Each new car is supposed to be the Next Big Thing, but they almost never live up to expectations. Jalopnik readers have collected the ten most over-advertised, over-promised, overhyped cars of all time.
Welcome back to Answers of the Day — our daily Jalopnik 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!
If you don't want to click through the gallery you can see the post in a single page right here.
Photo Credit: VW
10.) Honda CR-Z
Suggested By: Viperfan1
Why it suffered: No one here is saying the CR-Z is a horrible car, but a modern successor to the outstandingly light, efficient and entertaining Honda CRX? Not in the least, and that was the reputation the CR-Z got in the press before its debut.
Photo Credit: Jalopnik
9.) Scion FR-S/Subaru BRZ/Toyota GT86
Suggested By: teampenske3
Why it suffered: We love the Subieyota twins, but it's not a better handling car than a Porsche, and it's not the best thing to happen to driving in the history of ever, which is how we dreamed it would be all through its long-lead launch.
Photo Credit: Jalopnik
8.) Maybach
Suggested By: Patrick Frawley
Why it suffered: The Maybach debuted over here getting carried onto Manhattan by a helicopter. It was the longest production car in the world and was supposed to be the next great thing in super-luxury. Rick Ross excluded, everyone realized the $300K car wasn't appreciably different from a $60K Mercedes and no one bought one.
Photo Credit: Associated Press
7.) Pontiac GTO
Suggested By: REXEight
Why it suffered: In 2004 GM filled up every car magazine and every newspaper that would take their advertising so they could deliver one message: the GTO was back. Except the GTO wasn't back, Pontiac had just rebadged a Holden Monaro.
It was a great car, but the hype cycle made it out to be a retro-classic that it just wasn't. Overhyped and misbranded, the car was a sales flop.
6.) DeLorean
Suggested By: DSC Off
Why it suffered: Expectations for the DeLorean were already high once the project was first announced. The man behind the GTO was going to build an all-out sports car! It would have 200 horsepower and would stun the world. Ultimately, it was way too slow and was a complete disappointment to everyone but Marty McFly.
Photo Credit: Delorean/Thomas Duchnicki
5.) Chevy Citation
Suggested By: 900turbo
Why it suffered: The Citation was going to be GM's first major front-wheel-drive family car. For the biggest car company in the world, with a customer base so dedicated it would make Apple weep over a thousand iPads, this was a big deal.
The car sold amazingly well in the first year and then everyone realized it locked the rear brakes at every stoplight and felt like the wheezing engine wanted to fall out of the car. Then they started to break down. It was a disaster.
Photo Credit: Chevrolet/OldCarBrochures
4.) New Beetle
Suggested By: Leadhead
Why it suffered: VW's new Beetle was a kind of fun idea: take a regular family car platform and give it a funky little body. In its advertisements — its many, many advertisements — the New Beetle was heralded as a practical revolution and a true people's car. It just wasn't.
Photo Credit: VW
3.) Chevy Volt
Suggested By: Mat Dubord
Why it suffered: The Chevy Volt is not a bad car at all. It's a little expensive, but it has premium looks and one of the most technically advanced drivetrains in the automotive world. That drivetrain, however, took years upon years to develop and GM's marketing department had to keep the public busy while the engineers sorted everything out with the car.
We heard it would look like a Camaro and get 230 miles per gallon and cure cancer, and the Volt could never live up to those expectations.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
2.) All of Saturn
Suggested By: Dhalgren01, teampenske3
Why it suffered: It was supposed to be a single brand without any of GM's stifling corporate culture. It would be a high-tech rebuttal to Honda, Toyota, and Nissan. It ended up being a little plastic car that should've been a Chevrolet and looked like an Oldsmobile. GM was ruinously slow to update it and the whole project had to be scrapped, one of the most public failures in Detroit's history.
Photo Credit: Associated Press
1.) Edsel
Suggested By: philaDLJ
Why it suffered: In the ‘50s, Ford had three brands: Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln. Ford wanted to compete with GM which had five brands: Chevy, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac. Ford decided to even things out with a fourth brand Edsel. Since this was the 1950s, people seriously cared that Ford was making an entirely new car. Advertisements were everywhere and your average American had no doubt it would be the Next Big Thing.
Then they finally brought an Edsel out for a demonstration on live TV and the car wouldn't start. Everyone started to notice it was just a regular Ford with a lot of chrome on it. No one bought one. Ford lost millions. The Edsel project, scrapped a few years later, is now remembered as the biggest disappointment in the automotive world. A lot of that comes down to just too much hype.
Photo Credit: Ford/Alden Jewell