Give someone a car brand and ask them to name a car from that brand, and you’ll probably get some highly expected answers. Ford probably gets you F-150, Mustang, and Bronco. Toyota will likely hit the button for Camry, Corolla, and RAV4. Cadillac might tap Eldorado, DeVille, and Blackwing. But Cimarron? Unlikely (at least for normies, as opposed to, you know, us.)
It’s not unusual for brands to have models that are seemingly so far astray from what the nameplate represents that you probably wonder how they ever got built.
The most obvious recent one is the Ferrari Luce. Ferrari’s history contains a wide variety of cars, but almost always they were rather sleek, thrilling-looking Pininfarina-designed masterpieces (except for the Bertone-penned 308GT4, which I actually like the looks of better than its Mondial replacement). A thing that seems somewhat indistinguishable from a Nissan is not one of them.
That’s not to say these anomalies are necessarily bad things. The Saab 9-7X was, by all means, totally off-brand for the “born from jets” marque, but the styling tweaks, slight mechanical mods and upscale interior did make this thing the best Chevy Trailblazer ever built. Yeah, that’s not saying much, but still.
And then there’s the star of the topshot, the “Cadillac” Cimarron. At least later versions with the high-output V6 had some grunt for the time, but regardless of what constitutes a Cadillac to you, that thing ain’t it.
So, let’s hear some more from you! Again, they don’t have to be disastrous rides, just things that should probably not have been sold with the badges they wore.
Top graphic image: General Motors
Jeep Liberty
Nissan Armada/Patrol always confused me, except in the sense of Nissan being the Chrysler of Japan. Badge it a RAM and send it.
Corvette. It seems crazy that this world class sports car is sold right next to a Chevy Trax, Traverse and Silverado
Is the Aston Martin Cygnet too easy? If that’s the case, I’ll go with the BMW 2 Series Gran Coupe, which is nearly indistinguishable (to me) from a 15 year old Kia Forte.
a lot of people had a problem with the Scion FR-S being a Scion, though that eventually ended up changing anyway, I never saw why it was such a big deal.
I also still think the original front end it got was a lot better looking than the refreshes.
Ford products because it’s what I know:
Lincoln LS – Bob Lutz’s attempt to make an American BMW from a brand that wholly resisted the idea. Still looks good today and a car I think was underrated. Never looked like a Lincoln then or now though.
Lincoln Blackwood – Not sure it looked like it belonged to a different brand as much as it just looked like the vehicular equivalent of a reverse mullet.
I’ve debated putting the current gen Mustang here. Ford only has one actual car and therefore by nature that one car — a performance-focused two-door — doesn’t look like it belongs to the rest of the brand. I have a hard time tying it to anything else in the current domestic Ford stable. Any other Ford “performance” tweaked vehicle right now is either designed to run furiously over sand dunes and mud or is a Mustang derivative. And finally, “Mustang” is slowly drifting into its own brand, so that alone may disqualify it. Similar things could be said about Chevrolet and the Corvette nameplate.
There’s a whole history behind the Lincoln LS, the Jaguar S-Type and the DEW98 platform. It was a good start, but German executive Dr. Reitzle–who’d been brought over from BMW shortly after heading up the L30/L322 Range Rover there–thought the platform was trash and wanted an extensive (and expensive) redesign.
My 2003 Chevy Tracker.
Even after owning it for 9 years, I still had to take my eyes off the road to look at the wiper controls to see which selection button I needed to press.
Even though the Tracker was a 5-speed, once it started to rust so bad that even the oil pan rusted through, I traded it for a same-year GMC Envoy, which I’ve had for 14 years now and it’s much more intuitive to drive.
The Tracker just seemed kind of cheap and tinny to me. It did not feel like a 2003 Chevrolet.
I mean, it was a leftover from the GEO brand (er, sub-Chevrolet), and partially developed by Suzuki, so no surprise that it didn’t feel like a normal Chevy.
Vauxhall VX220. Even “Opel Speedster” was better, but that car under GM in the early 2000’s just didn’t fit.
All sports car company SUVs.
Subaru 86. I was on Subarus mailing list when the toyobaru twins came out, and Subaru sent me emails all winter saying how all their cars had 4WD. All but the one I eventually bought, you idiots.
Cadillac running an F1 team seems pretty off brand to me.
Not the way they’re running it.
Let’s just cruise around at the back.
“Super Cruise” at the back.
Plymouth Prowler always confused me a bit.
What about the Chrysler Prowler instead?
Better
Any FWD Volvo. Which I know makes me old.
The Peugeot 309. Should have been the Talbot Arizona.
The upcoming Ranger Rover Sedan. Is this not what Jaguar is supposed to be for?
I thought that was what actual Rover was for.
Nah, Rover’s been defunct for years
Strictly speaking, the Range Rover GT isn’t a sedan. It seems to have a higher seating position than even extended-height sedans like the current Lexus ES and Toyota Crown (Crossover). For another, it’s got a rear liftgate.
If anything, it’s similar to the “coupe-SUVs” that the German brands (Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche) have been selling for some time now.
Hyundai Equus. Hyundai trying to sell a Lexus LS competitor in the US in the pre-Genesis days was always a bit of an odd fit.
The Kia K900 was that but even more better.
I worked for a Kia dealership between 2014 and 2015, though not in sales. This dealership was so bad, it was shut down by the Department of Justice for massive fraud and identity theft and its principals indicted and convicted.
Anyway, we had a single 2014 K900 that sat on the showroom floor. And sat. And sat. I believe it had two birthdays before it was finally dealer traded. Not only was a Kia in that price echelon a tough sell (even if it was theoretically at the level of a 7 Series)…it was an especially tough sell at our dealership, which treated people very poorly.
It made more context in KDM-and-sedan-friendly S. Korea, and frankly Hyundai sort of sold it as a vanity project here. Ditto the K9/K900 on the Kia side.
The subsequent Genesis G90, which was the next product in the flagship line, seemed like it was designed to be a Hyundai first (as the Equus) and belatedly became a Genesis. I had a 2018 G90 5.0 Ultimate and I remember looking up the technical documentation in ALLDATA when I had to remove the bumper cover (to replace the radar cover, which wears prematurely). In the documentation, the emblems on the car were the Equus winged figure, as though the car was firstly developed as the Equus. It also had Hyundai-like styling, and would have fit into a lineup that also included the contemporary Elantra, Sonata and Azera. The 2020 refresh made it look more distinctive for the Genesis brand.
A small list comes to mind:
2 tough-guy cars from brands that you seldom would see tough guys driving:
-Buick GNX and Grand Nationals of the 80’s.
-Mercury Marauder
Also, the Piëch-era crazy VW products:
-Touareg
-Phaeton
-W8 Passat
Finally, a couple of super cars from not very super-car brands:
-Ford GT (all of them)
-Lexus LF-A
Also, the Honda Crossroads (Land Rover Discovery rebadge) is hilarious.