With Halloween upon us, you’re no doubt seeing all kinds of amazing costumes on whatever social media channels you frequent. Have you seen the super-clever Transformer costumes that actually transform? Incredible. As I kid, I once dressed up as a pinball machine, with eye slits where the score readout would be. [Ed Note: I’ll ask The Bishop why exactly he decided to be a pinball machine and get back to you. I love it, but it’s such an unusual choice, like dressing up as Asteroids – Pete]
Still, as impressive as getups like this are, you won’t receive much applause if you show up at work dressed as a cyborg in, say, late August. [Ed Note: You will if you work at The Autopian. – Pete]
Cars are the same way. Things that might have been runaway successes today just tanked miserably when they were released years ago. We’ve read much about the Scout recently; this sport utility was dropped by International Harvester in 1980 when the big company realized that off-roaders like this just weren’t popular or profitable. Yes, hindsight is really 20/20 ain’t it?
Also in 1980, American Motors released a line of modified passenger cars with an early all-wheel-drive system and a slightly raised chassis to allow them to do mild overlanding or, at the very least, easily cope with snow and mud that an average car couldn’t. Many buyers scoffed at this look, labeling it the “Hornet on Stilts” because of the AMC car that it was based on. Who, they asked, would buy this odd-looking thing that “crosses over” from a Jeep to a car? Today, it’s apparently everyone, but not back then.
By 1990, aero-looking cars and all-new luxury brands like Lexus, Infiniti and Acura were not just accepted, but desired by consumers. This was not the case five years earlier in the pre-Taurus days. The Ford Sierra XR4 was launched at Lincoln/Mercury dealers in 1985 under a new brand called “Merkur” to a truly befuddled world. Why does it look like a used bar of soap? How do you even pronounce “Merkur?” What is an “Exratee?” Wait, this thing has a turbo four-cylinder? I could get a V8 car for that kind of money!
Now, you’ll be the toast of Radwood if you approach the lot in one of these things, but it’s a bit too late to save what became yet another failed attempt by Bob Lutz to bring European enthusiast-type cars to American brands.
Can you think of more cars that arrived at the party way too early and had to leave way too soon?
Does the Porsche 928 count? I am not sure if it arrived at all really. Very nice cars but too good or too unexpected they still captivate me about once a year, someone brings me one to sell, I fall in love all over again and then sell it and forget until the next one.
All of the AWD crossovers of the 1980s—’90s were before their time. The Stanza wagon with sliding doors, jump seats, and AWD, the Colt Vista, the Honda Wagovan, and the Tercel wagon were all AWD Crossovers before we were ready. They did not sell well then but we have newer versions flying out of dealerships now.
Probably an unpopular opinion but I believe the Dodge Caliber debuted (and said goodbye) way too early. Yes it was fugly, had a Rubbermaid built interior, and most of them sent power to the wheels via a crappy CVT, but it also had good packaging, above average ground clearance and available AWD.
The Hyundai sourced 6 spd from the later 1st gen Compass and Patriot would’ve made wonders here, as well as a refreshed interior and front clip, all while still keeping MSRP under $20K.
I’m sure CDJR dealers would fight allocations today to get as many cheap CUVs as they could get
They nailed the concept of a tall, sporty compact wagon for the “adventurous lifestyle”. They just flubbed the execution in every possible way.
I posit that the Caliber looks very much like a proto-Subaru Crosstrek, and could have been marketed and sold that way had it not been a victim of the DaimlerChrysler environment of the time.
The Chevy Cruze diesel didn’t arrive too early, but rather just in time to suffer the fallout from VW’s Dieselgate scandal. It was a solid high miler in an attractive package, but the public ardor for diesels had cooled and the Cruze diesel only lasted 5 model years and sold in low numbers.
Was going to say this. Really neat car. Basically a diesel Verano wearing a bowtie.
Low hanging fruit, but the Kia Borrego would have sold brilliantly if they could’ve got it to the market 5 years earlier.
Every time I see a Kia Borrego I say “holy shit, a Kia Borrego.”
Came here to say the same thing. They released it right as the recession hit hardcore and gas prices spiked. Not good.
Edsel?
https://time.com/3586398/ford-edsel-history/
That was the wrong car at the wrong time.
That was the wrong car, period.
The recent Jaguar XE and XF. Good (actually great to drive) cars released as the market pivoted to crossovers and SUV’s.
There was no money for the interiors though, which did for them.
Maybe it’s me but I preferred the interior on my post facelift XE to the ones in BMW’s I had before it. Maybe the facelift came to late?
Yes the damage was already done by then.
I think the first-gen XF–riding on the last gasp of the DEW platform–was pretty good. The design was striking, the materials were compelling, and it just felt special in a way that a contemporary A6, E-Class, GS, and 5 Series didn’t…even if those cars were technically better. It was as honest an interpretation of a modern Jaguar as you could get, without diving back into the “classic-English-design” bag of tricks (as Ian Callum was reluctant to do).
And it had those tasty (if problematic, when the 5.0-liter gen.3 ones were released) V8 engines.
The second-gen XF? I seriously don’t know why you’d ever buy one of those, and that’s where I agree that Jaguar seriously flubbed the interiors. I don’t know how they ever sold a single one, unless it was on blowout lease deals. Even the leather was rubbish.
The (2021?) facelift fixed a lot of that, but they’re still just not very compelling.
Yes the first gen, especially after the quick facelift to improve the headlights, was a pretty good car. The second gen XF and XE never achieved much market penetration, even in the UK. I didn’t even see very many as company cars.
That’s saying something. It’s common knowledge that Jaguar has often gotten by on peddling volumes of its less-than-competitive wares in its home market as subsidized executive cars. If they weren’t even able to do that on the gen. 2 XF and XE, it speaks to how poorly received they were…and perhaps to the company’s decision to do a Hail Mary and go upmarket, rather than try and compete with the likes of Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
Pretty much every muscle car released in the period between 1969 and 1974. I’m sure every US automaker would have been more than happy to sell mid-size and even compact cars with engines with double, triple, or even quadruple the displacement of their lithe, technically advanced European and Japanese competition, but the double whammy of emmisions regs and the oil crisis ended up either killing off cars(Chrysler E-body, Pontiac GTO, AMC Javelin) or restricted them to the point that the whole exercise seemed purely academic(Mustang II, the sporty versions of the GM Collonade cars, that abomination that was the fourth gen Charger). Now, I will argue that one could still get a reasonably fast, V-8 powered machine from Detroit even in the worst days of the fuel crisis, but even standouts like the Camaro Z28 and the Trans Am were shadows of the machines thay came before.
The worst part was GM had been trying to make compact and midsize cars good before the onrush. I’m thinking of the corvair, the Oldsmobile rocket with a turbo, pontiac’s overhead cam inline 6. There was such a reward for doing huge cubic inch v8s by the end of the ’60s that it killed off all development in smaller cars. Then they leaned hard into rotary engines which was an effective dead end. After that you have to go all the way to the 60° push rods or the quad-4 to get any positive development in GM compact car drivetrains. Literally lost a decade in there at the worst time. Wasn’t really until the ecotec that their 4 cylinders became competitive
The USS Enterprise NCC-1701-B.
They really should have waited until after Tuesday.
Temporal distortions are a bitch.
this made my LOL!
I mean, who leaves space dock without photon torpedoes and a functioning tractor beam?
The obvious answer is the Aztek. It was basically a modern crossover, but it was released 5 or 10 years too early. Slap a Hyundai badge (aside: WTF is up with the rear end on the new Santa Fe? That might be the most hideous design I’ve ever seen and I’m here defending the Aztek, for crying out loud) on one of them and put it on sale in 2024 and no one would bat an eye.
No it wasn’t! It was introduced at the EXACT CORRECT TIME! Crossovers were already hits, the Lexus RX300 and Subaru Forester primed the market, the Buick Rendezvous was a massive hit and was the posh version of the same car.
The Aztek failed because it was a slapdash execution of a good idea. The timing would have been perfect if they would have executed it well.
Exactly.
Crossovers may have existed, but they hadn’t caught fire the way they would a few years later.
And the Rendezvous was an Aztek in conservative clothing, which kind of proves my point that if the Aztek had released in the era where wild crossover styling was more accepted it would have been successful.
They had caught fire. The Rendezvous saved Buick. Toyota and Honda hit the second generation RAV4 and CR-V, the two models that cemented the crossover as the go-to family vehicle.
The Aztek’s problem wasn’t merely that the styling was “wild.” Lots of successful cars have wild styling. The problem was that the entire thing was visually half-assed and looked poorly made. The Aztek failing is like the Dodge Hornet failing – people can often spot an obvious turd.
It was also an awkward size in Buick-Pontiac showrooms. The Rendezvous was a 3-row and the Vibe was much cheaper without a lot less room. Add in that the Aztek drove like a minivan (and the not-great U-body at that) while the Vibe drove like a compact car (the Corolla, one of the best, and with better handling thanks to “we build excitement” vs Toyota’s mushpot sedan suspension tune) and it was stiff internal competition.
The Buick lasted two more years than the Pontiac, but it’s still got canned after the first generation. It was a poor layout, and the Pontiac added badly executed styling to that. Everyone loved the concept car. That was a more extreme version of the design. But then they just stretched it over a poorly received minivan chassis that had a dull drive train and it went nowhere.
That’s also why it’s proof that the Aztek launched at the perfect time. The Rendezvous was a massive hit but the U-body was a terrible platform.
I was surprised that Buick decided to only go bigger instead of getting its own spinoff of the Equinox platform.
People say that the Aztek was the future too early, but there was a lot wrong with the Aztek’s execution and I daresay that contributed more to its failure than anything. Crucially, it was on the U-body minivan platform–which constrained it to a very boxy, upright profile–but with a notch cut out of the top and rear, an odd double-rear-window arrangement (which the Prius would execute more successfully), and way too much sheetmetal between the tops of the wheel arches and the windowsills.
I don’t think the Aztek has much in common with modern crossovers at all, other than its basic unibody/transverse-FWD arrangements and some rugged intentions. And people would have accepted it if it had been better executed and not inexcusably hideous. There was a way to do something like that properly…but it wasn’t going to happen at GM at that time, especially when the company had spent the 80s and much of the 90s being so overbudget and so late on its crucial volume-product launches that it was in cost-cutting, conservative mode.
So, I do agree that might have been successful had it been born later, only because GM would have had better underpinnings to start with, which would have let more of the essence of the original concept (which was well-received) shine through.
everytime I see a new Santa Fe I think about the Flex, another one that came too early
The Saturn S Series.
If GM had put that kind of effort into a moonshot small car in 1980 instead of 1990, the entire history of the company (and maybe the industry) might be different. So much of the bad reputation GM has to this very day is from their shitty downsized cars in the early 1980s. Remember GM still had nearly a 50% market share in 1980. The collapse only started around then.
A world class small car with real sales would have blunted the rise of Toyota & Honda, would have allowed the company to continue selling big cars as opposed to a full-on switch to SUVs and trucks (because their corporate economy would have stayed high), and would probably have kept them out of bankruptcy in 2008.
By 1990 it was too late and the future was written, no matter how good the Saturn ended up being.
That and GM starved Saturn for new products, then gave it some rebadged Opel’s that strayed from the Saturn recipe.
In my scenario, the reverse occurs as standard-of-the-world American-built Saturns are exported to Europe.
They did export them to Japan. I remember the commercial with the guy going through the drive-thru and being on the wrong side of the car. It does make you wonder about advertising to US consumers that your car is being exported; Japanese cars are good enough for America so American cars are good enough for Japan?
Never forget!
https://www.theautopian.com/the-toyota-cavalier-was-doomed-from-the-start-gm-hit-or-miss/
GM starved Saturn for product because the project sucked up billions of dollars just launching the brand and its S Series of cars, with nothing to show for it. In a segment where profit margins would have been slim to begin with, during ideal times, GM was losing as much as $3,000 per unit for every S Series it made.
It could not justify giving Saturn more money to develop a fuller line of cars from the ground up, when that money could go to the other GM brands, which had been starved for product and investment dollars. I posit that Saturn was a major contributing factor as to why Oldsmobile ultimately went under.
Good one. I remember the initial skepticism over Saturn when it debuted, and how hard GM had to work to try to counteract it given the ’80s.
Eh, people remember the Saturn S Series cars with rose-tinted glasses. They really weren’t that great. They were crude, cheap, and often a product cycle or two behind the Japanese competition in terms of benchmarking. I’d call them mediocre.
However, because of Saturn’s unique agreement with the UAW, workers had a personal stake in the assembly process and Saturn was allowed to have excellent control over the cars’ build quality and consistency in assembly between units, which was fairer than you could say for GM’s other compact cars, like the J-body Cavalier and Sunbird/Sunfire, and even some of the larger ones.
But world-class? Hardly.
It was the culture surrounding Saturn that made it successful. It was very customer-friendly, especially the retail experience, and Saturn people were very fond of their cars. And the cars were well-styled; that helped, too. Crucially, people didn’t know that Saturn was GM, and it was a wholly owned and pretty independent subsidiary of GM, not unlike Lotus at the time (and indeed, some Lotuses shared their airbag steering wheels with early Saturns).
I just think Saturn was doomed from the start. GM didn’t stand a chance of making back its investment or being able to capitalize on it without sinking billions more into a fuller line of cars.
Yeah, the point is not necessarily to call the S Series world class as they came to pass, but to imagine what would have happened had GM brought the Saturn mindset to what ultimately became the various Chevettes, Novas, Citations, Cavaliers, and such that did so much to turn buyers against GM in the 80s.
Even if the resulting product didn’t turn out to be 100% of what the Civic or Corolla was, it wouldn’t have had to be in order to change the trajectory of both the Japanese and GM over the ensuing decades.
That’s exactly it, though. Those cars weren’t, on their own, indifferent efforts, either. GM worked really hard to try and bring world-class vehicles to market with all of the cars you mentioned, too. But they were victims of the politics and the market at the time. GM was realizing the burdens of its historic bloated infrastructure, unrealistic union obligations, ridiculous overhead and terrible management, which meant those cars were doomed, even if they were great ideas to start with.
In order to develop cars that were even remotely competitive, GM had to go outside itself and form a mostly independent subsidiary, which was Saturn. But in doing so, and in marketing the new brand, GM burned so much cash that the whole thing was never going to be viable.
I posit that GM, with all its engineering and financial might, actually could have developed something akin to the Lexus LS 400, instead, under a new brand/subsidiary. That car would have had a high-enough transaction price to mitigate the financial losses of producing it. Even if it did lose money–which the LS 400 allegedly did in its early years, selling for something like $35,000–it would have been in short term. It might have embarrassed Cadillac, which was supposed to be the senior GM brand…but I bet it would be paying dividends now, as GM would have a respected, high-ATP, high-resale-value luxury brand.
LaSalle LS400 even rolls right off the tongue.
Right? The LS was very much in the spirit of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, so it’s fair to call it Euro-flavored.
And if GM wanted its Euro luxury so badly, why not just go ahead and launch a “European” brand from the ground up…instead of half-assed projects like the Allanté and Seville/STS?
The point to Saturn that I think is missed is that the company was focused as much on HOW the cars were made as they were on WHAT was made. Saturn’s management philosophy was supposed to adopt Deming’s process management theory, allowing for employee involvement at most levels. At a time when GM divisions didn’t talk to each other (and I think some still don’t), it was supposed to allow holistic vehicle development. I talk with a guy one time that was a security guard at a Saturn facility. He told me that he had never seen auto workers that happy to go to work. Of course, changing a culture is not cheap and GM didn’t want to stick it out, thus leading to starving the company.
My wife had an SL2 when we got married. It was an OK car with a manual transmission. She loved it.
They showed the first drivable prototype in 1984! If they had put that car in production as a Chevy for 1985 it would’ve had a full production run before the S-Series debut in 1991!
I had never put those two together: GM was still building Chevettes when they showed the first drivable prototype of the Saturn S series.
I still remember traditionally when “super cars” get released.. XJ220, F1 etc.. the economy then to tank.. I guess it is no longer a thing anymore?
Willys Aero. One of several attempts to interest mid-century Americans in a small car, and it failed like all the rest. However, according to Wikipedia:
GM EV1. The tech wasn’t fully baked yet, but the real problem is that it launched when GM’s corporate environment was hostile to any long-term thinking. They might have been ahead of the game if they were able to keep developing the tech – whether that meant the pure EV or the hybrid tech that was being developed under the same program.
Plus if they had continued the program we may have actually been spared Elon Musk. There’s a direct line between the cancellation of the EV1 program to Tesla.
No, I get tired of hearing that if GM would’ve stuck with the EV1 they would’ve been Tesla. Tesla’s biggest innovation was not the technology or anything like that, the biggest thing they did was made the electric car desirable. The Roadster and later the Model S had sleek designs and were fast. This was huge departure from the previous thinking from manufacturers that EVs needed to be cheap economy cars to appeal to people that wanted to save on gas, and the public perception that EVs had been glorified golf carts, which given the technology of the time wasn’t far off. This is one area I do not think GM would have figured out. A hypothetical EV2 would’ve been everything that people derided electric cars for being, slow, small range, and compromised.
No, GM wouldn’t have been Tesla, but Tesla literally would not exist. The founders of Tesla – the real ones, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning – have explicitly stated that they started the company in response to GM cancelling the EV1 program.
Fair enough, I am of the belief that if the EV1 program continued it is very possible it may have resulted in more harm than good for EVs at least from a public perception viewpoint since the tech was still costly and compromised.
Which is exactly why GM killed the program. It’s hard enough today to sell people a 300 mile EV that can charge 80% in 20 minutes. Imagine if the range were shorter, charging slower, and performance nowhere near what a modern EV has.
If the EV1 had been sold to the general public it could potentially have poisoned the well for EVs the same way the Olds diesel did to passenger diesel engines.
I think for GM it would have been a benefit overall – the plug-in hybrid part of the program primarily, especially given that rapid gas price increases that were coming and they had no response to the Prius.
Overall, who’s to say? Rick Wagoner flaps his wings in Detroit and somehow the rise of fascism has one of its major funders.
That’s correct, and people forget that.
The whole reason the EV1s were leased in the first place was that they didn’t meet federal requirements for longevity, and GM had several key suppliers go under in the middle of production, which would have made future parts support (again, a federal mandate) incredibly difficult. GM couldn’t responsibly allow customers to buy out their cars; supporting them long-term would have been a liability to the company.
I posit that they had planned to crush the cars from the very start.
Now, did GM have to go and cancel the entire program? No. It could have been iterated upon.
Yeah the EV1 was very much an experimental program – a way to get real world data out of new tech. They were doing a plug-in hybrid in it and playing around with different fuel sources. In a GM receptive to experimenting it would have paid off.
Perhaps the RAV4 EV is the real missed opportunity. As mentioned, a big part of Tesla’s success was making a feasible, desirable car (although I think as a sleek 2-seater, the EV1 has its own appeal), but if Toyota had kept plugging away, they’d have an electrified version of the most mainstream car imaginable.
I think the difference is that Toyota didn’t cancel all electrification. If they kept the EV1, something like the Volt launches against the Prius and GM has something when gas prices soar. The EV1 is about the entire program as much as that single car.
Last generation Impalas. GM finally got the big sedan right, and it was promptly killed.
How about the Pontiac G8 while we’re at it? Its ethos would have fit so well with the past decade’s go big HP or go home offerings from competitors.
This was almost my answer too.
Some of the rumored/leaked product roadmaps for Pontiac under Lutz make me very sad for the future we missed out on.
Absolutely. Really, the G8’s time was limited, since it was Holden-developed and GM was busy quietly shuttering Holden’s engineering–and, indeed, the brand and sales in all RHD markets. The most GM would have made the G8 for was 9 or so years, and then the executives would have had to come up with another solution.
Had the G8 been allowed to continue, though, it might have been more of a stopgap. It might have had enough of a sales bump and transaction-price increase for Pontiac that it would have spurred GM to invest in more-Stateside-developed (and ultimately more-profitable) RWD products for Pontiac…and to do so without threatening Cadillac and its sacred, high-ATP V/Blackwing brand. I believe the Alpha-based Cadillac ATS was either supposed to be a Pontiac or to have a Pontiac sibling.
Really, I think that’s exactly what would’ve happened if it weren’t for that pesky recession and bankruptcy. GM only killed Pontiac because it was told to shed some brands, in exchange for federal bailout dollars. It was clearly prepared to carry Pontiac into perpetuity–whether or not it made financial sense–and was on the precipice of injecting some serious excitement into the brand.
The other thing Pontiac would have needed to do was probably come up with more flashy styling than the G8 (and indeed the successor SS) had. Part of the reason the Mopars have been so successful is because they were loud and brash, offered in a number of flashy colors and trim packages, and even in wide-tracked “widebody” formats. But, again, I think Pontiac would have been able to do just that if it had survived longer.
Yep. It’s worth noting that–while the W-body Impala was Chevrolet’s biggest consumer sedan at any time–it was really more of an intermediate-plus, in the grand-scheme of things (as were the other W-bodies). It actually had less usable interior room than the Pontiac G6, and later the Chevy Malibu and Saturn Aura when the adopted the enlarged Epsilon wheelbase.
The Impala didn’t grow into a proper full-sizer until that last 2014 redesign. So when you say…GM finally got the big sedan right with the Impala, really it wasn’t one for all the time it was a W-body.
It’s the same for the Ford Taurus. The first four generations of it were intermediate, with Ford having various smaller-intermediate cars over the years to compliment it (Contour, Fusion). Only when it took over for the Five-Hundred in 2008 did it become full-size.
The European Ford Fusion was actually a quite cool tall “cross over” on the Fiesta platform, but is mostly seen as a roomy unsexy family transporter, like the Renault Kangoo, Citroën Berlingo or Toyota Verso.
If they had painted the wheel fenders black, and gave it a couple inches bigger wheels to make it look more agressive, and of course sold it for a lot more money… it could have been the first crossover, and beaten Peugeot 3008, Nissan Juke and all those similar cars.
My immediate thought was the X-Terra… and to a lesser degree, the unibody Pathfinder from the early 00’s.
It’s 2000, and the world hadn’t gone bonkers for overlanding yet; it was still mostly reserved for die hards and Jeep owners. But it was coming. Eventually, it seemed everybody had an actual offroad capable SUV, or an offroad-looking CUV because everyone in the Starbucks drive through now wants to look outdoorsy and tough. Even cars are getting the “tough” treatment (looking at you Subaru).
Except Nissan. They cancelled theirs and are still trying to convince people that the “tough” versions of the Pathfinder fit the market, while buyers just see something that looks like a minivan.
I own a 2003 R50 Pathfinder. It’s better than the contemporary body-on-chassis 4Runner in almost every measurable way. It’s more economical and way more powerful (uses the same VQ35DE used in the 350Z). Because it’s unibody, it’s way more comfortable, deals better with NVH, has more interior room and handles transitions much better.
I drove both extensively before purchasing the Pathfinder and it wasn’t even a contest. It was really ahead of its time but the main problem is that Nissan was never sure how to position it (and still isn’t) while Toyota was absolutely certain on what the 4Runner was supposed to be.
Yep. Toyota was smart to launch a dedicated car that was softer and unibody, the Highlander, while allowing the 4Runner to continue being what it was, which is something no other brand did.
Fun fact: the current RAV4 is exactly as large as the original Highlander was.
EVs. We should be in a world of hybrids, but manufacturers decided to skip a step only to find the majority in a world of hurt for this foolish decision.
It isn’t an either/or. The reality is that the world needs the early adopters to start the market for EVs. That early product introduction phase HAS to happen, otherwise it never happens. And frankly, we do need EVs to be part of the automotive landscape.
But… they maybe also should have paired that with PHEV’s for the laggard buyers of the world.
Jaguar is going to be dead because they went full BEV without a customer base that’s interested in that. The German brands are in a world of hurt because they went EV centric instead of mixing in hybrids/PHEVs more. You are also showing your level of understanding of what it’s like to live in rural areas with cold winters that make a lot of the tech of EVs not up to the standards needed. Infrastructure isn’t ready for what these manufacturers planned for.
The Trailblazer SS
Toyota FJ Cruiser. Did okay in its time, sure, but this is the time for macho-looking boxy offroaders.
Call it Land Cruiser now if you want, but still do offer the two-door. The original actually looks like it could easily be a proper 4 door anyway.
Could you imagine the pandemic era markups Toyota dealers would have been tossing on the FJ Cruiser if they were still being made?
I have a feeling due to recent small car demand, automakers will try to push through some designs here soon, only to miss the boat. Either that, or we shall see some small cuv type vehicles that look like something off the movie Idiocracy.
Of course it is the whole Hummer lineup and Ford Excursion.
Because they shouldn’t have been release at all?
Have you looked at used Excursion prices? The demand is there.
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. 😉
A minivan that can pull 10000 pounds? For many people it replaces 2 vehicles. Especially in rural areas.
With modern engine technology or even hybrid powetrains it would have worked a lot better. It was a good vehicle except for the 10 mpg.
GM was making 3/4 ton Suburbans so the Excursion was just Ford’s version and really filled a need for a school bus that could also tow a literally boatload. It had better fuel economy than taking 2 vehicles when you needed to haul 6-8 people plus tow your party barge around.
The H2 was a terrible idea. The H3 actually worked.
It’s a segment where lots of people confuse Needs and Wants.
There might be people that actually use all of it’s capabilities. For most, it’s a status vehicle, not a utility vehicle.
In the case of the Excursion, I’d actually disagree. It hit the needs of an extremely niche market head on, but the compromises were way too much for the majority of buyers, and the massive SUVs actually don’t really have that bro appeal that a truck does – it still reads as family car.
Yep. And indeed, the LWB versions of the Expedition and Navigator, which were released the next year (MY2007) were the direct replacements for the Excursion. As a 3/4-ton with an available diesel, the Excursion served some niche buyers very well, but most people didn’t want or need it and the Expedition EL/Navigator L were far better products.
If nothing else, Ford was ahead of the curve, because absolutely no one would have been buying Excursions when the recession hit shortly after they were discontinued. They would have been punchlines.
The difference between the Excursion and the extended Expedition (and similar large SUVs) is that the Expedition and large SUVs can carry a lot of people, or tow a lot of weight.
The Excursion had the rating to do both at once, since it was based on a Super Duty chassis.
You mean like the Wrangler? A product is offered to fill a need for some, but of course there are always those who confuse their wants vs needs. The H2 was a status symbol which is why it was terrible (less fuel efficient version of a Tahoe). The Excursion makes exact sense for those that need those traits in one vehicle.
The H2 was a great idea, until it wasn’t. The H3–although poorly executed if you ask me–was proof that GM could have transitioned Hummer into a full-line SUV brand with some models that were more reasonably-sized and more fuel-efficient, not unlike Jeep.
The original GMC Terrain could have been a Hummer, and maybe it was intended to be.
Had the recession not happened and the bankruptcy with it, the politics of the Hummer brand never would have been so controversial.
Definitely the Chevy Volt.
Manufacturers seem to be scrambling to get PHEVs out that still aren’t as good as what Chevy put out in 2011.
Honorable mention to the Subaru Baja in these days where Ford can’t make Mavericks fast enough.
Can confirm! Pretty incredible to have a car that functions entirely as a zero compromise EV for the vast majority of my driving, only to seamlessly switch to a hybrid when I want to leave town.
Ford C-Max Energi that Matt talked up last night. With the technology that came out a few years later, it could have had a much better AER and superior packaging, making it less of a compromise.
Ford actually almost brought us the Grand C-Max, which was a larger variant of the C-Max, with sliding doors, Mazda5-style. I even remember seeing the Grand C-Max on display at a local auto show, here in Oklahoma City. I imagine they didn’t bring it over because (a) the Mazda5 had been a slow-seller, and (b) they had enough of a mini-minivan in the Transit Connect.
As for the C-Max, the Energi was pretty sucky (as was the Fusion Energi), but the hybrid was fantastic. It’s a shame the North American C-Max never got the facelift the Euro-market one did, which eliminated, among other things, the ungainly double-grille layout.
This is an easy one-the Kia Stinger
You think so? I think the Stinger was released at the exact right time, insofar as it was made in the first place.
Had it been done earlier when people had more of an appetite for non-crossovers and sport sedans/liftbacks, Kia would not have had the resources to execute it as well as it did. It would have come from some other brand, like Pontiac (which itself had a similar dilemma). The Hyundai/Kia/Genesis conglomerate’s penchant for developing world-class performance platforms is pretty recent, within the last decade.