G. David Felt

That looks like a NJ plate on that truck.

Which is why some people here do drive nice auto's.

Could this also be due to more companies embracing work from home rather than office space which is costly. ?

NJ is the #1 state people are moving out of for jobs, retirement or a few other reasons. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/people-are-fleeing-from-new-jersey-more-than-any-other-state—heres-the-no-1-reason-why/ar-BBS7uMH?li=BBnb7Kz 46% of the residents who moved out listed Job as the deciding factor. 24% listed retirement, rather spend their golden years elsewhere. 22% listed moving closer to Family. 17% listed Lifestyle change. 5% listed health. Story says 67% of moves was outbound from NJ where 33% were inbound. Study says there is a large trend of residents leaving the NE for elsewhere in the country. The data aligns with longer-term trends of people moving to the south and west coast. One point from the study is that NJ is the 9th highest taxed state in the nation and for retirement, people can live longer on less by moving to states that are low taxed. Study does say that 5 of the 10 worst performing states from the Tax Foundation's State Business Tax Climate Index are in the NE. Fleeing NJ makes sense since it is one of the ten most expensive states to live in America. ? I do wonder where I will end up living once I move into working retirement mode. ?

Very cool name, Like the mountain theme. Paektu Mountain or Baekdu Mountain is an active volcano on the China–North Korea border. At 2,744 m (9,003 ft), it is the highest mountain of the Changbai and Baekdudaegan ranges. Koreans assign a mythical quality to the volcano and its caldera lake, considering it to be their country's spiritual home.[2] This mountain is called Changbai Mountain in China. It is the highest mountain on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paektu_Mountain

Yet Ram will bring this into the modern world by adding their 48V eDrive to give it the quick off the line pull as well as long life I suspect. My gut tells me the future for trucks is a mild hybrid system.

Very possible, if Cadillac cannot deliver on spacious fast luxury EVs, then you might as well close the doors as other start ups will eat them up if they do not pay attention to what is being shown as 21 century rides.

Lets add in the other HORROR of auto sales, dealerships that flip an upside down auto value and roll it into a new auto purchase just increasing the debt making it hard for the person to ever pay off the auto. @balthazar Gov requirement for all the nanny devices makes having a fully base auto with only say auto trans but manual windows, manual door locks, manual everything an impossible choice as many younger people feel entitled to fully loaded luxury auto's. Example is the neighbor that took out a line of credit to buy their son a BMW as he was a marketing graduate and needed to arrive at interviews in a proper auto representing his capabilities according to them. STUPID, Job interviews know nothing of what you drive and careless about it as it does not affect if you can do the job. I never did that for my kids and see no reason to do it at all. If you want to help with a down payment as a graduation gift, fine your money, but I see no reason for parents to buy their kids luxury auto's and go in debt.

This Ford does not look as good as the VW.

I agree in majority with your statement, till you get into select neighborhoods and cities where the population is nothing but fanboi idiots caught up in the name. I could care less what others think of my ride as long as it fits me and is what I like. While I do debate heavily with some here, I still respect that they are driving what they want, what they like and good for them. Even our SMK SUPER FANBOI of MB, glad he is so in love with his E-Class Taxi.

Totally agree, I saved up for 3yrs to buy my Escalade and still financed 1/3 of the price. Mortgage, car loans, student loans, regular credit cards, home costs, maintenance, costs have gotten out of control in comparison to income.

VW Full size van in the pic for this story is not bad looking, actually better looking I think than Fords.

So true, Auto companies have got to find a way to get basic starter auto's out for people in college and right out of college, otherwise we are truly headed to a cast system.

But it could have been.

With an average discount of 25-30% off MSRP and how many sold into Taxi service? ?

So True, always comes down to who has the bigger tool or is a tool.

Sorry, some cars do two-tone real well this is one that DOES NOT. Ugly as a cat butt.

Always have been my friend, growing up in religion and studying it has made me who I am that says god does not exist. LOL, my sarcasm against my sister bible thumping is another thing all together.

Honestly, I could not tell you which models they are due to that glaring problem of the same nose. I think the dark grey on the far right is part of the CLA family, but I could be wrong, really poor design language for a luxury class of auto.

So today I got a text message from a sister who is a bit holy roller. I'm on my way to get a spiritual work out and probably a spiritual spanking while we are at it. My response: Does the spiritual really show up or just the hypocrites? Am I wrong? ?

Yet the S-Class is so Butt Ugly, in fact the whole family has a glaring problem, They have a Cat Butt front and center!

I could so see a CT6 Coupe Blackwing edition along with a Blackwing EV version.

Very true, from an auto stand point I agree with you that I think the only use was in Europe, but from a motorcycle stand point many have been done and from a custom kit car stand point Motus built a silky powerful V4 off the Corvette engine design. https://www.motusmotorcycles.com/home Crate Motor info here: https://rorty.net/motus-mv4r-crate-engine Base engine is 180HP / 126 lb-ft of torque. Weird that the Torque is so low when they did in years past offer a 300+ HP and over 350 lb-ft of torque crate motor too. So not sure what has happened, but they are still around.

If you ever get to drive a quality made straight 6 or 8 they are very smooth, but they take up a ton of space as to why the V design was born to save those long ass noses on auto's. Sad part is you seem to get two different camps when it comes to 4 bangers where some are silky smooth and others are very crude. Perfect example of a crude but powerful straight 4 banger is the Olds Quad 4. I saw racing teams get 1200HP turbo'd out of that engine but it was very rough. Flip side of this is I have seen some very silky smooth V4 engines that are also very compact.