Cars are generally created to fit a specific demographic that’s been carefully analyzed by a whole team of professionals. When you hear someone say that “there’s a butt for every seat,” that’s because somebody somewhere calculated the exact income level, age range, number of kids, tortilla preference, hat size, and other factors for prospective buyers’ butts destined for that seat.
Surprisingly, there are times when even the biggest car makers concoct a vehicle or signature feature for buyers who simply don’t exist, or exist only in painfully small numbers. It can really make you scratch your head, wondering how no one asked even a few simple questions before green-lighting these ultra-niche products.
For example, how often do you need to carry a giant armoire cabinet? Or maybe a grandfather clock, or I dunno, a full-size replica of the Venus De Milo. Not that frequently, right? So, paying a premium for an SUV that could allow you to transport such tall products probably wouldn’t be big on your list. I would guess not, but for some reason, GMC thought it was worth a shot making an Envoy XUV with an electrically sliding roof over the cargo area. It’s not surprising that they could only move 16,000 for the first year it was available. When sales dropped to 11,000 units the following year, GM pulled the plug.
What’s funny is that Studebaker tried this idea and failed miserably. Did General Motors think more people wanted to haul refrigerators upright forty years later?
Ford has made similar mistakes. Have any Mustang buyers seemed like they really longed for a more Euro-style ponycar with a “biplane” rear spoiler and a turbo four-cylinder engine? I would say no. The vast majority wouldn’t want it any more than those who preferred lithe and athletic coupes imported from places known for pasta and pretzels hankered for an American two-door that shared its underpinnings with the Ford Granada.
Worse, there was competition within Ford for these unicorn customers, who could also choose a T-Bird Turbo Coupe or maybe a Merkur XR4Ti from one of FoMoCo’s own dealerships.
Somehow, “Are we sure anyone will even want these?” went unasked (or was answered “Yes!”), and Ford went on to create the Mustang SVO. In truth, it was a deceptively appealing car and arguably one of the best Fox bodies ever made, but it was just too “Mustang” for import buyers and too foreign for Mustang people. It’s no wonder that only 9,840 were sold over a two-year run. (I always got the feeling that it was held back by not being available with the 302 V8.)
You readers can think of far more examples, right? Hell, there’s a lot of you out there – far more people than could fit into a Cadillac Cimarron or Catera, which can also go on the “who asked for this?” list.
IMHO..what about the Scion sub brand of Toyota? I worked for Toyota 3 different times. I was told or heard that Scion was supposed to bring young people to the brand. Instead almost every time I saw one on the Service lane, it was driven by a ” mature individual”! The liked the higher seat position and the wagon like hauling capacity. But not the TC of course. Basically a Corolla with a Camry engine and a so so body design. My best friend who was in his 60s lived his XB. Don’t think Scion got marketed very well either.
YES just like the honda element was and old person favorite.
What a shame right? My brother is currently living #elementlife, using one as a mini camper and traveling around. They were such cool little vehicles!
Outdoors people liked the Element. Rubber floor mat floor, seats folded up against the sides..could load a bike or two easy. Gets dirty hose it out! Another vehicle that could have been marketed better. Basically a Civic Wagon. Ugly, but ugly is as ugly does!
Tag line should have been… You’ll love it when you’re in your Element ! We all want to be ” in our element” right?? Lol
The Element and xB were apparently favorites of middle-aged women…which was the least cool demographic to be associated with and ended up sealing their doom. Remember, you can sell a young person’s car to an old person, but you can’t sell an old person’s car to a young person.
The Scion TC was cross marketed with an insane show on Cartoon Network called Frisky Dingo by the guy who went on to make Archer.
Scion actually did bring young people to the brand–they bought the tC, which was Scion’s best-selling model. A Camry engine but with shorter gears. The average of a Scion buyer… 36. That’s way below industry average. After gas prices plummeted in the teens, though, Scion became less relevant. And clearly Toyota’s commitment to the brand was purely transactional, since the later models aside from the FR-S were kind of left to wither on the vine.
Toyota is the champion of killing popular models.
I told a friend about the FX16.
He bought one, loved it.
After his kid wrecked it, Toyota would not replace it except with a body kit for double the price.
I have never taken Toyota seriously since.
He never even looked at another Toyota.
Toyota killed their own market.
Right, while most of the time I saw a xD or xB driven by an older person, the tC was definitely for the youth.
Yeah, demographically it was a strange brand. I always saw older people driving the xA, xB, and xD, same as you, but the updated xB was always driven by someone younger… the updated xB was certainly a much less “cute” design, obviously more substantial, and likely more appealing to younger drivers.
At the same time, I’ve only ever seen the iQ driven by young people. The short-lived iA aka Mazda 2? Young people. The iM? When I see one it’s inevitably an older person.
the new Wagoneer, the Hornet/Tonale, the Contour SVT, Asuna, most cheap Mercedes cars (the C230 coupe, the B-Class, etc)
the smart car, the Scion iQ
100% the new Wagoneer has nothing a proven Suburban cannot provide.
Or an expedition max. I test drove all 3 and preferred the max over the other 2 comfortably
It does offer a different kind of awkwardness ans ungainliness though.
When it came out it was also a super tone deaf product on top of that. I get that we’re now waging war on the environment but a few years ago electrification was hot and everything outside of sports cars was kind of expected to be an EV or hybrid.
And here was Stellantis giving us a 3 ton behemoth covered in American flag logos powered by ancient V8 engines that struggled to hit the mid teens fuel economy wise. If it were released today with the same engines and the jingoism turned up a notch it would be met with raucous celebration.
But it wasn’t, and now it’s powered by an inline 6 that’s best known for exploding. Stellantis’ ability to fuck everything up is unparalleled.
Well, they are – or were – working on an EREV version of the Wagoneer.
They really screwed up the styling. Too bad.
How do you screw up a straight 6?
Stellantis uh….finds a way
Yet my town is full of spotless jeeps that will never even cross a yard.
The Hornet / Tonale is perhaps the best example of ill-conceived badge engineering. If at least Stelllantis offered radically different bodywork, ten maybe they could have pulled it off. As it is, they’re actually pretty good CUVs, but the Alfa Romeo demographic doesn’t want their Italian car to be associated with a Dodge, and vice versa. Truly truly stupid.
Biggest problem was that being an Alfa it was meant to be high end and most Hornet MSRPs are over 40 grand but the last Dodge crossover was the bargain-bin Journey. They should’ve based it on the Opel Mokka B to make it cheaper, because Opel itself doesn’t exist in the US, and because the Mokka A was a much needed hit for Buick as the Encore.
There’s already an Alfa based on the Mokka B, and its cleaning the Tonale’s clock with sales in Europe. However, bringing the Junior to the U.S. is probably not the move, though it would have made a nice U.S.-based Fiat. That is, if Stellantis bothered to change the bodywork on it (the newer 600 looks almost the same a 500x).
Whatever the case, Stellantis was probably right to offer the Tonale as a Dodge to help drive volume… the Alfa was never going to sell in sizable numbers. Even without the Hornet around the Tonale was never positioned as high-end as the rest of the Alfa lineup.
Plymouth Prowler: hot rod guys like V8s
Sure, but the V6 was the most powerful engine they had at the time.
I know and knew but as seen with the Hemi resurgence and fetishization, facts do not matter.
Potential matters.
From the DaimlerChrysler era:
Dodge Nitro-when for the same money a new or used Jeep Cherokee XJ could do a better job at everything!
Dodge Caliber- woe to those who were unfortunate enough to buy one with the CVT. And if you bought the SRT-4 you were SOL. Dodge swore up and down that it could make 300 HP. It could,technically,the problem was the Getrag manual transmissions couldn’t handle the stress and kept breaking ,so the engines were derated for warranty’s sake!
Hummer EV
Eh, I work at a GMC dealership and the only thing that stops more people from buying the Hummer EV is the six figure price tag. We got a few “base models” in that were under $100k and they immediately sold.
Jeepster Commando: longer hardtop CJ was not to make it until the JKU.
Jeep Commander: Jeep people just did not want and urban night life advertised station wagon.
One of my favorites the Saturn SW2 stick shift.
I had a 2000 and it was great for me.
The production numbers for the combo were tiny I hear.
For those that don’t know it was an S series made in America wagon with the twin cam engine and a 5 speed manual transmission.
The people wanted another kind of economy car with an automatic.
Yet another Holy Grail (YAHG) if you were a another kind of Saturnista. (-:
Here’s a good answer!
Mine was a 2001 SW2 with the stick shift! Loved it to death, and then somebody had to lose control in a snowstorm and spin out into my lane, totalling it.
Mine, a winter storm too, was lined up in traffic and hit in the rear door and quarter then spun around to further twist the knife. The Rav4 driver went for the brake and mashed the gas. It was an insurance valuation nightmare due to rarity and Saturn. It was totaled not my fault, no available replacement in my geographic area. A Saturn wagon was worth $1300 as far as they were concerned and I had to fight to get $2400. I did get my revenge though, they lost a multi-vehicle customer.
Toyota Mirai . . . tough to grow a market for a car that can only be fueled at three places in the entire country.***
***This is (only slightly) an exaggeration.
Aztec but for another reason than already mentioned. People who want to camp and go down dirt roads did not want to do it in a 3/4 shortened chopped pontiac minivan.
Honorable mention from Pontiac: the Firebird Sprint OHC. The engine was no more than a John Delorean thought exercise – “Imma make me a Pontiac version of a Jag 6, just because I want to.” And it was indeed a great engine, and it would have been fantastic in the Banshee concept car it was originally designed for, if GM had let DeLorean put it into production – which they didn’t, because they knew full well that it absolutely would have smothered the Corvette with a pillow in its sleep.
The problem is, Firebird Sprints ended up costing roughly as much as a V8 Firebird with a 400 Ram Air in it, so America said “no thank you.” If they had been able to price it as a true economy alternative to a V8 Firebird, it would have sold much better, but no one in 1968 was going to give up two cylinders for the same price, especially not when one of the most solid motors of the muscle car age was an option, with more horsepower.
Sadly, the US version of the VW ID.buzz
This is a great example that is part of the discussion on the stuff above that The Bishop mentions.
The designers knew who they wanted to appeal to.
The financial guys knew how much they needed to sell it for.
Apparently no one in charge of making those decisions got those people into the same room.
That Envoy with the retracting roof is a super cool feature. But who’s going to pay more for it and how much would they spend?
How much cheaper than a T-bird or Merkur does a turbo Mustang need to be to find an audience?
It’s not that no one wants it – I really want an ID Buzz. But they can fuck right off at those prices.
Ford EXP (1982-1988) A highly picto-graphic-stylized 2-door Escort providing an affordable “sports car”with all the Ford tech, trimmings and quality the 1980’s could muster.
Designed entirely for a subset of a microscopic proportion of automotive drivers of America.
THE target buyer for this car was…
a public high school male, sophomore/junior year, back-up quarterback on the football team, recently employed in fast food industry, whose father was just named salesman of year at local Ford-Mercury dealership.
Sold these by the dozens each year.
I might add “who only had one friend”…
An old friend in high school who was fickle and boy crazy wanted one of these but went with the GT? with the back seat so she could haul around her friends as they stalked boys houses. She put 350 miles on the brand new car in one day. Her grandmother bought it with her dead husbands bookie earnings.
The formula worked for the original Mustang, less well for the Mustang II. I guess they figured it was worth another shot.
Unlike the original Mustang, there was no affordable, competitive and widely available performance version.
And by 1984, the EXP was getting its ass whipped by the Fiero, CRX, MR2, Pulsar NX and others.
Hey, they got all the way up to 109 HP!
Actually the turbo version had 120hp… but it was only offered for a short time. Good luck finding one.
Meanwhile the CRX had less power, but was lighter. The MR2 had the most standard power and I don’t remember much about the Pulsar NX… but it seemed to be more popular than the EXP.
The Pulsar was very slow with the base engine but quick for the era with the 1.8 twin-cam. It never got a turbo in the U.S. but arguably the EXP with its boring CVH 1.9 needed it more.
I couldn’t find sales figures for the Pulsar EXA, which at the time was made a big deal of for bodywork designed by CAD. Globally the basic Pulsar was a huge-selling model for Nissan.
These sold an amazing 250K over just a few years. But after the first year (98K) sales fell off a cliff as a wave of much better sporty coupes arrived. Ford’s timing was good, but the car itself didn’t have enough performance chops to compete, even with a crappy turbo.
They actually sold quite a few. But yeah, they were crappy.
You beat me to it! Don’t forget to note the best part…it had no backseat. B/c middle America is always saying it needs more pure two seaters.
COTD.
My car! The Kona N. Hyundai tonight there’d be a market for an affordable hot CUV and there wasn’t. At all. The Kona N is too compromised to be good at small SUV duties (it’s comparatively cramped, it rides like shit, it’s not refined at all) and enthusiasts would rather have a Veloster or Elantra because they offer slightly better performance.
They sold like 7 of them to weirdos like
me and never even vaguely considered a second generation. The reviews were mostly lukewarm and they’re worth like $7 secondhand. I’d rather have gotten an Elantra N but when the wife found out there was an N “SUV” (in reality it’s a hot hatch) that was her compromise offer. “Yeah sure, you can get a new car after only two years in your GTI but it has to be the SUV version”.
Do I like it? I sure do! I think the pros outweigh the cons and it’s a fun, goofy, semi practical little run around. It’s also deceivingly fast on track and I appreciate the anonymity it offers. No one’s ever trying to provoke a bug eyed little CUV into racing. I’m also weird and I love weird cars…but I get why it was a sales flop and why everyone asks me why I didn’t just get the Elantra.
LMAO! The whole time I assumed you had an Elantra N. I’ve only seen one Kona N in the wild, and I must be a weirdo too because I actually really liked it, haha.
The pre refresh Elantra N is hideous. The post refresh is passable but still boy racer-ey. I’m biased but I think the Kona is the best looking of the ICE Ns. And a fun fact you’ll literally never get to tell anyone is that the guy responsible for the final Gallardo and Murcielago designs (Luc Donckerwolke) designed the first generation Kona.
So basically, my car has Lamborghini DNA in addition to the BMW M DNA. It’s essentially a super car. Duh.
Cadillac ELR, a nicely designed coupe but with a Chevy Volt powertrain. The powertrain did not match the vehicle design or intention, specially if you had the Tesla Model S in the market with better pricing and performance. I havent seen another coupe with a PHEV option in recent times.
And, like, a billion dollars.
For, idk, $10k more than a Volt they probably would have sold a few.
This. I don’t know what GM was thinking. Take a $35k volt, remove a seat and two doors, install nicer interior and questionable looking exterior. Attempt to sell for 80k. Oh and make ads that portray owners as the douchiest of the douches.
Le Renault Avantime. Who on earth asked for a 2 door luxury minivan coupe, and how can I meet them?
Fun fact: It was slated to come to North America badged as an Infiniti.
Now that’s an alternate universe I can get behind.
Somebody page The Bishop
The ID.Buzz comes to mind. Not the form factor, but rather combining the form factor with a sub 200 mile range and a 70k price tag.
The pricing… JFC the pricing.
Considering the over 20 years of hype that preceded it, I would consider it the worst product launch of all time. But maybe that’s a totally different Autopian Asks.
TBF, the generation that a) has the money to spend 70k on a non-luxury vehicle, and b) the most fond memories of the VW Bus is the one that for the most part have their iron butt days behind them.
Exactly. If they’d released the Buzz in the early/mid-2000s retro car craze, that demographic would be perfect customers. When I was growing up then (I’m 32) a majority of my peers had Boomer parents, squarely in a demographic with memories of Buses and the means to relive them. And kids to drive around! A new Bus at that time could have been a hit, particularly if it was sharing showroom space with the New Beetle. It seemed like everyone’s family had a minivan when I was growing up. (I was the odd one out, my mom hated vans and dove a Volvo V70). Leave it to VW to miss their best opportunity by like, 20 years.
We really really wanted the Buzz, even held off on buying a car waiting for it to come out, knew it was going to be expensive, but then specs released and milage came out, we had to look at something else.
Cars for those that don’t appreciate windows that either open at all (Lotus Europa S1) or only have a small portion that opens (Subaru SVX) are probably pretty niche. I’d garner it’s a safe bet that most vehicle owners like fresh air.
Having owned an svx for 50000 miles, the windows were my favorite thing. Unless absolutely necessary I prefer driving with my windows open. In that car you could be driving along at 80 and whisper to a backseat passenger. Most cars are louder than it at about 20-25mph
The epitome of this is the HHR SS Panel and HHR SS Half Panel, especially with the manual. I love that they exist, but did GM really expect that to sell?
Similarly, the Mini Clubvan, especially in the USA. If I recall correctly, it was even subject to chicken tax making it even more of a silly proposition.
Edit:Yes, I remembered correctly… and in checking myself I found the Holy Grail article: https://www.theautopian.com/mini-clubvan-holy-grail/
Yep that’s exactly right, I suspect more might have been sold had it not been hit with a massive price hike due to the chicken tax which limited total imports to only 50 units, but it was certainly not a big market.
Mini ha ha!! The Mini Coupe that looked like somebody grafted a football helmet on top! Yuck! Fugly!
The Mini Coupe was marketed to the rich high school bros who wore hats like the car looked and parents paid for the car.
How many people care HHR stands for Heritage High Roof!!! Basically a Cobalt station wagon! But they did make a Supercharged one!! SS! Hoovie had one. With a stick, another grail.
Who asked for the Toyota CHR?.A butt ugly small hatchback with almost no load room in the back. In case you were wondering. CHR : Coupe High Rider!! WTH? Here’s my take…. can’t be a coupe it’s got 4 doors. High Rider? No more ground clearance than a Camry. Young gal came thru my service lane…said CHR stands for Cool Hip Ride! Whatever.
Honestly, most modern (cheaper) enthusiast cars. The huge mistake is that we all say that we’d love something like the OEMs make, but we forget to tell the automakers that we’d like to buy said car used and depreciated.
Also, the R63 AMG. Props off to the mad Germans who asked “Do we know anyone who wants a 6.2 V8 powered minivan?”
I for one love the XUV, and while it may have limited practical applications, I would drive around with the windows down and the roof open just because I like the open air feel and it’s hard to get outside of a Wrangler in that class of vehicle.
I already posted, but Cybertruck deserves more of a mention. It is such a colossal failure that the Edsel experiment was a comparative success.
Tesla should’ve just made a Model 3 with a pickup bed. That would be a money printer and would almost justify Elon’s pay package
This makes me think of the face Simone Giertz made at the Cybertruck unveiling after she had been told she couldn’t bring her Model 3 with a pickup bed.
Nothing would justify that pay package.
correct
The Pontiac Aztek. They were just too early.
The entire Suzuki and Isuzu SUV lineups… They just didn’t hold on long enough.
The car built for more people unnecessarily, however, than anything else…? Ford F-series.
ALSO CYBERTRUCK
I came to say CT. Compliments on your ninja skills.
Not looking for a fight, but the Isuzu Trooper (II?) was rebadged about a dozen times and sold for longer than Saturn existed.
Maybe I am not following the intent of the statement…..
I would LOVE to be involved in a fight about Isuzu Troopers. 🙂 didn’t take it that way, though.
You make an excellent point. My assessment is more market-centric in the sense of, ‘who was the brand of Isuzu supposed to be for?’ Foggy or cloudy at best.
I am guessing here that having Acura, Chevrolet, Holden, Honda, HSV, Opel, Subaru, and Vauxhall meant that you were a bit diluted? So, they were for everyone, but didn’t get enough sales to set themselves apart.
Pretty much most subcompact cars released in North America in the last decade.
Affordable. Pretty reliable. Not the penalty boxes of yore.
….and they sold like coldcakes.
Seriously. My yarismazda2 is so damn nice for a economy subcompact. Good tech for the late 2010s, decent pep, nice feeling manual transmission. And it doesn’t feel cheap. But nope, no one wants a little car. They would rather have a 10 year old cuv that gets half the fuel economy and spend ten grand more for the privilege
I can’t decide what was worse, the Murano CrossCabriolet or the current 4 cylinder hybrid C63.
Considering one is the chariot of the gods and the other is a 4 cylinder C63 AMG, I would go with the AMG being worse.
In the same vein, there’s the PT Cruiser convertible.
There is a few that come to mind: Buick Regal Tour X, Camaro 1LE (4 & 6 cyl models), Cadillac XLR, Mercury Marauder, Chevrolet SSR, Nissan 400Z.
Dang it! I like all of those 😀
Me too, actually. Even if I get that most of em would fall under the category of “who is the market for this vehicle?”
I believe the market did exist for the Marauder. The Impala SS is still whispered about in hushed tones as the car GM “dared” to build, and back in the early 2000s the “wounds” from it being cancelled to build Suburbans were still fresh. Ford just botched the execution badly.
Well, the Impala SS did lose to the Trabant in Moto Rooter’s annual “car of the year” test.
I just think the “bubble” Caprice had far more street cred than the Crown Vic/Grand Marquis, so the Impala was always going to be king.
I really like the idea of the Buick Regal Tour X but station wagon in and of itself is the problem there the market just doesn’t want em. I’m not really sure what’s wrong with the idea of a hard core handling package that existed for the V8 Camaro also being available on the turbo 4 or V6 Camaros. I Guess anyone that wants “any kind of real performance” is just buying the V8 anyway? The Caddy XLR, Chevy SSR and Nissan 400Z I totally get. There would have been more market for the Marauder had it been maybe even a bit more than the slightly warmer Grand Marquis with a sinister vibe, but such is life.
The actual problem with the market is that they still sell station wagons. They are just taller and called SUVs or CUVs.
I think a wagon can work but their positioning of the TourX didn’t. Wagon buyers are probably iffier on the Buick brand. Certainly Audi buyers which Buick said was a competitor, but even Subaru buyers: tough to sway the loyalists, and for anyone else the Outback was priced similarly yet offered the promise of better resale and the CR reviews.
GM buyers would be open to the brand, but the same money would get you a 3-row, V6-powered Acadia. An Enclave might have had more cash on the hood to make it a wash too.
Evidently the Lexus LC500h
I’m actually gonna fight you on the Mustang SVO. It was never really about making sales; it’s purpose was for Ford engineers to learn and understand about 4 cylinder, turbocharged, EFI engines. It came out not long after SAAB and Porsche introduced EFI turbo engines, and Ford needed to understand all that.
Then do that with something else, if it was just meant as an experiment they could have accomplished that in a Taurus or something and actually made money while learning lessons.
That would have tagged front wheel drive to the project and made everyone think Ford was copying Chrysler. Not a good look back then.
Not necessarily, the SHO was AWD, they could have done so with this too, though there definitely wasn’t a market for two performance Tauruses, so probably a bad plan.
The first gen SHO came out after the SVO was done and dusted.
I have started to see the SVO as the highest performance trim option – it was lighter, better weight distribution, better handling. I think if they had called it the GT 350, and left the engine in race tune, instead of weakening it, it would have sold better.
But there will always be someone saying “Should have had a v8”. That was me in 1985 – why buy a SVO when the GT is $6k less and has the v8.
Did you buy a Saleen?
I assure you, the SHO back then was FWD. The only SHO that was AWD was the last one made (within last decade). Fastest, but also the most forgettable and also least performance oriented.
I have a 2013 SHO. It’s tuned and very fast, but absolutely nothing like the orignal SHO.
Fair enough. My bad, I was thinking the first and third gen SHOs were AWD. I knew the weird V8 one was FWD though. Ok yeah my idea was stupid.
AWD Taurus?
I had my facts mixed up, but the final gen Taurus did have an AWD option at least for the SHO, possibly for others as well. Clearly I don’t follow Taurus info closely.
I think they would have been OK on a Chrysler comparison, GM started to roll out FWD turbos around the same time.
But gas prices had also been high in the early 80s before trending down and people started migrating back to V8s. Call it hedging their bets, if gas had remained expensive, some Chrysler-like “V8 power with I4 economy” marketing for the Mustang SVO might have been in order.
This was when Chrysler/Dodge had the Laser/Daytona, Charger, and Conquest. The Daytona and Charger were not in the same class as the Mustang and I say this as a huge 80’s Charger fan.
Stock, the turbo was as quick as the V8 and matched it on the track.
The Tbird was always faster than the mustang due to better balance and braking on the track.
I also wonder if it was related to the idea of replacing the Mustang with what became the Probe—get people used to a turbo 4 as “better than a V8” by putting it in their most expensive Mustang. Probably didn’t cost much either. Suspension and brakes don’t cost that much more and I don’t know what all the testing consisted of back then, but the Thunderbird was the same platform and used the same engine, so it was already EPA certified and the base Mustang came with a non-turbo 4, so crash testing was already taken care of if they had to crash a version with each engine. Then it was their highest priced Mustang, so it had the most profit baked in.
Successful track car.