A time-honored tradition for car enthusiasts is anxiously awaiting the next generation of the [insert model name] to see in what ways it’s better or worse than the previous model. Most of the time, the new thing is an improvement overall, as car technology is ever improving, and car styling ages quickly, so newer = better is frequently true. But not always, which brings us to today’s Ask and those cars that felt like missed opportunities at the time, or maybe seemed like the right car for their moment but in retrospect leave you pining for what could have been. My call was the fourth-gen Eclipse, a real miss as a chonky cruiser that should have been a lighter, more lithe machined (and less goofy looking). I put the question to the gang:
Brian
The Alfa Romeo 4C stands in my mind as one of the biggest almost-hits of the 2010s. It had so much going for it: An absolutely stunning design, a carbon-fiber monocoque, a mid-engine powertrain with a snarly turbocharged four-cylinder at its heart.
But despite all that, it’s sort of faded into obscurity for two reasons: 1) Because it wasn’t very good to drive, and 2) Because it didn’t have a manual transmission. Had it come with a third pedal instead of that standard dual-clutch, any qualms about driving quality would’ve been quickly forgiven, and the 4C would be cemented in history.
Jason
I always thought the ID.Buzz became a missed opportunity. This was a car I was eagerly anticipating – I’ve been hoping VW would resurrect the Type 2 as a modern car for a long time, and really lean into its retro aesthetic, so when they first started showing prototypes (which started way back in 2001, remember) I was very excited.
The end result had a lot of the look I was hoping for, but the decision to make it a pure battery EV – which was an understandable choice, considering VW was crawling out of the Dieselgate morass – saddled it with a price that’s just too damn high and the low-ish range limits its ability to do what it should do best: be a fantastic road trip car.
A new Microbus should have been a slam dunk for VW. What we got just wasn’t.
Stephen
Chrysler Aspen. Especially with how far out front they were with the hybrid version way back in the pre-bankruptcy days. Full-size, 4WD Hemi lux truck is a highly lucrative and profitable segment, and one that fits the Chrysler brand perfectly. Additional investment could’ve segmented the Aspen as a continued offering in the segment and offered a viable choice vs the other domestic full-size SUVs and the Armada/QX.
Sadly, we know that the Aspen was short lived and today Chrysler continues to flounder with only one minivan offered in its stable for years now
Your turn:
What Cars Were The Biggest Missed Opportunities?
Top graphic image: Mitsubishi
The Lancia Fulvia concept. Great looking car, would have potentially been awesome. Never built.
Lancia was thinking about bringing back the Fulvia? :-O
2003 Frankfurt Auto Show. Really good looking car. Fiat nixed it.
Nissan could’ve put Subaru out of business had they sold the T30 X-Trail here. They sold it in Canada, but not the US. It’s basically the Forester Done Right. It even has the big sunroof and of course good AWD, but it has a real engine instead of a shitty boxer. Oh, it also has a timing chain, while Subaru was still using a belt at the time. It would be another 5 years until Subaru released the FB25 which finally had a timing chain.
Had Nissan sold the X-Trail down here at the time, no one would ever buy a Subaru when something better was available. And this was Subaru’s peak head gasket era too.
Subaru should’ve just stopped using the EL25 as soon as the problems came out. They could’ve always gone back to the EJ22 until the FB was ready.
Also, Suzuki should’ve kept selling the real Swift instead of the shitty rebadged Daewoo Aveo. Another Chevy Metro would’ve been awesome, and this was the era just before the depression started and the bailout.
Suzuki was ahead of its time, specializing in just the kind of cars that are so hot right now (small SUV segment like the Vitara, small cars like the Swift)
Tesla should’ve just made a Model 3 or Y with a pickup bed instead of the stupid Cybertruck garbage can. It would’ve been MUCH more profitable while costing less money too.
How many of these cars are going to be because they didn’t offer a manual transmission??
Time after time car makers want to release a cool new car to help their image and they get most of it right, but skip the manual. It usually goes wrong for their plans. When are they going to wake up to the fact that enthusiasts want manuals and we typically are the influencers who help others decide on a car? Enthusiasts don’t have the numbers to shift the industry with our purchases, but when you include our friends and family we influence, its a sizeable chunk of the market. For many, no manual, no recommendation.
What gets me is that you don’t have to design and build a manual yourself. Buy a manual from a transmission company. Hagerty had that great video on the Tremec 6060 that has been put into a ton of cars over the decades.
I disagree. Manual sales are a tiny fraction of the US market. A lot of Americans can’t row their own, and many can but prefer not to. I have trouble believing that the mere option of a manual would move the needle on sales any car outside of a niche performance car.
Then we’ll have to agree to disagree. For many a manual is a must, and I fully admit that the enthusiast community is not huge, but like I mentioned above, it is the enthusiast community that typically is tasked with helping their friends and family members pick out a car. That much larger pool of consumers is definitely the difference between a sales success and a sales flop for a lot of these more niche cars.
Saturn.
All of it, but especially the 1984 concept. What would have been a hit in the moment became outdated by its release 7 years later.
That’s a tough argument to make. Saturn was reasonably successful in the ’90s as it was.
Yeah if anything Saturn’s missed opportunity was letting the SL platform stagnate until it was far too late then becoming a parts-bin subsidiary. If they kept innovating I think they could have been great.
I’m thinking long term, not just for Saturn but for GM as a whole. Saturn did well initially but not enough to sustain the momentum to invest more in their subsequent designs and survive as an independent arm of GM.
The realistic alternative is that GM could have put it into production by 1985 for sale through existing dealers with no haggle pricing while they were setting the brand up as a new marque with a second-generation design ready for a 90s release.
The not-so-realistic alternative is that GM could have folded the quality and pricing tenets of Saturn into their existing brands, but the tribalism embedded into the company was why they decided on a separate brand in the first place.
Sometimes the biggest misses aren’t bad vehicles you make, but the ones you don’t bother to make. Case in point: Nissan discontinuing the XTerra
and the fact that they still sell an Xterra in the middle east that’s based on the Navara (so a real truck not a crossover) matters too, so they should sell that over here
Cadillac Catera. Here was what should have been a fun rear-drive sedan based on an Opel platform, but outside it looked too much like every other car on the road and for some reason GM thought the best way to advertise it was with a cartoon duck.
And yet decades later that little duck and the Caddy the zigs live rent free in my head.
The real problem is that it was a total POS until its final year, which happens frequently with GM
The actual main issue with the Catera is that they had a version in another GM division that would have been substantially more suited to the American market and then imported the Omega with its shit drivetrain anyway.
The second generation Ford Focus for NA was so meh compared to the previous gen (even if they were the same platform, the “updates” didnt help), they should brought up the European one that looked like a baby from the Ford Mondeo, including the ST version of it.
They released the third gen with the awful powershift transmission but also gave us the ST and RS version that were so good. Ford having a direct competitor to the VW GTI and R.
Where is the Focus now? Dead.
Ford sabotaged the Focus on purpose because they really only want to sell the F150. After they stopped selling the Focus in the US, the Mk4 went right back to a real automatic transmission, and the automatic even became available on the ST.
Suzuki Kizashi.
Concept: https://www.netcarshow.com/Suzuki-Kizashi_Concept-2007-ig.jpg
to a Jetta clone once it went into production.
I got to ride in one as an Uber once, it was legitimately nice and the lady driving it was impressed I had any idea what it was.
I think the Kizashi failed because it was a Suzuki when they were in the last throes of relevancy in the US. It was a solid little car otherwise.
Suzuki could have been selling the 2025 RAV4 for bargain prices in 2012, and it still would have failed. The products were good, but the GM years killed the brand here.
The Kizashi as it was, was honestly a pretty great car. I had an SX4 but probably would have sprung for the Kizashi had I been able to afford it (wasn’t the best of times). It was a nice size, had AWD, undercut midsizers in price and was more fun to drive than most of it’s competitors.
The last gasp of Suzuki in the US is sad, because most of what they were selling here at that time was genuinely good.
As soon as I saw the headline my first thought was “Cadillac Sixteen”, but then I see here everyone is talking about cars that actually got produced, and it just makes the remorse worse.
Remember, this was 2003, the Veyron was a couple years away still. Not only did Cadillac have V16 brand equity, but it was at minimum four cylinders more than anything anyone else offered. This was a statement car on par with the Celestiq, that probably would have cost GM several hundred millions of dollars less to bring to market. The car was a runner, and the engine was production-ready. By now, we’d be on maybe a third generation of the Sixteen. Unfortunately that boat sailed now that Cadillac is all-in on EVs.
Yeah I know it’s not the spirit of the article and maybe 2003-era GM would have found a way to muck it up, but the whole thing makes me seethe about what could have been anyway.
basically *every* Cadillac concept
The beauty of the 1990’s 300ZX to the travesty of the 350ZX/370ZX/400ZX.
This one won’t play well here, but the transition from the second generation MR2 to the third generation. I know people love the third generation, but the loss of pop-up headlights and convertible only killed any desire for me. YMMV
Any Lexus after the predator grill.
NB -> NC*
*As an NC2 owner I love my car, but it sure does get bagged on versus predecessors.
I agree about the Z cars. I loved the 240/280/300, but can’t stand the later ones.
The IS500 F Minus, as my ISF owning wife calls it.
Lexus phoned it in and missed an opportunity to bring back the ISF with modern tech.
Kia Stinger. With a manual transmission, it would have been a much more significant contender. Sure, most people buy auto, but the ‘prestige’ of available 3-pedal options makes a car somehow ‘more’.
At least from my experience, when I was looking at replacing my WRX years ago I looked at 3 series, WRXs, Minis, and GTIs/Rs. The Stinger would have been a perfect addition to that list if it only had a stick shift, but I wasn’t interested any car without.
Literally buying my wife a 23′ Stinger GT2 right now. It should arrive this week.
Not sure she’d go for a manual though, but certainly an R version.
I was rooting for it so hard. Seeing a new RWD sport sedan from a non-luxury marque was exciting, and then…
Glad you’re giving one a good home.
The most infuriating part is that the Genesis G70, which shared a platform with the Stinger, did offer a manual for a few years.
It was also a much nicer-feeling car with better interior materials and a more solid structure. Backseat was almost as tight as the TLX, though, at a time when the 3 series and A4 became roomy.
I think the manual was 2.0 only? Couldn’t get it with the 3.3?
Yeah, I think it was one of those stupid things where they offered the enthusiast transmission with the lower power engine. That mistake has been done so many times on various cars, its infuriating.
Considered a Stinger. It wasn’t the lack of a manual that did this car in. To me it was:
It was a great first effort by Kia. Shame they didn’t give it another iteration to iron some stuff out.
Missed opportunity, for sure.
Plymouth Prowler. So cool a package in so many ways, but with a V8 and a manual, it’d have been legendary.
They put the most powerful engine they had at the time in it. I agree about the stick, though.
Well, that wasn’t the Viper V10.
That 3.5 making more power than the 4.7, 5.2, AND 5.9 was extremely sad.
I agree with Jason’s take on the recent ID.Buzz but would like to add that not putting a retro bus in production in 2001 when the Boomers were still in their kid-hauling years, instead teasing it for a full quarter century just to make sure nobody with firsthand nostalgia for the T1 had any need left for a 3-row road trip car was also a massive own goal.
In the early 2000s, my friend’s dad had a Eurovan he babied and kept parked in a garage full of pictures and posters of the old T1 bus. He would have been first in line if VW sold the concept they showed back then
I was a kid in 2001, most of my friends parents were Boomers and had at least one minivan. I remember how quickly I started seeing New Beetles everywhere shortly after they released. Pairing the Beetle release with a new Bus would have been a great combination.
My folks were born in the last two years to be considered boomers, they’re now 62 and 63. My partners parents are in their late 70s, also Boomers. No one in that age bracket is shopping for a minivan.
It may be a bit early to call but the current Honda Prelude. It looks great, the interior looks and feels great, the power train isn’t really an issue (the Preludes of old were never really sports cars either).
The problem is that it’s just way too expensive. 42k should be for the top trim level, not the starting price. Just off of that alone, I don’t see Honda selling many of them
Then they’ll will claim nobody buys coupes anymore and role out another greyscale crossover.
Might as well throw the 2nd gen NSX on that same pile.
All the Liberty’s and Cherokee’s that have come after the XJ Cherokee. All missed the mark.
I for one wish they’d kept the Liberty name instead of Cherokee so people would stop comparing it to the XJ. We have the 4 door Wrangler for that now.
exactly!
Ford should not have pussed-out and cancelled the SVO after the 1986 model. They already had a 24v DOHC head for the 2.3 that was making 275hp in testing. The rest of the car was soooo much better than a 5.0.
…was that separate from the Cosworth (YB? I think) head for the Sierra RS500? Or was it a 2.3 with the Cossie head on it?
It was an experimental head made by Ford. Only 3 were actually produced. One of the members at svoca.com owns one but has never attempted to run it.
I knew someone back in the day that took the turbo off of their SVO Mustang for ‘reliability’. He worked at a tire shop. I couldn’t help but thinking ‘this guy is a moron, he now has a low compression Mustang that’s slower than the base 4 cyl Mustang.’
As someone who had a 4cyl Fox body, that engine was glacially slow. I would’ve welcomed a turbo for it.
The Dodge Dart.
The 2nd gen Dodge Neon SRT-4 was a rocket for those on a budget. I wish Dodge had done the same with the Neon’s replacement, the Dart. It would’ve sounded awesome with the same exhaust from the FIAT 500 Abarth.
It should’ve been called a Neon, and launched as a hatchback first (a segment Toyota and Honda weren’t in at the time – the Matrix was more of a tall wagon and the Fit a whole size bracket smaller) with the sedan to follow once fully ramped up.
I always thought the Dart was a nice looking car saddled with odd powertrain choices and somehow *always* ended up exclusively in the hands of people who trashed them.
I’ve always felt like the attempt to harmonize the design language with the Charger’s, esp in the rear, attracted the “I coulda had a V8 [smack!]” crowd, and turned off the sort of buyers for a modern Neon, the kind who would have taken care of them better.
It was probably a plan in the US before Sergio decided to can the whole car.
Would’ve been sweet.
This was the one that immediately came to mind for me as well. Think part of the problem was the timing – it hit right around the same time that other manufacturers were crossover everything. I wonder if it would have fared better today, with the push toward more austerity and less expensive cars.
The Tesla Cybertruk.
IF they had sold it at the price they talked about originally (35-40k) and IF they had positioned it as a competitor to the Honda Ridgeline instead of as something that can compete with an f-150, And IF the CEO hadn’t been on a years long Ketamine and white nationalism binge, I think it could have done well.
People buy ugly cars all the time if the price and functionality is right- The Honda Element is a good example- was an element as capable off road as an SUV? no. Did it somehow manage for carry more stuff than that SUV? Absolutely.
for 35k and a non-white nationalist Elon, A lot of people would buy a cybertruk. Sure it’s ugly but it’s got decent range, it’ll carry bikes and mulch and people like me don’t care that it’s nowhere near as capable as an F-150.
There’s utilitarian, and there is ugly. The Element is utilitarian, and Aspen and it’s Dodge stablemate the Aardvark, excuse me I meant the Durango, are just ugly.
I loved the element but it was… homely. My bug eye Impreza wagon? also ugly- it was pretty much a stretched AMC Pacer. But the price was right and the utility couldn’t be beat. Just sayin’, for the right price, it’s fine
They Cybertruck should’ve just been a Model 3 with a pickup bed.
100%
The new Thunderbird. Retro worked at the time! I kind of liked how it looked! But by all accounts it was poo.
Should’ve been a 4 seater for the grandkids of the old people who bought them. It was already long enough that carving out some extra passenger area wouldn’t increase OAL much if at all.
It was the parts bin interior that let it down in a lot of ways. And I think Bob the Hobo’s point is well taken too, that perhaps incorporating a little of say the ’62 would have sold a bit more by making it a touch more practical.
I remember thinking these looked so cool when they came out. One look at the interior changed my entire perception of it. Look, if you’re gonna do a retro car, the interior has to look the part too.
Not only was the 4C not that good to drive but that incredibly maintenance intensive carbon fiber chassis came went from “about as close to an Elise in weight as you can probably do with a more modern car” to heavier than an ND Miata when Alfa actually federalized it.
2nd gen Scion xB. <drops mic, walks away>
Came here to write this. They owned that little segment. Then they handed the whole thing to the Kia Soul.
Perhaps the most GM moment Toyota ever has ever done.
FWIU they clinicked it to death with people who considered but didn’t buy one and gave them exactly what they wanted while patently ignoring the reasons why the people who did buy one, did.
Ah so the exact opposite problem of the 6th Gen Camaro
The second gen Rover 400/third gen Rover 200- their predecessors were strong sellers, the new cars were still attractive, decent to drive, but BMW and Rover management unwisely thought the time was right to push the brand upmarket, so the new cars were priced at a premium to the old ones, which pushed them into a different segment of the marketplace, more rivaling Volkswagen, and they just werent quite good enough for that. They could have built on the progress made with the Mk1 400 and Mk2 200 in favor of incremental growth, but they squandered all of it by setting them up to fail with that pricing strategy. Probably ultimately killed the company itself
Chevy Blazer.
Yeah I know there were a lot of forgettable S10 variants over the years and maybe the name wasn’t as fresh and relevant as it could have been, but Ford announcing a cool, retro, off-road focused Bronco and Chevy announcing a tepid EV crossover is just so emblematic of modern GM. Smart and future focused on paper without really “getting it”.
Hey hey hey! It’s not just a tepid EV crossover! It’s also an incredibly bland and boring ICE crossover as well!
That’s right, it’s so boring I had forgotten they offered that too.
So fun story, my undergraduate Engineering design team worked on one, and I spent 2.5 years of college wrenching on it, designing in and around it, probably north of a thousand hours in it’s presence. It was the car and project that taught me how to wrench (did a full engine swap on it, pulled rear end out, etc.), gave me lifelong friends, taught me skills that have been instrumental to my career. Yet to this day, every time i see one on the road I realize “oh wait that exists, I forgot they bothered to make it.” The Current ICE Blazer is THAT boring.
Perfect answer. That GM sells nothing that really competes with the Wrangler/Bronco/4Runner is a profound loss. Just enclose the damn Colorado ZR2 and call it done.
Not only that but turning the bones of the hopeless final generation Escape into the immediately commonplace Bronco Sport to grab the poseur market from Jeep as well; while GM just has continued to just twiddle their thumbs in the corner.
I’ve had multiple people think my last gen Escape looks like a Porsche (Macan.) So much so that they say, nice Porsche. Then I crush them and tell them it’s an Escape. That being said, I would have taken a hybrid Bronco Sport over it.
If they’d do a plug-in hybrid variant I’d have trouble staying out of one.
To be fair I’m pretty sure GM didn’t start with, we should make a new Blazer and end with generic midsize crossover. They likely were filling a midsize crossover sized hole in the lineup and some mid level marketing person had the idea to call it the Blazer so people wouldn’t forget about it. I hate to see them proven right, but since the unveil the car community hasn’t shut up about it. Not really a Blazer, more a marketing stunt. All of this goes for the Mustang Mach E as well.
Jeep Gladiator could have been so so much better. Less ugly, longer bed, etc.
It still could be if it’s rebadged as a Ram Dakota and offers more variants.
Instead Ram will use only the Gladiator frame with an entirely new body and years later after it fails because it was too expensive we’ll be naming it in the comments of articles like this.
I think it should have been a slightly extended cab, but 6′ or so bed.
Yes!