It’s time once again for you to plumb the depths of your piston-power psyche as you ponder a speculative automotive scenario and return a well-honed reply when (pause for dramatic effect) The Autopian Asks!
This time, we’re talking about those great car concepts that fell short of what they could have been (or heck, never even made it to production) with the brands that originally spawned them, but would have been better/great/not garbage if another maker had the opportunity to manufacture the machine in question.
I asked the gang …
Thomas Hundal
The new electric Dodge Charger Daytona is an interesting proposition. Unfortunately, due to recent marketing efforts around V8s and traditional muscle cars, it’s also seeing some serious pushback from the community. However, you know what American car manufacturer could use a big, fast, electric three-door or five-door liftback and doesn’t have the baggage of the Hellcat engine? Chevrolet. Build in the budget for a brand new Chevelle with plenty of power and grand touring sensibilities, and GM would have a halo car for the Ultium platform that isn’t a completely unattainable handbuilt Cadillac.
The Bishop
I still think the Allante is a nice-looking car that never should have been flown by 747 to Detroit to be burdened by Cadillac underpinnings Also, nobody went to a Subaru dealership in 1992 for a $30,000 sport luxury coupe. SVX was doomed at the start Mazda 929 shoulda been a Jag. It would have sold. Again, nobody goes to a Mazda dealer for a big fancy luxury sedan.
Stephen Walter Gossin
The Crossfire should’ve actually been made by Chrysler, rather than brought to showrooms as a restyled Mercedes R170 (first-gen SLK) built by Karmann and badged as a Chrysler. The Chrysler guys could have used whatever plan/parts/chassis they were going to use for the Dodge Razor or Dodge Slingshot (or the other, similar prospects/concepts of the day) and made a car that wouldn’t require you to finagle discontinued $800 keys (In certain cases) from old Mercedes suppliers for a security system nobody supports 10 years after the cars were made om top of a myriad of parts and service-related challenges as a result of the divorce.
Which car (or cars) do you wish had come out of some other brand’s factory? To the comments!
It took three days for this to pop into my head, but: Triumph Stag. Most of its problems came from its terrible V8 engine. I understand that many people have retrofitted Ford Essex V6 engines into these, so perhaps Ford would have been the better manufacturer up front?
Hear me out on this:
GM should have made the K cars. Instead of being saddled with subpar engines and transmissions, you could have had a Chevy Reliant or Buick LeBaron, with reliable quad-4, 3800 v-6’s, etc. and mostly dependable GM transmissions. I feel like the GM J platform, W platform, etc. just didn’t work out as well as Chrysler’s K platform.
Is it possible to get Jaguar class with Lexus standards? Because that’s what I want.
Tesla Cybertruck would have been much better if it was made (only) toy sized by Tonka.
Oh wait… think of the children and all those finger slices…
So, CT should have ….. not been made.
Wow, the lengths someone will go to to include a jab at a used-up, tired topic…
All of ford if it was built by Chevy, Honda, Toyota, Subaru, etc.
Ford should have just done whatever it took to put Cummins diesels in their super duty trucks.
Instead they built some pretty solid trucks with SHIT diesel engines for a good 10 years or so. The cummins swap(called a Fummins) is fairly popular.
Dodge trucks back in the 90’s/00’s were so much jankier than Ford/Chevies. Only reason anybody wants one is for that sweet Cummins straight six.