Even the least interesting cars can be elevated to some level of intriguing via a special edition. Whether it’s just an appearance package or more serious massaging, these short-run factory-sanctioned customs can add some fun to what are often otherwise milquetoast rides.
And indeed, there have been some wild ones over the years; consider the Bon Jovi VW Golf, AMC’s “Levis Gremlin” with an interior slathered in ersatz denim, and the “Motor Trend Car of the Year Edition” Renault Alliance, to name just a few specials that fresh cosmetic spins on basic transpo. For a more special Special Edition with a substantial deviation from standard-model specs, consider the AMC Hurst SC/Rambler that boosted AMC’s econo-coupe to 315 horsepower and outfitted it for NHRA F/Stock drag racing.
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The fact that these special edition cars existed might have you believe the ones below were also actual things. They are not, and the stories that present them are (mostly) not true, but don’t let the fact that they’re pure fabrications stop you from enjoying their absurdity.
Chrysler: You Made A Race Car Out Of What?
“We have to win in this series” yelled then-Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca from behind his desk. “We once owned NASCAR and now we can’t field a competitive car?”
How the mighty do fall. In the sixties, Mopars dominated the NASCAR scene with iconic cars like the Dodge Charger Daytona and Plymouth Superbird. Legendary starts of the series aligned themselves with brand, as Richard Petty became famous behind the wheel of Chrysler products.
As the seventies wore on, Chrysler’s financial woes were compounded in the sport by cars that simply couldn’t match the aerodynamics of the GM and Ford offerings. However, for 1980 Chrysler launched the Aspen/Volare-based Mirada coupe, which appeared on the surface to be relatively sleek ray of hope for the time.
Iacocca personally called Petty to have him test a NASCAR version of the new Mirada, which took place in front of 15,000 fans. Despite looking great as a race car, the Mirada was unfortunately a good 8MPH off of the rest of the contenders in the field.
Oddly enough, Chrysler’s fancier version of the Mirada (the bustlebacked Imperial) was more aerodynamic and did better on the track, but there was little interest from Mopar in racing something that looked like their star-crossed flagship.
The poor testing results prompted Petty’s defection to GM and Mopar essentially abandoning its racing efforts.
NOTE: thus far, the story is true, and Lee Iacocca let this defeat go and moved on. In my alternate history below, however, Lee fought on:
The shift to front-drive K-car chassis vehicles had left Mopar with few products to fit the third-generation, rear-drive 110” wheelbase template of a NASCAR entry. “There has to be some way to make a car that will stand a chance of winning,” said Iacocca. “Can’t we cobble together the examples needed for homologation from what we have?”
The product planners were terrified of what Lee would say next, as even Lee couldn’t stand the rear-drive cars Chrysler was still making. These were holdovers from the dark years when he started at the company and paid out millions in recall costs for these crappy cars (namely the Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volare). “I’ve heard that GM is considering putting a pointy nose and glass back on their G-body Monte Carlos and Grand Prix, so we could do that.” Everyone’s worst fears were realized. “How about we find some Imperial front clips, get some slick glass hatchbacks made and stick them on a Diplomat or something?”
He couldn’t be serious, could he? The new-for-1978 Diplomat was shown in brochures with old people getting into them; actual old people and not forty-somethings with dyed-grey hair! Who does that? There wasn’t even a pretense that these weren’t uncool in civilian non-cop format.
Iacocca WAS serious; someone grabbed a poor Diplomat from the assembly line and brought it under the knife to do the changes Mr. Iacocca suggested:
The Imperial nose was grafted in place, the trunk lid and rear window ripped off and replaced by a massive glass hatch. Thus the Dodge 600 Talladega was born, employing the racetrack name Lee had used on their Torino NASCAR legend when he was still working for Ford:
This odd concoction was named for the new-at-the-time “large” Dodge 600 sedan in order to promote that product, the joke being that this Diplomat Talladega shared exactly nothing with that front drive K-based sedan. Here is the animation of the changes:
With blacked-out trim, the homologation special barely sold 500 units needed to qualify this Frankenstein for racing and priced out higher than a top-level Fifth Avenue; nearly as much as a Corvette. The stock cop-spec 318 V8 was hardly a modern-day hemi, and the chassis dating back to the Dodge Dart was not going to carve any canyon roads. At least the hatchback glass made it more useable as a normal car: too bad it leaked on your luggage.
The competition model did win a few races, but not enough to make it worth the effort and anything more than a footnote in Mopar’s great NASCAR history.
AMC: You’d Think The French Would Like Weird Cars, Right?
“That’s a bit much, Mr. Teague,” said the product VP. Indeed, AMC design chief Dick Teague had always created rather controversial-looking machines like the Pacer, and now he’d made a latter-day version of his odd Gremlin on the new Spirit coupe called the Kammback.
Ah, but Dick took it a step further. AMC had just released the ground-breaking crossover Eagle, an all-wheel-drive version of its Hornet-based Concord; Teague decided to put these underpinnings beneath this proto-Gremlin. Dubbed the Eagle Kammback, Dick was having a hard time trying to justify this thing to the product team.
The larger Eagle’s front grille, lights, and wheels were ostensibly supposed to help this chopped-down hatchback appear to be a normal car, but they ended up making it look like a five-year-old wearing dad’s suit.
“It looks like a Gremlin on stilts, Dick. It’s extremely funky looking. I can sell “funky” on, say, a Jeep CJ. But on a passenger car? I don’t know.”
Teague knew the marketing guy was right, but thankfully he had an idea based on what the VP had just said. Grabbing his best photo retoucher, Teague went back to the studio to create his new concept. If the Kammback was too funky for a car but OK for a Jeep, why not make it a Jeep? AMC never had any money to spend, so Dick proposed minor modifications. With a few changes, the Kammback became the “Jeep Sportster.”
Here you can get a better sense of the changes with the animation:
The seven-slot grille and round lights work well with the small hood scoop-like trim that matches the shape of the SJ Cherokee’s front end. The spare tire could be mounted on a pivot-out frame Jeep-style in back (to access the hatch), and new taillights with backup lamps at the top were similar to the “box” lights used on the Jeep CJ. A fabric or glass sunroof could give open-air options, and white “spoker” wheels completed the transformation into a Jeep-branded machine that resembled something like the much-loved Lada Niva (but far easier to live with than that rather agricultural Russian truck).
Remember, at the time the Jeep CJ was far less car-like than the YJ or later Wrangler descendants that followed, so a car-based off-roader would have been extremely welcome to most buyers that didn’t want the hair-shirt punishing off-roader experience (we’re not all David Tracys here).
Some 2,000 Jeep Sportsters were made and they sold out rapidly, far quicker than the stock Eagle Kammback was moving off lots, but at this point, Renault (AMC’s parent company) didn’t see a future for it and pushed American Motors to devote more development energy to launching and pushing the new Alliance and Encore. The French industrial giant dumped all of the Kammback models, including the Sportster: a missed opportunity for a company that definitely could have used any break they could get.
Ford: SHO Me The Sports Car
Nobody on the Ford product team was happy that their proposed Fiero fighter was dead in the water. Pontiac had managed to slip their “commuter car” through the powers that be at GM to beat Ford at getting the first mid-engined American sports car to market.
Ford had proposed a powerful competitor to the Fiero. The GN34 (which we’ve mentioned a few times like here and here) went through a variety of versions, starting with an Ital Design concept called the Maya:
Nearly ready to hit production with a Yamaha-developed twin cam head V6, the GN34’s performance was supposedly going to match the Corvette and other exotics, though the finalized exterior seen in Steve Saxty’s Secret Fords Volume II was arguably a bit clunky compared to the initial design.
Ultimately the whole GN34 project was axed, likely in small part due to the limited sales of the Pontiac competitor. “This was going to be a testbed for the Yamaha V6 before we put it into the Taurus”, said product planner Dave, raising his hands in protest. Indeed, the GN34 was going to precede the Taurus SHO into the market as the first appearance of this motor; experiencing teething problems with a low-production coupe would be better than in a higher-volume, higher-profile BMW fighter sedan (Note: so far, this is all a true story). “There has to be some way to salvage this”.
Ann was new to the team, the only woman in a very misogynistic 1980s office, so she only spoke when an epic idea hit her, and she had one. “We do have bodies for the soon-to-be-ditched Ford EXP”. Indeed, the second-generation Escort-based two-seater was headed for the chopper due to low sales, and it was as close as the Blue Oval had to a small sports car.
“Seriously?” quipped Dave, visibly annoyed. “That 220 horsepower will rip the tires off of the front wheels,” he said with a smug look. Ann took a sip of coffee and looked Dave square in the face. “Who says I was gonna put it up front?” She was right: this could be the quick way to the mid-engined sports car that everyone on the team wanted, a sort of Fiero done in the style of the infamous Renault 5 Turbo.
The project was allowed to move ahead, and Ann was able to guide the team responsible. Down in engineering, an EXP mule had its Escort powertrain removed and a SHO motor and five-speed manual plopped in back under a fabricated steel box and tubular reinforcements that made the thing stiffer than the original car. To avoid ruffling division feathers (cough … Mustang GT), this SHO EXP was sold at Lincoln-Mercury dealers.
Named the Cyclone, it took the moniker of the Mercury coupe that NASCAR drivers of the sixties made famous. A different Mercury-style light bar nose and pop-up headlight “eyelids” sat in front of the hood, which now covered the spare tire, radiator, and a small “frunk” space. The lower “slant nose” front clip’s fenders angled down lower than the EXP and were made of fiberglass to save weight (and eliminate the need for new metal stamping dies). The rear spoiler was sprayed body-colored to help visually enhance a “wedge” shape.
A skinny luggage area behind the engine in back sat below the hatch. Different taillights and slightly flared rear fenders to cover the wider rear track finished the look. It was hardly a thing of beauty, but it doesn’t appear that GN34 would have been a drop-dead gorgeous entry in the market anyway. Besides, the Cyclone embraced the “little brute” appearance like the mid-engined Le Car had done.
The end result is sort of cartoonish but in a fun and aggressive way, as this animation shows:
The light weight meant that the Cyclone was a nimble thing, and blisteringly fast. According to contemporary tests, the Cyclone could hit sixty in well under five seconds. Of course, the project coincided with the end of EXP body shell production, and the cost to make this monster was steep. Indeed, the Cyclone’s price approached the hailing distance of the Corvette, though admittedly the performance and handling of this funny little car rivaled twice-as-expensive contemporary exotics like a Ferrari 348tb. Lincoln-Mercury dealers were as confused on how to sell this thing as they were when they had Detomaso Panteras on the showroom floor in the early seventies. Only 3,768 Cyclones were built before Ford pulled the plug on what they knew was going to be essentially a work-the-bugs-out-of-an-engine boondoggle to begin with.
Still, it was a fun project that the press ate up, and one green-lit by Bill himself. Which Bill? The man with his last name in the Blue Oval on every car he sold, that’s who. Product planner Dave? He ended up working for Ann, and he was not happy.
(Oddly enough, in real life, Ford would later put the SHO V6 into the back of the tiny Festiva subcompact to create an even more absurd thing called the SHOgun with extra engines. At least I hope they were extra engines, or else somewhere Fiesta-powered Taurus sedans would exist. Do you call them “No Guns?”)
General Motors: Bustin’ The Dust In A Hurst
Oldsmobile has always been a rather confusing brand to me. At one point, they were a “near luxury” division that, for a time, had seemingly eight of the top ten cars on the Top Ten Best Sellers list, and all of them were different versions of Cutlass. The name fell out of favor rather quickly, and GM’s last-ditch attempt to make them a sort of neo-Lexus in the late nineties failed to save it from demise in 2004. Generally, it was a car for people that might have wanted a Cadillac but “just didn’t want to be so showy”.
At the same time, Olds offered some seemingly out-of-character-for-them performance coupes like the Oldsmobile 442 versions of the Cutlass with, as the name stated, four barrels, four speeds, and two exhaust pipes. These were the sophisticated intermediate GM cars, sort of a yin to the Chevelle SS’s yang. In 1968, Hurst Performance chose Oldsmobile as the brand to create showcase cars for their famous and popular shifters with “Hurst” branded editions.
The Hurst treatment was done to a variety of 442 Cutlass models, slowly losing performance with the malaise era and concluding with a G-Body version featuring the bizarre “lightning rods” shifter that Jason has written about.
You can imagine a marketing meeting in the early nineties where people were desperate to prove out the ad campaign of the time that claimed this GM division was “not your father’s Oldsmobile.” “What if we revive the Hurst editions?” one exec would quip. “We could,” said another “but our only performance coupe is a dinky Calais, and that’s just not going to move the needle”. The last suit in the room agreed; “Yeah, I mean, shit, we’d be better off putting the Hurst name on that stupid van of ours”. The “stupid van” he was referring to was the Silhouette, Oldsmobile’s version of the infamous Dustbuster-shaped Pontiac Trans Sport.
Suddenly the room went silent. The poor bugger was only joking, but he was right. What this guy didn’t know until they called Hurst later was that the performance firm had been working on a “Tiptronic” style manual shifter for an automatic but really needed a partner to work with on the hardware and software to sync up with an electronic slushbox.
From this meeting, the Oldsmobile Hurst/Olds Silhouette 25th Anniversary Edition was born, featuring a manually-shiftable four-speed automatic hooked up to a motor that had an aftermarket supercharger sitting on top. Styling changes had to happen as well to the stock Silhouette:
Contractor ASC added big wheels and tires, complemented by a ground effects kit; the nose was made more aggressive with the sunken rectangular lights from the European market Pontiac Trans Sport. A “loop” spoiler on the roof blended in with body-colored trim that blocked off a section of the “C” pillar. A large ASC glass electric sunroof was installed in the black-painted roof. Like Hurst/Olds in days of yore, it was flashy but not too flashy.
Once again, the animation gives you a better look at the changes:
Inside, ASC started with the stock Silhouette cabin.
In the Hurst version, two-tone leather seats flank a cup holder center console with the unique shifter, and controls for the add-on sunroof were installed to the left of the steering wheel. An aftermarket LED supercharger gauge mounts below the base of the windshield, and you know we’re going to add a Hurst/Olds logo somewhere on that vast expanse of dash (here on the airbag cover).
Silly? Sure, but with the supercharger and manually shiftable automatic, the Hurst/Olds Silhouette was more than an appearance package and a relatively high-performance people carrier, a nonexistent thing at the time.
The run of 1625 Hurst Silhouettes sold out surprisingly quickly and remains possibly the only collectible minivan to this day. Sadly, none of this was enough to save the fabled Lansing, Michigan brand from ultimate extinction.
Surely you have ideas, too
As usual, I’ve made up a bunch of nonsensical cars as a joke where, in a few cases, I actually wouldn’t mind if a few of them existed for at least a drive around the block. Others, well, let’s just say that we dodged a bullet.
Autopians have pretty wild imaginations, and I love to see what our collective hive mind can come up with. What crazy special edition cars do you wish existed, if for no other reason than to get a few giggles out of? Let us know!
I Made Our Daydreaming Designer Imagine An Oldsmobile For Actual Old People – The Autopian
Our Daydreaming Designer Imagines Corvette Sedan And Wagon In 1978 – The Autopian
If only Ford build the SHOgun themselves; that would have been amazing.
So, who was the Ann at Ford that seemed to be the smartest person in the room? I didn’t see a last name or where she ended up at the end of that chapter.
The Jeep Sportster is a nice nod at the Jeepster but would have run afoul of Harley-Davidson. Perhaps Jeepster 2 would be the answer.
It occurs me that in the tradition of clothing brand tie ins VW should have leaned into the late 80s Cabriolet market with an Esprit edition. Just throw some badging and stripes on the usual triple white with automatic Valley Girl spec.
I’m surprised that VW didn’t lean harder on the K2 stuff, they could have out-Subaru’d Subaru if they tried harder.
pretty sure the Beboss Garage guys made an 81 Kammback Eagle. looked ok on large wheels and made for a decent departure angle for fully enclosed offroading. certainly not a lot different than any number of small Crossover things these days too.
Also wonder if the 1969 Jeep XJ001 concept should have not just been made into the 70’s Javelin? would have been in line with the fake performance aesthetics of the mustang and Dodge aspen sticker cars.
Then there is this
In 1980, cash-strapped Chrysler President Lee Iacocca attempted to sell Imperial body dyes to the USSR for use as ZIL state limousines.
One example was gifted to Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev. An avid auto enthusiast, Brezhnev allegedly said “Salon khoroshiy, a chto s bagazhnikom? A elektronnyy vprysk – eto kherny!”
In other words”The interior is nice but what’s with that trunk? And the electronic fuel injection is just shit!”
The project was soon abandoned.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/54664152@N02/53265364892/in/dateposted-public
Here’s a crazy idea: a special edition Cybertruck, but it’s, like, GOOD at being a truck!
..but then it wouldn’t be a Cybertruck, would it?
Just… just.. SHUT UP, MAN!!
Swap the guts into a C10 or any other reasonable sized 80s/90s truck body
A high-performance version of the 7th gen Mercury Cougar destined to rival the BMW 540. Vastly improved Modular V8, reworked suspension, 6MT, 5AT. It sold so well that the 8-th gen was an even better car and saved the personal luxury coupe until today, surviving the SUVification of life.
I actually wish these were real. Especially the Eagle Kammback.
Also the Chrysler would be a buyable 6000 SUX:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6v_nrf9nFQ
The Eagle Kammback is real: https://barnfinds.com/project-4×4-1981-amc-eagle-kammback/
I think they only made a few hundred of them.
It was very real, at least in Eagle form. They sold 5600 in 1981 and then 520 in 1982. However, that first year it outsold the two door coupe and sedan versions.
Oh I know, I prefer the SX4, but the Kammback is up there,
I kind of like that Sportster, so much so that I parodied a 1977 song by Player.
Baby kammback, any kind of fool could see
There was some Jeep in everything about you
Baby kammback, yeah, we can blame it all on Teague
‘Cause he was wrong, for never trying to tout you
Love it! And the yacht rock is era appropriate.
Makes we want to do a Steve Miller Version too:
It’s not an Eagle
It’s a Jeep
It’s not an Eagle
Nor a Spirit can’t you see
Oh yeah!
I expect a Charlottesville Tesla with tiki torches any day now
I was just thinking that an article looking at some of the more bonkers branded edition cars could be fun. You know what would pair nicely with this? An article listing possible collabs for modern cars. I’m thinking stuff like Vera Wang for an aesthetically nice but really overpriced Mercedes crossover, a Pablo Escobar edition Ferrari, or whatever works for laughs.
The Jeep Sportster seems so obvious, of course it should have been built.
There was already a Mercury variant of the EXP, the LN7, and if I recall, it had the bubble window on the back.
there was, but there wasn’t a DOHC V6 underneath the bubble window, I can tell you that
The Capri Fox body also had the bubble window. The air dam on the front of those Capris looked so good.
Despite the name, I like the Bon Jovi Golf. They could have gone a little further with it though, as it is it’s halfway there
It was shot down.
IN A BLAZE OF GLOREH!!!
Well, it was just living on a prayer.
You give puns a bad name. These make me want to Runaway.
Where’s the Hurst Olds convertible rendering?
Seriously though, that reborn EXP would have been great, and I really like the look of that Jeep. A CUV way ahead of its time.
That Old’s 25th is my jam. Loved the wedge vans, and it being an Oldsmobile makes it more exciting to me.
It’s the Cadillac of minivans!
I’m going to go with more disappointed than anything
I always loved the shape of the EXP. A high HP version with huge wheels and fender flares would have sold so fast to my 16 year old self with no money.
..and mid-engined, too, right? I mean, there was plenty of room for a back seat that didn’t exist, so why not put the motor there?
Could the 2nd gen version of this Cyclone be based on the Ford Probe? I’m not sure how easily the Mazda G platform could be adapted to rear motor, rear wheel drive. Seems like Mercury (or label it as a Merkur to further separate it) would be a good place to land.
I have determined I am the only EXP Fanboy in the world. I loved the shape of those cars—the body cladding, air dams—all excellent. I remember reading the Car and Driver or Motor Trend new car issue, and in the updates, it said, “Ford EXP….EXPired.”
I always like the look of them when I was a kid. It was only much later that I learned they were just a sporty looking Escort.