Farewell, Apple Car

In May, the car buff mag Motor Trend promised a big exclusive: An intimate first-hand look at the long-awaited “Apple Car” that the Cupertino tech company was said to be cooking up in its top-secret labs. The June issue’s cover photo, a vaguely minivan-ish blob with a glowing Apple logo, looked real enough, but the story inside was a bit of a bait-and-switch: Absent any solid intel on the project, MT had just engaged the services of some auto design students and whomped up their own speculative rendering and technical details.

This stunt earned the magazine some gentle ribbing from the rest of the automotive press. But it’s hard to blame them: We all desperately wanted to see an Apple Car. As it turns out, this would be as close as we would ever get.