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 Nissan MID4.
The Ford SHOgun is the best car no one ever got. May not be the spirit of the question, but it’s the right answer.
Learning that the Alpine A610 was so close to sale in the US that the USDM spec cars were already starting to trickle out of the factory is an outrageously tragic “what if”.
Mercedes-Benz Vision SLA and Seat Tango, both small roadster cars.
Ford – GT90 hands down, GM – Indy Corvette mid engine 4 decades before this one, Chrysler – Portafino it would have given the modern Maybach a run for the money.
The Buick Avista concept from like ten years ago. A jaw-dropping beautiful twin turbo V6 coupe based off the Camaro would have been an amazing halo car to show that Buick is back.
The G8 Ute is at the top of my list. I saw one at a car show and was mentally moving money around and figuring a budget. Fist shaking. Other than that, the Chrysler ME Four Twelve. It was right there.
The VE Commodore is 20 years old. Only 5 more years and it can be yours. If you’re ok with RHD.
Let me work on my budget again.
From what i’ve heard VE commodores can already be imported!
Something about you can do paperwork to prove that the safety and emissions equipment is the same as in USDM G8s/SSs/PPVs.
off the top of my head, the 2020 Toyota Corolla Touring Sports Wagon:
https://di-uploads-pod16.dealerinspire.com/toyotaofnorthcharlotte/uploads/2020/07/corolla-wagon-1024×576.jpg
I got a 2026 hatchback and would absolutely go for a wagon instead if it were here
The euro hybrid is the one to get it has the wheelbase of the sedan and the 2 litre gen 5 hybrid. We can get the Wagon as as an unofficial ‘grey’ import here in Australia but unfortunatly it is the 75mm shorter wheelbase of the hatch with the older 1.8 mill.
I’m going to go with one of my favorite stillborn cars, and it’s from the era when Japanese automotive companies could burn money with reckless disregard up to and including fully redesigning cars that haven’t even come out.
The Nissan MID4 II was a mid-engined 4WD twin-turbo 6-cylinder sports car with four-wheel steering years before the Acura NSX debuted. They only didn’t come out with it because they thought it’d lose money. Great looking, most likely wonderful to drive—and a peak into an alternate universe where Nissan actually did launch that expression of what it was as a company at that time, something Honda and Toyota have done more successfully over the years, at least with higher-end sports cars.
It doesn’t look like it’s from the 80s.
Those 4 door Hi-Lux diesels that all the bad guys in the desert had.
Scirocco
Jimny
Gonna go out on a limb here and offer
The Ford Nucleon or the GM XP-73 Firebird III
It’s the future we were hopeful for.
I don’t know that these are the best, but there are three overseas cars that I’d’ve probably purchased at different points in my life if they’d’ve been available in the US:
Phantom Corsair
Golf R Estate
Toyota Hilux
Toyota Trucks/SUV’s with diesel engines
Focus Estate RS was a looker, too.
2002 Lincoln Continental Concept:
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/lincoln-built-the-ultimate-luxury-sedan-in-2002-then-shelved-it-forever-254890.html
Can you imagine how much one of these sized like a 3 or 5-series as an EV would slap?
Well, considering how big a 5 Series is nowadays….
The good engine from the coswerth escort.
2001 VW Buzz…
Hyundai N vision 74, although they do keep quietly hinting they’ll make it into a production car. Something about the way it looks speaks to me. I’d drive it with a hydrogen hybrid drive train or a 49cc two stroke.
Any Alpine.
All Peugeot GTis
The Peugeot 405 T16
The first gen Peugeot 406 Coupe
And most important – the CRX SiR Euro version (EE8).
While marketed as a sporty inexpensive pocket rocket in the US, with the choices to match (cloth seats, no rear seat, manual everything, SOHC engine at best), in Europe the CRX was subject to import quotas and fees, so the importers were going all in and unashamedly sold it as the miniature luxury coupe it was.
DOHC Vtec engine and all the bells and whistles the Japanese SiR had (minus the glass roof, which was something amazing at the time, and minus 10 ponies, which didn’t impact it much), it came with full leather interior (as opposed to the semi-leather on the JDM SiR), power everything, including power headlight leveling, and was good for a real 140mph as opposed to the JDM version which was speed limited to 112mph.
The US production car I was most interested in that never happened was the elios. I always knew it was a scam but it was interesting.
There are so many good cars the us never got. We were given overpriced junk instead. If I leave out bev, kei, and bof trucks / vans. The Australian ford falcon especially the ute is up there. GM at least got us some holdens for a while.
This has already been mentioned several times, but I’ll throw my weight behind it – the Alpine A110 (or most Alpines for that matter).
The AUS market LandCruiser 70. It’s exactly the kind of barebones utility truck everyone has been clamoring for. Wild answer would be the european Transit MS-RT sportvan.
For actual concepts, the ’94 Ford Powerstroke concept truck. Brazil was pumping out Fords with more aero-styled front ends, that thing would have looked nuts on the road.
Subaru Legacy RSs (RS, Type R, and Type RA).
Subaru Forester STI Type M
VX220 instead of the Saturn sky. GM made it and sold it, but we had to settle for the Solstice/Sky. Both ok, but not the VX220.
GM did not make the VX220/Speedster, Lotus did.
Well, they built it under contract, it was still a GM car sold through their dealers.
If the VX220 was significantly smaller and cramped than the Saturn Sky and Pontiac Solstice, are you sure we are missing out?
I want an Autozam AZ-1 up to the point of getting into, out of and actually driving the car—especially around other cars. I suspect the VX220 would be similar.
Anyone who would have wanted the VX220 would have been satiated when Lotus brought the refreshed S2 Elise to the US.