So close, yet so far away: carmakers' greatest missed opportunities

[Wimbledon]

GCF, what cars could have been brilliant but were let down by inexplicably retarded failures to give it the equipment, drivetrain, pricing, equipment, or whatever it needed to succeed, or at least not suck?

I'll start with the 2002-2005 Ford Thunderbird.



- It was never marketed properly
- The interior screamed "parts bin!" (i.e. lots of Lincoln LS parts, but downgraded and without wood)
- It was awful to drive

The Thunderbird could have also formed the basis of a successful Lincoln competitor to the Lexus SC.

This was a 2001 Lincoln concept:



Rules:
- No concept cars they failed to produce.
- No cars that just sucked through and through, with no redeeming potential. We're talking cars that could have succeeded with minor changes to equipment, drivetrains, tuning, handling, or styling, not cars that had no potential at all.
- No cars that are actually pretty good, but which you just don't like. Should be generally agreed-upon to have missed the mark in some important way.

[vwestlife]

Saturn Astra.



Good looking, very nice to drive, powerful, and sporty... but with high prices, poor MPG, terrible ergonomics, and an almost complete lack of any advertising by Saturn, despite much love from the Euro-fanboys in Vortexland, it arrived too late to help save the brand. (And GM's excuse for its failure was that "Americans don't buy hatchbacks," which of course cars like the Fiesta have since proven to the contrary.)

[zz4vetteguy]

(01-25-2012 05:18 PM)Wimbledon Wrote:  - No cars that just sucked through and through, with no redeeming potential. We're talking cars that could have succeeded with minor changes to equipment, drivetrains, tuning, handling, or styling, not cars that had no potential at all.
- No cars that are actually pretty good, but which you just don't like. Should be generally agreed-upon to have missed the mark in some important way.

These two rules are going to make this REALLY hard. There are a lot of crappy cars out there that for some reason people like. The thunderbird for instance...I personally know about 20 people who have them and love them. I know tons of people who say the Caymen is the worse car Porsche ever built because they put and automatic in them, but they sell really good, I don't know anyone who has one, but at our December Cars & Coffee there were 17 of them that showed up from the local Porsche club.

[stadt]

Only seats four, battery is too small, range extender sucks too much gas, and it costs too much.

Also, while the fire "issue" is not a real thing, people are stupid and it's bad press.

[Vman455]

(01-25-2012 06:12 PM)vwestlife Wrote:  Saturn Astra.



Good looking, very nice to drive, powerful, and sporty... but with high prices, poor MPG, terrible ergonomics, and an almost complete lack of any advertising by Saturn, despite much love from the Euro-fanboys in Vortexland, it arrived too late to help save the brand. (And GM's excuse for its failure was that "Americans don't buy hatchbacks," which of course cars like the Fiesta have since proven to the contrary.)

I would add to this the Saturn Sky and Pontiac Solstice. They were, according to GM, supposed to spawn a whole series of rear-drive, small, fun-to-drive cars, but three years after entering production they were dead, and their brands with them.

[Kompressorkidd]

The first attempt to compete with Mercedes SL
Built by Pininfarina legendary designer for Ferrari and a few other inconic namesakes,full LCD graphic dash,Bose sound,memory seats,and the most advanced body control module system made to date. You figured this car specially in the ostentatious 1980's was built for success? wrong GM decide to use an modified Eldorado platform so it was FWD in an era where people still believe there was no such thing as FWD sports or touring car.Also the first generation of the were slow thanks to a weak 4.1L V8 and plagued with issue thanks to the car chassis being flown to Italy, assembled in the Pininfarina factory then sent back to the states for final assembly.So by the time your Allante was delivered to you then it had made 2 trips out of the country which of course made the car outrageously expensive.The icing on the cake? a manual soft top. How about that for your $60k.
Of course GM remedied most of these things in 1989 with a bigger V8 and laundry list of improvements but A) peoples minds were made up and B) it gave Mercedes Benz the opportunity to launch the R129 which had a power top and did everything the Allante never could or would.



Cadillac's second attempt. With a body like that 443 HP and everything that's an option on a SL standard on the XLR you figured cadillac finally got the message on how to compete with a legend? NO they didn't cheap interior materials, lack of color options and to ad fuel to the fire the car road on narrow 255 series pirelli EMT tires that no only road terribly and handled poorly were to narrow the really allow the S/C northstar to put power to the ground.Oh and the stupid exhaust butterfly's in 06 were not modulated correctly so all the test cars people got sounded like the engine had a burp when the opened.Of course cadillac remedied this for the 07MYand its cosmetic weaknesses in 09MY but neglected to make any major media aware so the car was written off.
Sad that it took the ZR1 to finally show GM that if you build some worth what your asking people will pay for it.Specially when your talking about $100,000 + .

[Hotrod]

Oh I can think of two that really tan my hide!

In order of release date:


The CRZ could of been such a bada$$ car but they just didn't get their market quite right. They released this car right in the middle of a recession and instead of making it a super-cheap yet not embarrassing to own car they had to do this whole hybrid crap to it which made it neither a very good sports car or a very good economy car but just some kind of grey mush in between. This car should of come with a small displacement direct injected gas engine that would get gas mileage very close to what it does in hybrid form, yet drop a TON of the high variable costs associated with hybrids. This would of put Honda in a better place to compete with the Koreans... And speaking of the Koreans....


Oh look it is a CRZ w/ the DI engine non-hybrid with a lower cost just like I was saying.... But...
FUGLY FUGLY FUGLY!!!

Two examples of how two companies tried to tackle the same problem and both messed up!

[grethi]

(01-25-2012 11:10 PM)stadt Wrote:  Also, while the fire "issue" is not a real thing, people are stupid and it's bad press.

+1



I don't know about the CRZ. All the ones I come across were on the street; The dealership isn't able to keep them on the lot.

Obviously the Sky/Solstice missed the mark, but why? They seemed like nice cars but I never drove one so I don't really know.

[DooBahDoo]

Fiat 500 gets my vote. It could have been a driver's car & marketed completely differently.

As for the 2002-2005 Thunderbird, I had one and I loved it. It wasn't my daily driver but it was fast, handled well, no illusion of speed (which could be a problem) but all in all it was 1000 times better than my SLK-320 that I paid twice as much for. It's all opinion but that's my 2¢ based on my ownership experience.

[grethi]

(01-26-2012 04:48 AM)DooBahDoo Wrote:  As for the 2002-2005 Thunderbird, I had one and I loved it. It wasn't my daily driver but it was fast, handled well, no illusion of speed (which could be a problem) but all in all it was 1000 times better than my SLK-320 that I paid twice as much for. It's all opinion but that's my 2¢ based on my ownership experience.

I think that mainly came down to price. Most people didn't want to pay 40k+ for a 2-seater convertible from a domestic company. Mercedes can get buyers to do that. Ford or GM? Not so much.