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Detroit, 6:51 PM
Tue Dec 8
28 posts in the last 24 hours
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08/10/09
08/11/09
The Elan was a real breakthrough for Lotus. And Emma Peel didn't hurt. The Elite/Eclat were heinous successors. But I'd say that Elans weren't overlooked and that no one bought them. They found their market and sold well, given the circumstances. Lotus is still a small volume, niche producer of high priced specialty cars. A great car, but one that never had any expectation of selling hundreds of thousands. More's the pity. Good thing the Miata showed up.
08/10/09
08/11/09
Avanti was an amazing car for the time, and it's still in production. Pretty good for the last output of a failed company. A shame, because they might have been able to do better than AMC in the sixties.
08/11/09
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The Avanti is one of my all-time-favorite cars, but I do think that Studebaker would have lasted longer if it had invested its meager resources into its volume products rather than a niche car.
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Yes, Avanti survived Studebaker as a limited-production vehicle for an amazing number of years. However, the original body went out of production quite a while ago and, last I heard, the parent company ceased production of a Camaro-based Avanti.
08/10/09
You forgot this one
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The VW Corrado can also be made AWD. I have (packed up back home) a magazine showing how one could make their own AWD Corrado.
Both cheap cars that can be made to be truly special. However, the herds will continue to flock to the Civics for fear of actually being an individual.
08/10/09
The M45 was a killer machine for the $'s, and I'd have one of those had it not been for the orange cluster lights.
The Scorpio is a fave of mine, as is the Reatta.
I hope to find a Phaeton one of these days which hasn't been abused and is nicely priced.
Hey, a man can wish....
08/10/09
The XR4ti in Houston had an excellent ride and handling combo, but the engine took a bit long to get on song. But, power brake it, keep the peddle to the floorboard and the old girl hiked up her skirt and showed the world her bi-winged tail.
My friend rented a Lincoln LSC. The XR4ti matched him step for step but had way better brakes. We were doing about 110mph when we saw a police car in the bushes, I slammed on the binders, ABS flashing furiously, 50mph without drama. the Linc on the other hand, brakes a smoking made the "cherry blueberries" start flashing. While I puttered off to the Cajun restaurant for crawfish, laughing all the way.
Ah, the memories.
PS - The Reatta definitely doesn't belong on any list of "great" cars. YUCK! Replace that and the Alfa 164 (front drive Alfa - double YUCK) with the real Alfa's - GTV6 and the Milano 3.0 Verde. Yes, the Milano is ugly, but it drives beautifully.
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The Reatta was a craptastic handbuilt GM parts bin special, not a great car.
08/10/09
The Reatta was no sports car, but as a unique personal luxury coupe, it succeeded - or it would have, were it not for the overinflated MSRP.
08/10/09
The Reatta failed because it cost too much, quality was somewhat iffy, and it got caught in Buick shifting its focus from sportiness to conservative near-luxury.
08/10/09
Reattas had awful problems with rear brake lockups as well. A good friend flipped his convertible reatta over on a freeway when his rear brakes locked.
The plastics by the gross trainload don't age well in GMs either. In the 70's they had zero UV inhibitors in them, causing everything to crumble with sunlight exposure. In the 80's they were better, but still not exactly the right forumlation. Don't even get me started on the late-80's GM paint. How many Quasar Blue Olds/Pontiac/Chevrolets do you remember seeing with grey pock-marks the size of a quarter where the paint flecked off in droves. I've even seen beige cars do it -- and that's supposed to be the most "durable" color according to body men.
All that said, I'd still love a Reatta. Classy, compact, easy to drive, park, and reasonably efficient yet powerful (30 MPG highway!), and not looking like anything else on teh road FTW!
08/10/09
Volvo plastics were little better at the time. The dashes crack, map pockets and consoles shatter... most hard plastics turn to fine dust.
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08/11/09
Especially in 1988. Think about the crap we could buy in the US in 88-- the Reatta looks like a pretty good car in that light, I think.
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Say what you will about Buick, but for the late 80s they were pretty good cars.
Then they became pretty good cars for the people in their late 80s...
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Olds, Saturn, Pontiac...
08/10/09
The GTO deserved a better fate. However, upon its introduction the magazines went on and on about how dull it looked. That perception apparently spread to the public at large. Had everyone forgotten that the original GTO was based on the everyday, ordinary Pontiac Tempest? Until the 1968 Endura-nosed models, there wasn't all that much stylistically separating the GTO. No-one seemed to mind then. I though the new GTO was reasonably handsome, and if it people called it boring, I'd say that was a benefit for cruising underneath the notice of the police and boy-racers.
As for the Phaeton, the word that comes to mind is "hubris" - overbearing arrogance. It's not for nothing that "economy car" makers like Toyota, Nissan, and Honda created new brands for their luxury cars. Also, VW already had three premium brands with Audi, Bentley, and Lamborghini. How did they think people in the US would pay $70K for a car with an economy name? I've never driven a Phaeton, but although they had wonderful interiors, the outside looked a little nondescript and I've heard the V8 models were none too exciting to drive. Hard to compete against a well-established supremely competent if seemingly dull Lexus LS, much less a Mercedes or BMW. And then there was VW's reputation for quality - or lack of. I've only ever seen a tiny handful of Phaetons here in car-conscious Miami.
08/10/09
I do think the styling is aging well so far, and hopefully the stigma will wear off now that Pontiacs won't be clogging rental lots for much longer.
08/10/09
The biggest issue with it is the lack of trunk space. I guess they had to modify the gas tank to bring it over, and put it mostly in there.
08/11/09
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It's not for nothing that "economy car" makers like Toyota, Nissan, and Honda created new brands for their luxury cars.
Which works. In America. In the rest of the world, not so much. Making a luxury car under an established non-luxury brand isn't an instant success, but it works way better than making up a fancy new badge and then expecting people to pay for the badge.
08/11/09
My point about the Phaeton was that VW already had a range of premium sedans in the US under the Audi banner. Marketing the Phaeton was like Chevrolet making some sort of uber-Caprice and selling it for high-end Cadillac money.
08/10/09
08/10/09
No one was going to buy a funky euro hatch that just happened to fall apart every other week. Oh, and you had to find someone who knew how to fix it. Not exactly easy.
Come back as a Contour please. Oh wait. That didn't work either.
08/10/09