You Cannot Unsee the Cybertruck
Edward Loh
@Lohdown
NEWS I OPINION I GOSSIP I STUFF10 MOTORTREND.COM FEBRUARY 2020B
ack in September, I took a small team
from MotorTrend to see the Tesla
Cybertruck, in the very early stages
of its conceptual design. Tesla told
us we were the first outsiders, and
the only media outlet, to see the vehicle,
period. By the time you read this, Tesla’s
game-changing truck will already have
broken the internet, set Twitter ablaze,
and sent fanboys and short-sellers around
the world into paroxysms of shock, disgust,
outrage, and possibly lust.
Our team has covered the story better than
any other outlet, as you will find at motor-
trend.com/cybertruck, so it’s fun for me to
disclose how some of us reacted to seeing it
for the first time. Christian Seabaugh, Kim
Reynolds, Mark Williams, Sean Holman, and
I met the design team on a warm afternoon
at Tesla’s design studio in Hawthorne, Cali-
fornia, with Elon Musk and chief designer
Franz von Holzhausen, who walked us through the truck’s origin
story. We’ll tell that story someday, but for now, much of it is off the
record. When we emerged, blinking in the light of day, and walked
back to the parking lot, everyone was quiet, immersed in thought.
We had truck-pooled together, five us stuffed into a Ram 1500, and
it was still absolutely silent as we pulled out of Tesla’s parking lot,
amidst the Model 3, S, and X vehicles plugged into Superchargers.
It remained quiet until we pulled out onto a busy street and saw
regular cars and trucks. I recall saying, “Can you imagine how crazy
it will look when that truck is on the road with regular cars?” And
with that, a few unburdened themselves:
“As a traditional truck person, I feel like every preconceived
notion I’ve held about trucks has been shattered. I feel violated.
I need a shower, a cigarette, and a nap, in no particular
order. When I walked in, I was shocked. That’s
not it, right? It can’t be. It’s too brutal, too
radical, too assertive.”—Sean Holman, MTG
Truck/Off Road group content director
“The only thing missing in the space was anything remotely
looking like what I would consider a Tesla pickup truck ... nothing
else but the stealth-military-styled pyramid video-game concept
in the center of the floor.”—Mark Williams, truck expert
“This is a huge gamble—a high-risk and massively polarizing
design. The Hollywood-future-shock category is where the Tesla
truck is residing.”—Kim Reynolds, testing director
Just prior to the reveal in November, we
received our first photos of the truck, which
I shared with the broader MotorTrend staff
during our regular staff meeting. For the
sake of privacy, I did not put the images
on the large wall-mounted monitors in our
meeting room, but had the team huddle
around photographer Brian Vance’s laptop
and jot down their very first impressions:“1970s wedge sports car/concept—Lamborghini Countach,
Mercedes C111, Dome Zero. I’m getting Aliens APC vibes. Dang,
that’s a lot of right angles.”—Alex Nishimoto, news editor
“WTF!!! A diamond? Are they trying to mimic an F-117 with the
diamond and triangles? Someone’s horrible sketching project?”—
Stefan Ogbac, associate editor
“The Cybertruck looks like, if in 1985, Saturn had unveiled an
iteration of the Disney Monorail designed for the apocalypse.”—Ben
Keeshin, video producer
“Did Vector make a truck? It almost looks like an SUV, and I bet
that’s no accident. I’m impressed by how far Tesla was willing to go
away from their existing design language. That takes guts.”—Zach
Gale, senior production editor
“What is that? Origami? Could it be a military vehicle?
Where’s the bed? Wait, is that really a truck?”—
Miguel Cortina, MotorTrend en Español
“I immediately thought of DeLorean, in a good
way. I wonder about visibility. How will you see
out of it?”—Kelly Lin, associate editor
“Are these really the images!? Wow. That’s brave.”—Alan Muir,
creative director
“The internet will be triggered.”—Carol Ngo, social media editor
“It’s Minecraft meets Mad Max meets R2-D2. Terrifying yet also
... oddly cute.”—Claire Crowley, copy editor
“Someone please remind me which ’70s sci-fi movie used this
shape for its planetary rovers. Dark Star?
Alien? Silent Running? Elon and Franz
are channeling the past in creating the
future.”—Mark Rechtin, executive editor
So what do you think of the Cyber-
truck? Love it? Hate it? Both? Will you
buy it? Comment on our social media
posts or shoot me your thoughts on
Twitter @edloh. Q
Weeks later, the countenances around
our editorial offices were much the same.Our team’s expressions ran the gamut from awe to restrained bemusement to utter
overwhelm to outright joy when they got an early look at Te l s a ’s upcoming Cybertruck.