Is the Cybertruck really playing 3D chess with our brains? The polarizing aspects of this cause celebre have resulted in the myth outgrowing the object itself.
Haters can’t stop talking about how much they despise it, thus throwing more attention in Tesla’s direction than millions of promotional dollars ever could do, while also mobilizing Tesla’s most fervent fans to defend it, churning more no-cost attention for the Cybertruck.
How many Cyberfans truly like the appearance, I wonder? Obviously, many really do. Others may not like it, but don’t say so for fear of running afoul of their fellow tribe members, if not (gasp!) Elon Musk himself. And it seems like those at the standom end of the fandom spectrum are instantly convinced any move Musk or Tesla makes is ideal, optimal, beyond questioning, so clearly the Cybertruck is the greatest shape ever to wear four wheels. Obviously.
I really don’t know, but it’s obvious that from a subjective design standpoint finding faults with the Cybertruck is like shooting fish in a barrel. Some elements are so bad that removing them entirely seems to improve the design tremendously, even if these elements are rather critical to the functionality of the truck itself. Like the roof. Allow me to explain …
Peak Silliness
No matter how close or far away you’re standing from a Cybertruck, you can see parts of the design to take issue with. Why not start with what you can see from a football field away? I’m referring to the pyramid-shaped roof.
Very few (if any) production cars have taken on a roof shape like this, for good reason: Generally speaking, the tallest parts of a car should be above the passengers’ heads to give them the most room possible. With the Cybertruck’s triangular profile, the tallest point is just ahead of the backrest of the front seats, and the space tapers rapidly to the rear of the truck. To give passengers the most room possible, that point has to move extremely high; you’ll likely need the roof to be tall enough to hit the top of your garage door in order to get enough space over the rear seat occupants without having them sit on the floor.
Sometime back, I was Photoshop-scribbling over a side view of Cybertruck and removed the top of the roof. Then, for some reason, I cut off the side glass. As I was about to draw on some new roof line, a strange realization came to me: the stripped-down, sketch-in-progress Cybertruck looked better. It still looked like a Pinewood Derby entry from a Cub Scout who actually built the car himself without a handy dad (or mom, I’m cool) to “help,” but at least the stupid pointed roof was gone. If I squinted a bit – or a lot – the angled ends and open middle compartment almost resembled a targa-topped exotic like a Lamborghini Aventedor.
How would this even work? Here’s a possible way that would require a lot of convoluted thinking and unproven technologies, much like everything else on the truck itself.
The Real Tesla Roadster?
To make an al fresco Cybertruck, we need to add frameless side windows and back doors with fully retracting glass, a style not seen in these parts since the big pillarless sedans of the late sixties. Next, the pyramid roof would be split into two separate planes that must either be removed and left behind or somehow stashed over the cargo area. In our favor, we can see the roof panels are narrower than the truck bed where we need them to go.
You could have both panels lift out like a manual targa top, but due to the Cybetruck’s height, two very tall people would be required to make such a removal possible.
Instead, I’m thinking about an electric “Jacob’s ladder” type mechanism. A full-length overhead console down the middle of the glass roof could be a “spine” that contains the pivot mechanism for the front and rear panels to fold them onto themselves, while a second mechanism would pivot the folded panels back over the cargo bed.
It’s not unlike the Renault WIND coupe/cabrio from years past:
You could also tilt up the folded roof to access whatever might be sitting the bed. You’d have enough stiffness in the windshield frame and just behind the seats to provide some rollover protection.
Here’s an underside view of the folding roof:
The sides of the roof sections could be silver as on the fixed roof model but finishing them in black (as I’ve done below) gives the open-topped model a different look even with the top in place. Once everyone that wants a Cybertruck actually has one, those that just have to stand out will need that differentiation. Here you go, you narcissistic knobs:
The lower windshield (with the top open, of course) creates a new problem, and the solution might be better than the “problem” we’re trying to fix. I’m talking about the Cybertruck’s giant windshield wiper. A single wiper as on the standard truck wouldn’t be long enough to clear the whole windscreen, so we’d have to resort to adding a second wiper on the passenger’s side of the glass. We’ve now inadvertently created what’s likely a better rain-cleaning system than on the fixed-roof example.
I can’t stand the Cybertruck’s wheel covers (original or new, non-tire-chewing) so I added the charcoal-toned aftermarket Unplugged Performance wheels with Italian-looking hexagonal openings. It’s an improvement, adding an almost Lamborghini Silhouette-style Gandini style to the thing, if Gandini had been hung over from a bachelor party the night before and lost his glasses at a strip club.
Naturally, we’d have something that would be totally blind to the rear but it pretty much is anyway with the cargo cover closed. That cargo cover would need to roll up at a lower point to clear the top mechanism as well, and stay open when the roof was retracted.
So Many Other Issues You Won’t Notice The Roof Problems
Chopping the roof off of virtually any car or truck doesn’t always make it better, but it certainly turns it into a vehicle that’s more fun for more than just the driver. Taking a Sawzall to Elon’s controversial sort-of truck doesn’t make a lot of sense, but then neither does the Cybertruck itself.
Would the Cybertruck Roadster bend in half with the top off? Could the mechanism to retract it have serious mechanical issues? Are leaks going to be the agenda for the (rainy) day? Hey, look at how well the launch of the Cybetruck is going in its current form, quality-wise. What’s to worry about?
Images: Tesla except for where noted
Our Daydreaming Designer Imagines The Tesla Of Ride On Lawn Mowers – The Autopian
How I Think You Could Turn A Tesla Into The World’s Fastest RV – The Autopian
The 350z and its bretheren have a bit of the pyramid shaped roof.
Don’t give Tesla ideas…
But maybe a targa top would not be a so bad idea. Not saying it is a good idea, but an interesting one.
I’m actually softening on the cybertruck the more this doofy thing continues to exist. It’s just silly. You can do silly things with it.
Add a T-top and musical horn next. Imagining a cavalry charge horn on one of these is hilarious for some reason.
I often like doofy looking cars like the Cybertruck, but one of the (many) reasons I don’t is that the doofiness brings absolutely nothing to the table here. It’s just a BEV pickup whose design makes it worse at what you would want it to do. You’d think with a design like that, it would be packed with so many interesting features that the appearance would somehow stand for function over form. But no, it’s just an expensive, rolling meme.
I’m down with this, because at least it offers a novel feature (fully open top) that you don’t get with other trucks. The sort of weird feature that you expect when you sign up to drive something weird. And yes, when the roof is down it looks 100% less like Pyramid Head, which is a good thing.
Doesn’t the HUMMER have a fully openable top?
Honestly, forgot the HUMMER (ugh, hate the all-caps of that brand) existed. It does have all sorts of rails and supports in place versus a completely unobstructed overhead area, unlike this concept. So in that they would differ.
I guess I didn’t really think about it, but the Cybertruck and the HUMMER are basically direct competitors. Massively heavy, impractical machines that manage to bring conspicuous consumption to the EV world.
Still ugly.
This looks better, at least 22.5% better.
Hmm, yes, I think I see it. If he’d only take, I dunno a few – say 3, 4 panels’ worth off the sides, a dash of magic wand + erase tool on the hood and bed, a mild deletion of the A pillar and D, uh, plank, and a few more circular lassos’ worth of DEL to really clean it up, I think we’d make it to 100%
Recycled food is recycled food, and will smell and taste like recycled food, no matter what the robocart in Judge Dredd advertises.
Needs moar T-tops.
It looks less bad, but still far less than good.
Chiming in with names for this, I’ll throw in CyberCross CabrioMullet.
For conversation the only car with a roofline remotely like a Cybertruck is the Citroën Karin concept car https://www.autoweek.com/car-life/classic-cars/a1689401/citroens-karin-concept-was-80s-pyramid-wheels/
I would almost go the opposite direction and give the wank panzer a little cupola on top like a barn or church. Not that it matters much, my favorite Cybertruck mod is dropping the Monty Pyrhon 16 ton weight on it.
Yeah, the Karin had the driver dead center to take advantage of the only place with headroom
I kinda like it with the top down—and, those wheels are about perfect.
Given that the cyber truck is built on a pretty much self-contained skateboard that the body just drops onto, I’m really looking forward to some kit cars that take advantage of that the same way all the kit cars that dropped on the VW beetle chassis did.
Thing is it’s so ridiculously large, what on earth would you put on top of it?
Purely drive by wire—why not something cab-forward? A stretched & widened VW Type 2, maybe? Brubaker Box for the 21st Century!
Upscaled Baha Bug
Ridiculously large? It’s a fullsize pickup the normal 80″ wide, and it’s actually fairly short compared to other crew cab pickups because of the stubby hood. It’s actually only a little bigger than my single cab f150.
I meant that it was ridiculously large for putting a kit car body on, or something like a old Rolls-Royce body. And unlike the Volkswagen bug. You can’t just chop a section of it out to shorten it with that battery pack and cast aluminum structure all.
Oh wait, how about a Mohs Ostentatienne Opera Sedan?
https://www.theautopian.com/the-monstrous-mohs-ostentatienne-opera-sedan-is-a-truck-pretending-to-be-a-car-and-its-presence-is-overwhelming/
Without the lid I can only picture my childhood neighbor Susie’s Barbie Jeep with all the Pink scraped off.
When I saw the lede photo, my brain immediately went “It’s the CyberMurano CrossCabriolet!”
I still hate it.
BING!
This seems like something that will be promised to us in 6 months from now with a delivery date of late 2025, but an actual delivery date of 2 years after Full self driving is actually delivered.
You forgot the last step which would be to lower it about three or four inches.
Looks nice, or at least better.
Waiting for the wagonfied version.
I’ve seen exactly one in person, but that was my exact thinking – this wouldn’t look half-bad as a hatchback car (the rear cover was up) instead of an awkward pickup.
You missed an opportunity to do an article on multiple cybertruck mods. Lifted, Squatted, Slammed, Stanced, Overland, We wanna see them all.
At least two thirds around here have been wrapped. Maybe all of them come to think of it. I think the wrapped ones drive around a week or so naked then get wrapped.
Wrapping certainly covers up any gaps, radiuses the sharp edges a bit, and holds on improperly attached trim pieces.
There’s actually only one, they just keep changing the wrap to give the illusion that there are multiple.
I’d do a stainless steel wrap so you’d have one with a consistent finish
flatten/round out the roof and see that that looks like 😛
With the top up, it looks like it’s wearing a yarmulke.
I’m working in a customer’s house—waiting on a leak-down check. Had to stifle my chuckles 🙂
With the entire top section above the crease in black it looked like the Luxor Hotel/Casino on the strip
Is that better than a yarmulke? I dunno. But it DOES look a thousand times better with the top down!
Cybercrosscabproto or CCCP for short
Take your Soviet star, comrade.
I mean, uh, smiley face.
Given the issues with the Model X’s Falcon Doors, this is one conversion that I’d hope would be done by an outside coachbuilder rather than Tesla themselves, if its going to be attempted by anyone
The schadenfreude in me hopes Musk is just crazy enough to try it.