What car was the Kurt Cobain of the auto industry?

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No, it's not April Fool's part deux. Seventeen years ago today, Kurt Cobain committed suicide, plunging the world into chaos. I mean, setting a course for irrelevancy of pop music. What car was the Kurt Cobain of the auto industry?

The legacy of Cobain and Nirvana will always be how the band — along with the industry's move to tracking each album sale instead of relying on corruptible record store managers to "estimate" sales — upended the album charts. All of a sudden, shitty hair bands and pop crap were at the bottom and scruffy punkers were at the top. At that moment, it seemed all was suddenly right with the music world (Naturally, that feeling wouldn't last long — maybe a decade). Similarly, what car seemed to be a hopeful sign all would be right with the auto industry? We're going with the Mk1 Rabbit/Golf GTI, a nimble, fun and low-priced car that turned on the world's malaise-suffering caristi to the joys of jamming econo. Others?

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