From the editor

My mother liked cars and changed them every two years like clock work. When the new models arrived in the showrooms every spring, it was guaranteed she’d haul me with her to vet all of Detroit’s latest offerings.

In 1964 there was no contest. The production Mustang was revealed to the public inside the Ford Pavilion at the New York World's Fair on Friday April 17, 1964 — just a couple months after the Beatles came to New York to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show. It went on sale at Ford dealers that same day. I don’t think any car ever gave my mother a case of the “I wants” as much as that first Mustang. She picked me up from school and we went to the dealership that Friday afternoon to order one.

Although she may have clocked the same kind of speed in that powder blue Mustang, it wasn’t until I was a teenager that, grinning ear to ear, she admitted “hitting over 110 on the dual lane” on her way home one day. I think that must have been in her muscle car of sedate driving back in the 70s – an ice green Chrysler 400 with eight cylinders and 410 horsepower under the hood. I shudder to think the gas mileage that sucker got. Not that we thought about stuff like that back then.

I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited about a car as my mom until someone sent me pictures of the Tesla Roadster in an email a couple months ago. Not only is it beautifully sleek (Sex on Wheels was my working title for this month’s article), but it has the class that usually accompanies a product that has had profound thought taken in its creation. The Tesla Roadster, with its emphasis on high performance, style, and innovation – and the price tag to go with it - is certainly not the automotive answer to reducing global warming and peak oil. But it most certainly is an impressive step in the right direction.

Tesla Motors shows us that efficient engines, new technologies, innovation and opportunity are still possible in an industry that has evidenced about as much inspiration in the last two decades as a can of baking powder. It shows us our fuel consumption and emissions can immediately be drastically reduced without sacrificing comfort and sheer driving pleasure. It shows that we’ve got the technologies. It thumbs its nose at Detroit with its endless self-serving excuses. Best of all the company blatantly pokes holes in the rhetoric of politicians pushing impotent energy legislation for the sake of a stable economy.

Apparently the founders of Tesla Motors are well aware that scary times are the best of times for filling new needs and grabbing product niches. And one of the biggest needs this country has right now is for value driven products produced by ethics driven companies. Tesla Motors most certainly fits the bill. All I can say is go for it boys. You deserve all the success in the world. And if my mom were still alive, she’d definitely be on your waiting list.

Cate Montana
Publisher