Sometimes automakers or customizers decide building a great car in a conventional category is too hard and instead decide to create a new type of car altogether. When they succeed it's great, when the fail you have one of these ten lame automotive genres selected by Jalopnik readers.
Welcome back to Answers of the Day — our Jalopnik summer feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy!
10.) Neoclassical
Suggested By: P161911
Why It's Lame: While they were created with the intention of looking old and dignified while maintaining modern reliability, neoclassical cars like the Excalibur just wind up looking tacky. They reek of inauthenticity and questionable taste. Their very existence leads me to question the judgment of anyone seen behind the wheel of one of these eyesores. Leave them to the cheesy wedding limo services of Long Island and out of your driveway, for everyone's benefit.
Photo credit: Fotopedia
9.) Bloated Crossovers
Suggested By: snapoversteer
Why It's Lame: All of the convenience of... something, in a package like a... Oh, who are we kidding? Bloated crossovers suck. They can't carry as much stuff as a real truck, they're awkwardly designed and have limited visibility for their size. They're also built on cars' underpinnings, so you couldn't take one into Moab even if you wanted to. Other than trend-watching soccer moms and people who'd like to project an image of physical activity without actually doing anything physical, crossovers benefit no one. Go out and buy a station wagon already.
8.) Minivan
Suggested By: ARAK the American
Why It's Lame: Sure, they're utilitarian. The average minivan can swallow up an entire family and all their luggage for a weekend trip. But there are few ways to look less cool and more lame while doing it. Minivans can be useful under certain circumstances, but the rest of the time, your family would be fine in a wagon. And if that wagon's got a row of rear-facing seats, the kids will have more fun making the "blow your air horn" hand signal to truckers. If you have to get a van just plop down the money for a Mazda5.
7.) Commercial Trucks as SUVs
Suggested By: rawtoast
Why It's Lame: I guess for some folks a Hummer just isn't big enough. I don't know who these people are, but I do know that I don't want to hang out with them. I don't see any reason to take a commercial truck and put a more comfortable interior in it, and sell it as a gigantic SUV. Isn't a Yukon Denali big enough?
Photo credit: 8-Lug
6.) Lifestyle Pickup Truck
Suggested By: resplendent.bitch
Why It's Lame: You wouldn't think people who buy Cadillac Escalades or Lincoln Navigators would cross shop pickup trucks, but Cadillac and Lincoln thought otherwise. Either you get the ultimate frat daddy jerkmobile EXT or, even stranger, the short-lived Blackwood. Pinstriping FTL.
5.) Crossover Sport Vans
Suggested By: fodder650
Why It's Lame: Listen, General Motors, I know the 2000's were a tough time for you. The night is always darkest just before the dawn and all that. But what were you thinking, throwing a million versions of the exact same pseudo-minivan at the public? Didn't anyone over there stop and think for just a couple of seconds about the necessity of having four, horrible "Crossover Sport Vans" in production at the same time? And who thought you could fool the public by calling them CUVs? A minivan by any other name is still a minivan.
4.) Luxury SUV
Suggested By: LuckyChuck
Why It's Lame: If your SUV has never seen mud and only cruises through your cookie-cutter suburb, Fifth Avenue or Rodeo Drive, you need to trade it in and get something ELSE that has a Mercedes star, BMW roundel, or Württemberg coat of arms on the hood. If you stop buying sport SUVs, those guys will stop making them, and we can all go back to driving cars that don't kick Newton's Second Law in the balls.
3.) Donk
Suggested By: Transanalog
Why It's Lame: Because really, your 1980's Chevy Caprice wasn't complete until you threw wheels almost as tall as I am underneath it and painted it the brightest shade of green you could find. I know, I totally agree, those wheels are tight, and you sir are a shining beacon of good taste and solid handling improvements. I'm sure your car rides far better now than it did with wheels that couldn't be seen from space, too.
Photo credit: MadWhips
2.) Hybrid Sports Cars
Suggested By: E34 is an underrated E30...
Why It's Lame: Look, I know these things mean well. Any attempt to have fun while saving the world is a nice gesture. But the technology just isn't there yet, and the final product is heavier and slower than it should be. It's a shame, but it's the truth. Honda, way to jump into the sports-hybrid big leagues, but go back to the minors for a little while longer. We won't mind.
1.) Supercar SUV
Suggested By: mkbruin
Why It's Lame: Let me spell it out for you: Aston Martin does not need an SUV. Maserati does not need an SUV. Spyker does not need an SUV. DeTomaso does not need an SUV. Listen, tone-deaf auto executives, if those copper-mining moguls in the Urals keep bugging you for one, tell them to go buy a Land Rover Sport for every day of the week. Or month.