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There have been many occasions where a car maker has been highly ambitious and they’ve tried to produce a landmark car.
All too often the wrong badge, poor reliability, high prices or a great idea but done-too-early, have scuppered that dream of sales success. These cars should have rewarded their makers with big sales – too often they led to bankruptcy instead.
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Chrysler Gas Turbine (1963)
When it was launched in 1963, Chrysler’s Gas Turbine represented the future of motoring. Inspired by the jet age, there was a suitable jet-engine soundtrack while the car looked like nothing else. But the chassis couldn’t cope with the power and the fuel consumption was crippling. Of the 50 cars built for trials, 41 were scrapped – now survivors are prized.
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Bricklin SV-1 (1974)
To the SV-1’s creator, Malcolm Bricklin, a sexy-looking-yet-safe car must have sounded like a winner in the ‘70s. Bricklin had made a good deal of money from being America’s first official importer of Subarus in the late ‘60s. After selling his interest there, he founded his own car company. Sadly though its first, and last, creation was an unmitigated disaster.
Shocking build quality meant owners got trapped inside their gullwing-doored cars and although there was a 5.9-litre V8 installed, performance was leisurely to say the least. The plan was to build 30,000 but after just 3,000 had been built in New Brunswick, Canada, in the first year, the company went belly up.
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Aston Martin Lagonda (1976)
Those space-age looks inside and out were a complete departure for this most conservative of British car makers. After decades of hand-building sporting carriages for the gentleman, William Towns came up with one of the most far-out designs ever, but the futuristic electronics couldn’t be made to work properly.
Even at the car’s unveiling it had to be pushed into position. It did however last longer than many of the cars featured here, staying in production until 1990; 645 were produced in total.
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Audi A2 (1999)
Even now the A2’s concept is appealing. What’s not to love about a lightweight aluminium-bodied car that’s small and manoeuvrable, aerodynamically efficient and can easily seat four six-footers in comfort? The ride quality for starters. But the biggest issue was the price forced by its expensive construction – for the same money you could have a faster, larger car.
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Burney Streamline (1929)
Former British naval officer Sir Dennistoun Burney later designed airships, which is why his Streamline was fabulously aerodynamic. Unfortunately the rear-mounted twin-cam straight-eight engines were prone to catching fire and the high-tech seven-seater was ludicrously costly to buy; in any case 1929 turned out to be the worst year possible to launch an expensive vehicle…
Just 12 were made before the project was sold on; another 25 were made before it was all over, and just two survive today, one of which can be seen at the National Motor Museum in England.
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Citroen C6 (2005)
Citroen has produced some fabulously weird cars over the years – cars that have been great for other people to own. Because let’s face it, if you can have a BMW or a Citroen for the same money, not many people are going to buy French. And that was the C6’s biggest problem – it was alluring enough but who was going to risk losing their shirt at resale time?
23,384 were sold over seven years, and a handful have made it unofficially to America. The C6 was perhaps most notable for being the official car of the president of France for several years.
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Chrysler Airflow (1934)
Aerodynamics began to play a bigger part in car design in the 1930s, but most designs were still very conservative. In 1934 Chrysler decided to go its own way with the wind-cheating Airflow, but the cars were poorly built, heavy, and thirsty, while reliability was an issue too. And those were some of its best points...
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Citroen Traction Avant (1934)
The Traction Avant pioneered a whole raft of technologies. Its semi-monocoque construction, self-levelling suspension and front-wheel drive were an unheard of combination on a mass-produced car, but developing the Traction Avant bankrupted Citroen which was bought by Michelin, which produced the Traction right the way through to 1957.
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Ford B-Max (2012)
Calling the B-Max a great car might be stretching the truth, but Ford of Europe created something different with this neat pillarless micro-MPV. As engaging to drive as its Fiesta roots would suggest, the B-Max comes with efficient engines, is practical and versatile, yet it still struggled to make an impact, and Ford axed it in 2017.
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General Motors EV-1 (1996)
GM was well ahead of the curve when it launched the super-slippery EV-1 in 1996. This impractical two-seater featured the best batteries of the time – lead-acid units which were nothing like good enough to give the car a useful range. Available only to lease, GM snatched back all of the 1,117 EV-1s it had built and crushed most of them, to focus instead on internal combustion-engined cars instead.
The EV-1 remains the first - and last - car to be produced under GM’s corporate name rather than from one of its brands.
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Honda Insight (1999)
No-compromise cars always tank or change the face of motoring. There’s rarely any middle ground and sadly for Honda, its original Insight is in the former camp. With its slippery lightweight aluminium bodyshell (with a Cd of just 0.25 and a kerb weight of 850kg) and cutting-edge hybrid running gear the Insight was a masterpiece.
Honda was rewarded with a whopping 239 sales in the UK; it sold in somewhat greater numbers in America, but its small size and cheap fuel didn’t do it many favours in that market.
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Honda CR-Z (2010)
Having been stung with the Insight, Honda came back for more with the hybrid CR-Z, which showed that you could drive a sporty-looking coupé and still have a green conscience. It wasn’t the sharpest drive and the cabin quality left something to be desired but we rather liked it. Not that this made much difference – Honda sold fewer than 4,300 of them in the UK between 2010 and 2013, and aound 34,000 in the US during its life.
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Jowett Javelin (1947)
Nobody could accuse Jowett of lacking ambition. The brief was to produce a British car that could seat six with the comfort of an American car. Weight was to be minimised for fuel efficiency and when launched in 1946 the Javelin had to cost under £500. Incredibly all this was achieved, but Jowett’s flat-four engine proved hideously unreliable and so did its gearbox. By 1954 the Javelin was history, and took Jowett down with it.
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Matra Rancho (1977)
Soft-roaders and crossovers are all the rage now, but 40 years ago the first of this breed was introduced – and everybody scoffed. Take one Simca front-wheel drive pick-up and graft a utility body onto the back with space for up to seven seats. With its 1.4-litre engine performance was adequate rather than exciting but sales were hard to come by.
Now the Rancho is all but forgotten but, like many of the cars featured here, was notable for the path it in many ways started.
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NSU Ro80 (1967)
It was Car of the Year in 1967 and the technology it packed meant the Ro80 really did represent the future. Or so it seemed. A semi-automatic gearbox, ultra-smooth rotary engine and wind-cheating aerodynamics meant nothing could touch it. But the warranty claims bankrupted NSU thanks to the Wankel engine’s tendency to wear out in just a few thousand miles, and NSU collapsed into the arms of Volkswagen in 1969.
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Renault A610 (1991)
A turbocharged 3.0-litre V6 provided the A610 with near-170mph potential. It looked fabulous, was engaging to drive and you got plenty of kit for your money. But the build quality was approximate and nobody wanted a Renault when for the same money they could have a Porsche. Just 67 were sold in the UK and when the final A610 was made in 1995 it spelled the end of Alpine production altogether. An all-new - and highly impressive - Alpine sports car named A110 was launched in 2018.
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Chevrolet Volt/Vauxhall Ampera (2012)
An electric car with a built-in generator? Sounds like a winner – why wouldn’t you want one? Many buyers were put off by the badge (the Chevrolet Volt was the same car) or were suspicious of the technology, while high prices and a relative lack of practicality (there were four seats only) didn’t help. Reliability has proved to be an issue too; how long until high repair costs render the Ampera and Volt extinct?
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Volkswagen Phaeton (2002)
The golden rule with a premium brand is to start with big cars and work your way down – not the other way round. So when your staple is cars like the Golf, taking on the big boys with a costly luxury car will always ensure badge snobs will look the other way no matter how good the product – and the Phaeton seems even odder when your group already makes a limousine, the Audi A8.
And while the Phaeton was an impressive machine, and had many mechanics in common with the first VW-produced Bentley, the 2003 Continental series, buyers were much happier giving their cash to Mercedes.
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Volvo Carioca (1935)
Volvo has always played it safe in every sense – it doesn’t do risk taking. But in 1935, just eight years after the company started up, it launched the PV36, nicknamed the Carioca after a dance that was fashionable at the time. Like the Chrysler Airflow the Carioca was a study in modern, streamlined styling. It bombed, with just a few hundred made.
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Invicta Black Prince (1946)
Streamlined body? Check. 3.0-litre all-alloy engine? Check. Super-advanced transmission (the brilliantly named the Brockhouse Hydro-Kinetic Turbo Transmitter)? Check. The 1946 Black Prince showed promise aplenty; the cooling system even featured an integral immersion heater so it didn’t freeze up. But priced at 10 times the cost of an ordinary family saloon, the economics didn’t stack up and just 16 were made.
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