*PURE SPECULATION AHEAD*
Next year could be the perfect storm.
When considering that the Cars could be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame during the same year as the 40th anniversary of their debut album combined with Warner/Rhino's renewed interest in releasing surround sound mixes, could we finally get the unreleased 5.1 mix of The Cars' debut album next year?!
Hope (and Speculation) Springs Eternal!
I like it.
To funny, yesterday this is exactly the album that came to my mind of all the ones in the vault that you would think should be a slam dunk for Warners to release at some point but then again how has anything made sense with the money that has been spent on getting these albums recorded into surround and then they just shelve them.
Your timeline makes sense, hopefully someone is working on making this happen.