It’s a lesson we learn all too soon as car people: the best-looking, most interesting car designs often go unproduced. This is most understandable when it’s a moonshot concept car that is clearly meant only to inform some car-of-the-future ideas, not represent an entire vehicle to be built anytime soon. Trult heartbreaking are the designs that look like they could go into production with the automaker doing little more than saying “OK, do it.” Case in point, the topshot selection (and Matt’s choice for Best Car We Never Got), the Pontiac G8 ST. It’s bummer enough that we only got the G8 sedan for two model years. But this amazing ute version? What a shoulda-been.
Torch still longs for the Volkswagen EA66. From his earlier story on the VW we never got:
If you want a quick summary, EA266 was a Beetle-replacement project developed with assistance from a Porsche team led by Ferdinand Piëch, and was really quite a revolutionary design, or would have been, had it made production.
The core of what made this car so fascinating I think has to do with its incredible packaging design, one that got the absolute maximum amount of usable interior volume possible via some really bold approaches to packaging design. The engine, a liquid-cooled 1588cc inline-four design, was transverse and laid flat under the rear seat, driving the rear wheels via a transaxle; the fuel tank was in front of the dashboard, the spare wheel under the driver’s seat, and there were two good-sized cargo areas, front and rear. It’s an absolute packaging masterpiece
The Bishop shouted out Ford’s supercar on a shoestring that never came to be, the Ford GN34. Just imagine how much fun this would have been:
Ford never really had that Corvette beater that Blue Oval fans wanted, but they seemingly came *this close* to making it happen in the early eighties. A mid-engine design with Italdesign styling and the Yamaha V6 that was used in the Taurus SHO? Yes, please.
Sadly, that Taurus ate up much of the development budget that Ford could ill-afford to spend on a low-selling budget supercar, or even a Fiero competitor.
Your turn:
The answer for this will always be the Nissan IDx. A RWD sports coupe with 510-inspired styling and over 200hp in NISMO trim? Yes, please! Oh, the things that could have been!
I’d have bought one of those new, if Nissan had bothered to make it.
See also mk4 MR2
First response and the correct one.
The Chevy TRU and Chevy CODE concepts from 2012 I always thought looked really cool.
Great calls. They’re like from an alternate universe where the sport coupe era didn’t end and our biggest argument is RWD or FWD, not how big can our jacked up station wagons get?
Yup, the Code 130R is my usual response to this sort of question.
If we’re talking cars that never went into production, I’m saying the Chrysler ME Four-Twelve. If we’re talking about cars never imported into the states, I gotta say all Alpines, mostly the A110.
It’s definitely the top shot car. I know GM had some hard choices to make in the 2008 bailout but they fucked up dropping Pontiac, just so Buick and GMC could continue.
The Suzuki C2, 1.6L twin-turbo V8 Miata-fighter. I bet it would have been a blast.
https://youtu.be/7As9XNJBAOY?si=NfAYX-1V6kgF9S3c
Lots of people in the comments are interpreting the question as vehicles overseas that the US never got, as opposed to concept vehicles that never made it to production.
I mean the image chosen as the header was very specifically the former, and was one that was cancelled at the 11th hour to boot.
That nobody ever got? Plymouth Pronto Spider. That we never got in ‘Merica? Alfa Brera.
Alpine A110
1 Land Rover Defender. I know the US got like 500 back in 1993 but that hardly counts. At least we have the Grenadier now, so thats a good compromise!
Peugeot 206 GTi
The G8 Ute as shown, I was waiting for it in 2008, ready to order one and they killed bringing them over.
The 6th gen Z/28 Camaro that was going to get the C8 Z06 flat plane V8 motor and the V10 Mustang from the 2000’s that never got off the ground. Those would have been absolutely incredible
Cosign both.
I told my local dealer to put me first on the allocation list for that Camaro if it ever materialized, but alas.
I will always mourn the Chrysler Howler, the promise of a Prowler with a bigger trunk, a V8 and a manual could have been a real Holy Grail, given that the Prowler was an aluminum-chassis, open-wheel roadster with a rear-mounted transmission let down by its drivetrain choices.
Fiat Panda.
Renault Espace minivan and the Renault Alpine GTA were SO close- I think even service manuals and marketing materials exist for them.
The Hummer HX that would have been an actual Wrangler competitor from GM
Cadillac Ciel. Quite a few of their concept cars from that era look great, but the Ciel is my favorite.
I’m more partial to the Sollei myself
The AMC AMX/3: Such a beautiful, well styled car. Design wise it still holds up very well and has aged very gracefully for what is essentially a halo car.
AMC Cowboy: What could possibly be better than a Kenosha El Camino, nothing that’s what.
Extended cab Jeep J-series: A very well executed cab layout created by using body panels from a 2dr full size Cherokee. Saw the prototype of it at Bantam a few years ago and it was such a unique thing to see.
Nissan IDx
The IDx is a really good one. I don’t normally yearn very hard for concept cars, but I definitely did for that one.
It’s the Cadillac Elmiraj.
Really, most of Cadillac’s concepts from the Sixteen on, but the Elmiraj was the best of them.
“…the Elmiraj was the best of them.”
That’s a funny way to spell Ciel
In all seriousness, I went to the Chicago Auto Show right after the Elmiraj had been revealed – it is a stunning car in photos but in the flesh it has a presence that is utterly undeniable. I walked around it, admired the other cars they had on display, and headed back for another glance before leaving their booth. On the way out I was stopped by one of Cadillac’s market research lackeys – the kind of person who asks what you think of the brand and its position in the market and about their campaigns and that sort of thing. I played along but when they asked which of Cadillac’s lineup I’d consider buying – I said none; they’d just killed the CTS wagon – and while I wanted something practical I loathe big trucks & SUVs. The rep countered “You seemed quite taken with the Elmiraj; you wouldn’t consider a CTS sedan?” – I explained that I might – but as attractive as the CTS is, it’s not a shadow on the Elmiraj – and Cadillac’s ability to design stunning concepts and then do nothing with them was really frustrating. The El was just the latest in the long line of breathtaking concepts like the Sixteen and Ciel that were never to see the light of day, and it was a shame that Caddy was never willing to commit any of their concepts to market.
“Oh! Don’t you know? The Escalade was a concept!”
I thanked the nice lady and then went to the bar.
I don’t know if its the best, but I’m still very disappointed that we never got any of Rover’s ’90s passenger cars. They had been planning a big reset here for the 1992 model year, with the facelifted 800 that would have also seen the retirement of the Sterling name and reintroduction of the Rover brand to the US (to capitalize on the growing success of Land Rover/Range Rover), and would have seen the addition of the 800 Coupe, which was specifically designed for the US market. Those things were very attractive, large luxury coupes with extremely well trimmed interiors for the price, but Rover Group opted to pull the plug during the 1991 model year, at a pretty late planning stage, so we never got the mk2 800 and coupe.
Later on, the MGF and Rover 75 were both designed to meet US regulations, some early 75 prototypes even had USDOT reflectors installed. They were supposed to be sold through Land Rover dealers, but BMW cancelled the plans due to concerns the MG would compete too directly with the Z3 and that the Rover could pull sales from the 3-Series. After they cut the company loose, MG Rover never had the funds or resources to federalize anything or build a new dealer network.
But, there were still loads and loads of MGBs on the road in the 90s, they were a very common summer runabout in suburbs, so there were still lots of Boomers and older folks with favorable memories of the brand who would have jumped at the chance to buy a new one, and we could always use more affordably priced mid engine sports cars, there’s never enough of those at any given time. The 75 was similar to the updated 800, in that it was much more elegant and well trimmed than the price would suggest, especially before MG Rover started decontenting it to cut costs
The 75 really is a lovely car. I was a weird kid and it was the vehicle I lusted after instead of Lamborghinis. I’ve had one as my daily driver for 15 years or so now, and driven all over the UK in it and even as far as Romania.
Surprisingly for something that looks like Grandma’s living room inside it’s actually a pretty involving drive – nicely set up for heel and toe, with decent gear ratio spacing in the poverty spec (still with wood trim) model I have.
Fiat Panda
Toyota Land Cruiser “Troopy”
How about a second generation Pontiac Fiero? From all accounts I’ve read about what it would have been, such a car would have been a pretty epic sports car in a timeframe in which it may have still found reasonable sales. But can’t step on Corvette toes so no go
I worked in the steering business for a while and somehow one of our rebuilders somehow got his hands on a prototype power steering rack for the 2nd gen Fiero. All first gens had manual steering.
Out of all the cars I own without power steering, its the one that maybe could have used it, its weirdly heavy for a car that seems to have so little weight in the front. Not that its bad, especially once its moving, but I could see how it would have been a turn-off for a lot of buyers
That Land Cruiser fanboi in me wants to say the 70 series, but its actually the 105 series.
He means concepts that never made it to production, not just availability in the US.
Yeah, a lot of people are not realizing this.
It’s functionally the same