If Outlandos d'Amour is the most punk album by The Police, you could argue Reggatta de Blanc is the most reggae. In fact, the name itself is a reference to the sort of white reggae the very pale band achieves with songs like "Walking on the Moon." The title song from the album is actually an instrumental riff in the middle of "Can't Stand Losing You" and if you see their reunion tour we can all but guarantee they'll stretch out the song like 10 minutes to include it. We asked you today about your favorite automotive failure and, among the great responses, was Zacarious with this ode to the Reatta — born from British ideas yet less successful than Gordy and his mates.
No Reatta fans here. Its one the best automotive failures of all-time. GM even built a factory just to produce this car. And not an ordinary factory, an entire factory based on British manufacturing technique (failure hint #1). They even sent a team to the UK to learn how to do it - how to build a car by hand, by the British in 1988. Crazy.
And what was Buick doing with a two door, two seater sports car that was arguably sexier to look at than anything else at GM at the time? And, again, why build it by hand, in Michigan? And if you're going to build it by hand, why use the cheapest plastics known to man? And why make it so underpowered? And why include a super state of the art Atari style touch screen computer, if you're marketing the car as a piece of craftsmanship? And why FWD? And why no manual option?
Because it was built in the good old days when GM had the money to pursue such fantastic follies. And its arguably one of their best. Along with the Allante, Aztec, Solstice Coupe, the entire Saturn concept. We need this type of mismanagement back. Fun cars. Fun times.
I can't, I can't, I can't stand losing Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuicks.