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.
VW – the Thing, might have sold @30k of those “things” in the couple years in the 70’s that they made them.
I’ll nominate the Lincoln Blackwood
The entire Toyota Scion line?? I mean, wasn’t it intended for all those 20 year olds that wanted a cheap new car to work on ?
Ferrari Mondial
No one asked for, nor wanted, a heavy, slow, 2+2 Ferrari Grand Tourer.
With a body that was larger, heavier and less aerodynamically efficient than the equivalent two-seater models, combined with the introduction of tougher emission standards which significantly dropped power outputs, overall vehicle performance inevitably decreased. In addition, Ferrari responded to new safety requirements, especially in the U.S., with large, black, over-dominant bumpers which were considered to have negatively affected the external design. The fact that the Mondial 8 was a significantly more expensive vehicle than its better-performing two-seater 308 GTBi sister somewhat compounded the situation.
Suzuki X90. Even Suzuki could not explain why they made it.
The Escalade EXT was a clone of the Avalanche and had the trick mid-gate just like the Avalanche.
I remember noticing on 1985½ and 1986 Mustang SVO how bad the form-fitting headlamps fit in between front turn signal indicators and inboard night illumination lamps.
Of course, Ford had already developed the form-fitting headlamps for SVO prior to 1983 introduction but let Lincoln have the bragging right of being first American car with form-fitting headlamps.
“Form-fitting”?
Like a Playtex bra?
Or Calvin Klein jeans?
Oh – you mean “composite”
Everything from Detroit was poorly fitted back then.
He means flush.
Do you have to be a fucking Internet troll, blathering nonsensical things just for stupid attention? Thanks for wasting my time clicking on the notification bell to see what you have to say.
Just quit trolling…
I would say the Honda CRZ came out in a time where you could get both a Civic Coupe AND a Honda Fit, and both did their jobs better. I like the one I have but it’s understandable that it didn’t do very well in the US.
That and literally all of Scion going after a non-existent customer: millennials with new car money in 2009
You know how many people wanted a slightly quieter coupe version of the Lotus Elise that, unlike the hard-core track focused Exige was tuned for long distance comfort but still had comedy access through tiny doors and no space for a suitcase? Maybe will slightly woolly throttle response from a turbo?
Just 458 people.
I love my Europa, because I used to daily drive an S1 Elise 160, and compared to that it’s quiet and comfy and easy to get in to and has a big trunk. But compared to an Evora or a Cayman it’s like being pushed down a staircase in a tumble drier. Although in a fun way, somehow.
You either love Lotus, or you don’t. They’ve always had a quixotic relationship with practicality.
Merkur comes to mind. Nobody at Ford really knew what to do with it. The Scorpio looked enough like the Taurus/Sable that the price premium wasn’t easily justifiable. The XR4Ti, although cool, was awkward looking at best.
Saturn for sure. The resources dumped into developing Saturn between 1982 and 1991 would have built GM some spectacular small cars for existing GM divisions going into the 90s. Nope! We need an entirely new company. One that GM would control completely from raw materials to sales.
The Merkurs were made for a market that did exist, but that market was in Europe. Sierras and Escorts did great over here.
I do think that in the long run they shouldn’t have bothered with the Saturn brand. It was just throwing money/branding at the problem without actually fixing the reasons for which it was created.
Would they have managed to build an equivalent small car to sell under the existing brands? I doubt it. Saturn was what it was because of the separation from GM. They invested even more money to develop the W-bodies at the same time, and those were neither competitive on launch nor did they end up replacing the A-bodies as intended, just an additional product line for most of the 90s.
This and the stupid Geo brand for the captive imports.
Additionally, Americans couldn’t pronounce Merkur so Ford had TV advertisements, teaching them how to pronounce it the German way.
I’d say we need more specific directions. Several examples projected might have worked if not for bean counting and poor build quality. To qualify I say we need the car to be well built for the purpose but selling poorly due to low demand. So no Deloreans, HHRs, or Prowlers that had a market but ended up being not fitting the requirements. So maybe a single cab pickup? We say we want them but we are a small group and we won’t all buy them so no demand
Pontiac Aztec
Chevy SSR
Cadillac ELR & XLR
Plymouth Prowler
Mercedes-Benz R, A, B, and CLC Class
Rolls-Royce Camargue
BMW 5 & 6 Series GT
BMW 3 Series hatchback
Volkswagen Phaeton
Audi A2
Mercury Capri (the FWD Mazda 323-based convertible)
Mazda Sentia/929 (the one which looked like a Jaguar)
1999-2002 Mercury Cougar
1986-1993 GM E Body Coupes (Riviera, Reatta, Toronado and Eldorado)
1986-1991 GM K Body Seville
1985-1993 GM C Bodies (Buick Electra/Park Avenue, Olds 98, Cadillac DeVille/Fleetwood)
Aston Martin V8
We need a thumbs down button
Yup, so sick of him trolling everyone with stupid and nonsensical blathering. We couldn’t even click on anything to report him.
You sound unhappy.
It was a nice morning for a swim after the gym – You should try it.
The Charger EV. The kind of guys that like a Charger/Challenger don’t want an EV. They want a loud rumbling V8. Hint to Stellantis, they don’t want a turbo straight six either.
The type of guys looking for a sporty EV don’t want to be associated with the guys that drive Chargers and Challengers.
Honorable mention to the Lexus LFA. People might love them now, but they didn’t sell when they came out. Same price as a Ferrari or Lamborghini without the exotic pedigree that people who spend that kind of money on a car are looking for.
The Chevy SSR is one that comes to mind. Convertible pickups is just an odd choice.
One that there seems to be a market for but I wish there wasn’t is the CUV coupe trend. It not only kills cargo capacity, and therefore utility, but the CUV height makes the proportions strange and the whole thing unpleasant on the eyes.
The SSR was like a Prowler. “Hey custom hot rods are cool, let’s make them on an assembly line.” Note the complete misunderstanding of the word “custom”. Mass-producing a hot rod will never sell, and they’ll just have so many flaws because one-offs can get away with that, but production cars not so much.
The reason the Prowler and the SSR didn’t sell is they both did not live up to their looks. By the time they added hotter versions everyone was over them.
Cadillac XLR.They based it off a Corvette chassis and used a Northstar motor.It rode too rough for the typical Caddy buyer and the sports car buyer never took a liking to it.It was pretty expensive and had too many problems to ever take off.It couldn’t have lasted for more than a few years if I remember correctly.General Motors had to eat their lunch on that one.If you’re brave enough they are pretty cheap to buy but good luck with one of those Turds.
Growing up in Memphis in the late 80’s, early 90’s you wouldn’t have know the world wasn’t over run by this subclass. I had an XR4Ti, I had a buddy with a turbo 4 mustang and don’t forget the 3rd in this family the Escort turbo GT, which another friend had. All 3 were faster than a stock 5.0 pony with the right driver, as we loved to prove any chance we got.
Only if the turbo 4 Mustang was the SVO. The other two, only if the Mustang GT had the parking brake engaged.
Every crew-cab pickup with a tiny bed. Oh wait, that market does exist for some GD reason.
It’s a really logical market for a lot of people. I have one and it is one of the most useful vehicles I’ve had. It tows my boat effortlessly, it’s safe for my kids, it hold my kids and dog with room to spare, with a spray in bedliner and locking, folding top it can do everything from carrying luggage and coolers to carrying sod to hauling garbage to the dump, it will have strong resale if I ever sell it, it eats roadtrip miles with the same wheelbase as an extended wheelbase Phantom, it fits in a standard parking space, and it cost $38,000 new.
A regular cab long bed pickup is way less useful and sales reflect that reality. I generally see them being used by fleets but not carrying things, often sales reps or PMs, something a sedan could do if that was still a thing. Sheetrock and plywood get delivered to sites by flatbeds and I could easily carry some of either with straps.
If anything a lot of full size SUV buyers would be better off with full size, short bed crew cab pickups, but the buyers don’t want the pickup image. I was going to get a Suburban or Tahoe until I realized I could get the sedan version for $15,000 to $20,000 less and still have a live axle (which the full size SUVs lost) for towing.
I guess they would make sense for gooseneck or 5th wheel towing.
We used to have cars which did all those things.
They were called Impalas, Galaxies and Furies…
Hauling sod and Sheetrock? I doubt it.
Station wagons could haul all that easily.
The full-sizers were designed to carry 4×8 sheets of stuff.
And back then, we grew our own lawns – so fertilizer and seed did just fine in the back of Mom’s wagon.
Wife regularly forks pallets of 50# bags into the back of her Subaru Outback. I used to carry 4×4 half sheets of plywood in my old Civic because it was designed by art students. The big ‘Murican wagons could do a lot more.
If you need an actual truck, the current crop of 4 door short beds are abso-effing-lutely useless. They’re also more expensive than an F250 XLT long bed.
But, if want you live in suburbia, and just need to carry a few gardening tools every so often, and you’re not very good at math, then sure, an overpriced 5 foot bed is perfect.
The SVO is still my favorite Mustang
The Panther chassis Mercury Marauder. Making a full size muscle sedan using a twenty year old chassis and putting it under a brand where the main focus was that it by default came with 30% more features than the Ford it was based on for 20% more of the price. It also came after Japanese cars like the Accord or the Maxima 4DSC changed the buying public’s desires and when there were a bunch of more visually attractive, more spacious, and faster cars in the compact and mid-size segments that were cheaper. It also didn’t help that the thing looked like an undercover cop car and the Lincoln Town Car that old people drove, which gave it a bad association.
The Marauder’s sales numbers only hit 11,000 if you want hard data on how few people wanted one. The Ford Focus SVT, a specialty model that had a 75% price increase over a base Focus, sold 12,000 examples. Both were only sold for two years, and during the same two years from 2002-2004. The Grand Marquis the Marauder was base on was selling about 70,000 cars a year during that same timeframe.
This is a hard question because to me this is not crap cars, it is good cars without a market.
To me the SVO was redeemed when, in 2015, it effectively became the base Mustang and remains in that position. It was never going to succeed selling at a 50% premium to a GT.
I think a repeated failure has been second cars for people that can only afford one car.
Historically that has been a lot of the cheap mid-engine cars (which makes me sad because I like cheap mid-engine cars). I and don’t think that it was that upper-middle class and wealthy people would not buy those cars, many don’t require or actively avoid fancy brands, I think that the enthusiast niche in those groups just could not support the necessary volume.
Now it is the cheap EVs. The Leaf seems like a fine car. But if one can’t afford better than a Leaf one likely street parks and does not have a second reliable car for road trips. I fear a similar fate may face the Slate, but it may be iconic enough that the upper-middle class and wealthy buy it, especially if it proves out on its safety claims.
Sorry I agree with you 100%
Yeah, the SVO should have simply been the lead effort for bringing upgrades to the Fox platform across the board. A lot of the costs went to specific, niche upgrade items like fancy shift knobs and low volume headlights. Cool for sure, but things like the revised suspension, brakes, and pedal assembly could have just become standard fare for the GT package.
They eventually did. Flush headlights came for the GT in 1987. 4 wheel discs somehow didn’t come along until 1993? The shift knob was nothing fancy. The EEC system came in 1986 for the GT. The SVO was very much a test bed for future mustangs.
The Slate pickup. Technically not made yet, but the market isn’t there.
It may well be vaporware, given their targeted price point that factored in the $7,500 subsidy.
Oh, they are selling SLATE merch though including a kids’ picture book. I’m tempted to buy some merch to have historical artifacts.
Which market do you think the Slate is targeting? The cheap pickup? There’s no market for that? Maverick anyone?
The chances of Slate being cheap seem to be evaporating, but the market for a cheap pickup isn’t going anywhere.
Cheap pickup as a market may exist. Cheap pickup with no radio, no electric anything, and most importantly no range – all for the same price as a Maverick, there’s no market for that.
Once again, you don’t understand terminology.
Product market fit.
The market is there, but the product doesn’t fit the market. Now you know.
Subaru Baja. I have one and it does a lot of things, just none of them particularly well.
Can I throw a challenge at you. What is the least viable car possible that gets to 90mph as a top speed, fits all the regulations including crash tests, yet looks only slightly ugly.
Plymouth Horizon?
Do you really think a 2200 LB horizon can match at 2200 LB Miata? They were both overengineered for this challenge and and only one of them sucks. Lets find out what could be worse than a Miata but I’d still like to buy it.
A horizon won’t hit 90 mph in fact if you drive it off a cliff you are likely to survive because even gravity wont get it up to a dangerous speed.
The Camaro Berlinetta and the Firebird Esprit.
They even put the Esprit on a major TV show (The Rockford Files) and still people weren’t lining up in droves to buy them.
My second car was an Esprit.The model was good in a way, as it had both the 400 Quadrajet and some very comfortable velour seats. By the time it came to me, the 8-track had been replaced by a cassette unit. Too bad it had a bad case of the oxides, and had an effective combined total of two fenders and a door and a half by the time I had driven it for two years.
James Garner had the producers order up a Formula – but rear spoiler removed, modified with the hood and badges from an Esprit, and custom painted “Rockford Gold” which was not a factory color.
He liked the handling of the Formula – but thought the Esprit fit the character’s financial situation and less flashy persona better.
Honda Accord Crosstour. Bigger than a Pilot outside, no bigger than a CR-V inside, no real saving in efficiency or MSRP over either. Wasn’t wagony enough to be an Outback competitor, not really upright or tall enough to be a real Edge or Murano competitor.
Also, it looked funny.
And if that hadn’t been the case the rest might have been forgivable. Or if it had been more Accordlike in how it drove which rereading the C/D review, was not the case. Owners seem to really like them but it was a tough sell to get people to look past all that.
Yeah, that car was an absolute dog – apologies to the canines.
So poorly built and designed not a missed market?
Well, there was a buyer base they intended it for, empty nesters/DINKs, much like the Edge or Murano which had both been successful.
But the idea of it was intended for a subset of that market, that supposedly didn’t want bulky SUVs or CUVs (again, hadn’t really been a problem by then, and some of those were people downsizing at the time) but still wanted added versatility and height. Almost like a liftback version of a sport-utility-sedan…which Subaru had abandoned at that point.
Plus it was 3k more than an Accord sedan to start for equivalent EX trims. At Toyota the similar Venza was at least priced around an XLE Camry.
I really hate all these fast back designs. But unfortunately the Crosstour opened the door to a whole slew of them like all the BMW X2/4/6 and 5 series GT’s, and Mercedes GLC and GLE coupes