch Online’s Super Nintendo library in North America and Europe or if other third-party games like Ninja Gaiden, River City Ransom, and Ghosts ‘n Goblins might eventually share the same fate.

As a general rule, most segments of cars have grown significantly since the 1980s, when North American downsizing measures came to fruition. A new midsized Honda Accord is very nearly the same length as a full-sized W126 Mercedes-Benz S-Class from the mid 1980s, for example. That explains why the new Accord feels so capacious, then.

However, not every segment of car has seemingly grown to what used to be the next size class up. On Monday, Autopian Discord member Fuhrman16 pointed out something interesting. It turns out that the current Mazda MX-5 isn’t far off from the length and height of British roadsters sold some 60 years ago, and the MGB is a prime example.

We’re leaning on a fun little website called Carsized for this, which lets you virtually line up two cars in a row and compare their actual sizes. While the photos don’t exactly convey scale perfectly, the dimensions are pretty accurate. It turns out that a fourth-generation Mazda MX-5 is 1.15 inches longer and a quarter-inch taller than a chrome-bumper MGB, a seriously impressive feat considering the MG didn’t have crumple zones.

So far so tiny, but things change a bit when you move around to the front and compare widths. The ND MX-5 is more than eight inches wider than an MGB. If we’re comparing it to old-school icons, the MX-5 is less than an inch narrower than a C3 Corvette, a sports car which wasn’t exactly small in the late-’60s. To an extent, this is the price of side impact protection, but there’s just something right about a wider track.

When you think about what you’re getting for the extra width, roughly eight inches doesn’t sound so bad either. A boatload more power, two more forward gears, side airbags, modern door impact beams, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a cabin air filter, substantially wider tires, and telescopic front dampers instead of lever units are all some serious upgrades.

Weight’s kept nicely under control too, with a 2025 MX-5 spinning the needle on the scale to 2,372 pounds. For context, a 1962 MGB has a curb weight of 2,030 pounds, and a roughly 342-pound penalty for modern performance and amenities doesn’t sound like a terrible hardship.

I have to say, well done Mazda for not just keeping size relatively in check compared to earlier MX-5s, but also keeping it within the sightlines of the model’s spiritual predecessors. By not giving into pressure to build something bigger, the MX-5’s kept its appeal. No wonder it’s the only affordable roadster left.

[Hat-tip to Furhman16!]

Top graphic images: Bring A Trailer; Mitutoyo; Mazda

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The post A Brand New Mazda MX-5 Is Almost The Same Size As An MGB From 1962 appeared first on The Autopian.