Once again we turn to you, the most learned and dare we say attractive readers of the interwebs, for your answers to a piping-hot question fresh from the collective pizza oven of of our minds. As you know (but here’s a hyperlink if you don’t), GM just killed the Chevy Bolt. Yes, the Bolt arrived with some teething pains, but The General got the affordable EV sorted and it’s been a popular choice for budget-conscious buyers looking to electric power. So obviously, it had to die. Other vehicles that were more deserving of the Bolt’s fate quickly came to mind when we heard the news, which brought us to today’s question:
Which current car model would you sacrifice so a previously-offed car could live again–and which defunct model would you bring back?
We’ll see you in the comments! And now, let’s take a look at trends and choice replies from last week’s Autopian Asks, which asked for your opinions on optimal infotainment screen size and configration:
Most of you focused on screen size, and a common refrain was that bigger is not better. About eight inches seemed to be the sweet spot for screen size, and more than a few of you wished for double-DIN standardization. Eggsalad says he’s fine with a mere 20 x 60mm (0.8 x 2.4″) screen. Yours truly remembers when having a digital clock in the dash seemed like futuristic stuff, so I get it.
Hugh Crawford (we’re giving you capital letters, Hugh) definitely makes a solid point about the frustrating screen-darkening effect polarized lenses have on infotainment visuals, and we bet a bunch of you are also in the take-off-your-sunglasses-to-see-the-backup-camera-view club. Very annoying. But not as annoying as a too-bright, un-dimmable screen at night, as DDRDAN experienced in a Mercedes C-class. As someone who chooses dark-mode for every app that supports it, I would find a vivid white screen to be intolerable. Thankfully, I’m approximately all of the dollars away from owning a C-class, so it’s all good.
Now get to commenting, and tell us which meh cars must die so good ones gone to soon may live again!
Images: Exited guy: khosrork/stock.adobe.com; Chevy Bolt: GM; BMW XM: BMW
Let’s kill the Honda Passport off since the Pilot is close enough and bring back the Element. Better yet kill off the HR-V and bring the Element back.
I wood kill the Hummer EV and the Cadillac Lyriq. One is a 9,000 lbs toy and the other is a movie theater on wheels. Who are these for? How do they solve a need? I don’t understand where the profit is on these.
Bring back the anything that is affordable and has decent visibility. Honda Element? Chevy Astro Van?
(Also kill anything with a turbo engine under 1.6L. These are under powered and do not hold up.)
I would kill the Ford Ecosport to bring back the 4 door Ford Focus Hatchback.
And apparently I got half of my wish with the Ecosport getting killed off this year. But still no Focus coming back.
And I don’t see it coming back until maybe at some point when Ford has a BEV platform for smaller/cheaper cars. But I think that’s 5-10 years into the future.
Kill some Nissan SUV and bring back the NV, but make a high-top passenger model.
I heard they were good vans but they were trying to but into the well-established dominance of Sprinters, Transits, and Expresses.
Probably controversial, but kill whatever replaced the Juke and bring back the Juke.
CR-V for CRX.
Kill any Buick, bring back the Regal Tour X.
Kill any Chevy, bring back the Caprice Classic wagon.
Kill the Ford Edge/Escape/smallest SUV, bring back the Flex.
Kill the Volvo XC (all of them), bring back the 850 wagon.
(there’s a theme here)
Kill the Rogue Sport, bring back the S-Chassis, any generation, or even better, S13 Hatch and the S15, actually sell the S15 in the US.
Kill the Murano, bring back the Xterra, if license issues exist with the name now, use the Chinese model name, Paladin.
Basically just kill every overpriced compact “SUV” (Read – lifted hatchback with worse fuel economy) and just give us some decent affordable sub-compact cars and hatches in NA. Heck, just make some cars that cost less than 20-25k Canadian and are ACTUALLY AVAILABLE ON LOTS. When 4 year old Sparks at 17k CDN seem like genuinely good deals because there’s nothing else available that’s efficient and less money….
Yes. And, since they worked out awd on smaller platforms, put awd as an option on those affordable hatches. Yes to a Honda Fit with AWD, no to the HR-V. Yes to a Corolla wagon w/ awd, no to the CorollaCross.
Realistically, I’d kill Buick to get back Saturn and have it as a pure electric brand. Smaller scale, kill the current trailblazer for a Maverick competitor from GM. Unrealistic? Kill 3 row suvs and bring back lower, lighter, full sized wagons with 3 rows.
I’d be good with killing Buick to bring Saturn back. Saturn’s whole point was to be unfussy reliable transportation. As much as cars get mocked for being appliances by enthusiasts, appliances have their place for most of the population. Let the people have simple unfussy transportation!
Bye: The Ram 1500 Classic. Obviously, the new body style isn’t up to par on what they wanted to sell, because they should’ve dropped it a year or so ago. But it still needed to stand on its own. The Classic has been nice to have around, but a more efficient truck outta take its place by now.
Hi: Preferably a Dakota (I’d prefer to name it Raider though) on the WK2/WD chassis. Why on that chassis?
Everyone still wants a midsize pick-up from Ma Mopar with a Hemi in it. Why not a chassis that’s had one of every Hemi (sans the Redeye/Demon) since 2011?Could’ve offered the 3rd generation EcoDiesel with it for max fuel economy.Suspension in relation to the driveline: Want a Dakota Rebel? Give it bits from a Grand Cherokee. Want a boy racer? The Durango can help sit it down a bit.But drop the high revving minivan 3.6 and through in the damn 2L turbo that actually makes torque and makes it down low (at least in comparison to the 3.6).
Get rid of any current GM product (the bigger the better!) and bring back my 95 Saturn SL2 (Original exterior, updated interior for that year only)!
Time to tear apart GM’s lineup and say no to crossovers:
Blazer to bring back a real body on frame Blazer
The store-brand vanilla Malibu for the Chevelle as an affordable CT5 with the LT1
Trailblazer for the Tracker
Buick Encore, Envision, Enclave for Electra, Riviera, and Grand National
Cadillac XT4, XT5, and XT6 for DeVille, Eldorado, and Fleetwood
Get off my lawn.
Kill the Subaru Ass Scent and bring back the Baja. I’d also be good with them killing the WRX and bringing back the Impreza WRX.
i literally have a “bring back the baja” sticker
RAV4s, except the original 3-door XA10 AWD manual.
-Kill the mini countryman, that role can be filled by some miserable BMW 2-series “gran poupè” and replace it with a proper A-segment mini, electric or ICE, I don’t care.
-Kill the current miserable Nissan “Pathfinder” (A.K.A Rogue), and replace it with a proper Pathfinder- a BOF wagon built on the Navara platform.
-Kill the Isuzu E-series heavy truck line, in favour of a new Isuzu Piazza.
And if staying under one company isn’t a prerequisite;
-Kill the Tesla Cybertruck and replace it with a new Buckminster-Fuller Dymaxion, possibly the only car ever conceived to be more ridiculous.
Plus, it’d rile up all of the tesla fanboys, which would be entertaining.
Woah I had never heard of the Piazza! Beautiful car!
Kill: The Ford Escape and Edge which Ford is thinking about doing anyway.
Resurrect: The Ford Fusion and either the Transit Connect or C-Max
Sedans need to live and the Fusion was still popular when it was axed (give us the wagon too.).
As for the TC, although there was a passenger version, Ford barely tried to sell them and both the interior/exterior design and feature set were biased towards commercial customers. Because American families are shrinking, there’s an opportunity to bring back a true, fully featured minivan built to consumer tastes.
Calling for the return of the Ford Fusion will seems very strange for us UK dwellers:
https://m.atcdn.co.uk/vms/media/w900/3348bf7b60c04079a01012a9cf896917.jpg
What the heck is that
That’s a Ford Fusion! Basically an early 2000s Fiesta Wagon. The old grannies loved them.
Double thumbs up for the Fusion wagon!
Kill: The Tiguan or Taos, don’t really care which.
Resurrect: Golf Sportwagen
I’m not sure I even care how abusive VW’s can be, that last Golf Sportwagen was basically the perfect car. Green with a tan interior please! You can bring back the Alltrack too if you want to I suppose.
We are now friends. I am going to disagree on your color choice but hell yes to everything else.
Ha, fair. What can I say, I’m fond of the 90s.
I don’t really care that most people are going to drive SUVs. But man, do we really need the Taos AND the Tiguan? Some of these brands have 5 different incrementally smaller/larger SUVs, and I’m just asking for a wagon from like, one, maybe two brands?
I basically gave up and went to a van because with no wagons available I didn’t see the point in resisting anymore. If I’m going to drive a big fat family car, it might as well be good at what it does.
You and me both, 3/4 of my driveway is 80s/90s. I agree that the incrementally “right” sized suv craze is so incredibly stupid. You should test drive a 17-19 alltrack/gsw 4mo 6 speed. My wife dds ours and it is hands down the most practical best car we’ve ever owned.
I test drove a 2018 Sportwagen as a new car when I was considering a move from the Suzuki SX4 I had. I ended up holding onto the Suzuki for another year or two. Sort of missed the boat as it was only 19k. What a screaming deal that would have been.
Yeah, now the ones with 50k+ are going for 20k. When they hit the 2-5k price range I’m going to have DT yard levels of holy grails. 😀
For real though, go grab one. You’ll be happier driving it than a van.
I would summarily kill all cross-overs and most SUVs to bring back sedans and small hatchback cars.
Kill off the Hummer EV, bring back the Spark EV. The Bolt is a fantastic car – I owned one until Covid made having two cars unnecessary – but the Spark EV is a revelation. If you’ve never driven one, go find some used car lot and do so. Press the Sport button. It’s a completely unrefined EV experience in a delightfully tiny car. At modern capacities GM could make a 150-mile range Spark EV for under $20k after incentives.
Car writers are always excited about new and potential imports from China that compromise things like airbags and highway speeds to achieve a cheap EV, but GM made one in 2016. Imagine what it could be today!
I have bigger ideas than just one model.
Kill GMC as an entire division of GM, at least for passenger cars – leave it as a manufacturer of commercial trucks. There’s no reason for it to exist. Want an SUV? You can buy a basic one made by Chevrolet. If you want a fancier one, buy it from Buick. If you want the fanciest American SUV you can get from GM, buy it from Cadillac. There’s already good, better, best under the GM umbrella, and GMC is unnecessary as a passenger car division.
Take the savings and resurrect Pontiac as GM’s pure performance/bleeding-edge-tech skunkworks. Give us a ground-up 21st century electric Bonneville SSE to take on Tesla. Finally build the Banshee as an electric or hybrid Miata fighter, or better yet, call it a Fiero – an all-electric Fiero that uses no “fire” for propulsion would actually be pretty funny. Resurrect the Safari badge for an honest-to-goodness GODDAMN AMERICAN GODDAMN STATION WAGON, GODDAMMIT. Make personal luxury coupes great again by building a handsome, two-door-only Grand Prix, and pull out all the stops with a high-performance trim level called the GTO. And please, whatever else you do with this imaginary revived Pontiac Motor Division, please make sure that all these models roll on updated versions of the best looking factory wheels ever made by an American car maker: honeycombs and snowflakes. However, note: any designer that starts 90s-ing up Pontiacs with stupid cladding is to be thrown in the wind tunnel.
Avenge the murder of Pontiac by bringing it back as the show-off, “bet you didn’t think GM could do THIS” division, and charge it with building the excitement that the 80s ad tagline promised but rarely delivered. And no, General, none of them will be allowed to be faster than the Corvette, so just stop it.
Easy mode: Nuke the Eclipse Cross from orbit (it’s the only way to be sure), bring back the Lancer (complete with Evo trim).
Bring back the good manual, RWD 1er. Do not let BMW’s current “design” team touch it.
Kill the current FWD 1er/2er with FIRE (or hell, any of the current monstrosities with buckteeth, but BMW should’ve stuck to its rabbit ad with FWD).
JDM version:
Bring back the Daihatsu Naked.
Kill the Honda S660’s seat material, bring back zebra stripes.
Bring back the YY version of the Toyota Noah.
Bring back the name FunCarGo.
Bring back Pike Cars.
Bring back the original Honda Vamos.
Bring back the Mazda MPV. Kill whatever CUV you want.