Cartorque Vol 15 - ‘Cars that never quite caught on’
There exists, lurking in the shadowy corners of the automotive world, a peculiar museum. Not one with velvet ropes and earnest men in cardigans, but a vast, imaginary scrapyard filled with cars that were, on paper, brilliant… and in reality, about as welcome as a wasp in a pint of lager.
These are the cars that never caught on.
Usually, it’s not because they were slow. Or ugly. Or unreliable. No, that would be far too simple. They failed because they committed the far greater crime of being odd.
Take the Renault Avantime. A car that looked like a spaceship had mated with a conservatory. It was a two-door, four-seat, pillarless MPV-coupé-thing, which is a sentence that should never have been allowed to exist. Renault clearly believed that families wanted drama, glass roofs, and the turning circle of the Moon. Buyers, meanwhile, wanted doors. Four of them. Sales were so poor that the factory building it closed down entirely, which is quite an achievement when you think about it. Not many cars can kill an entire plant just by being themselves.
Then there was the BMW Z3 Coupé. Now, this is controversial because now it’s cool. Collectable. “Quirky.” But when it launched, people looked at it and thought BMW had reversed into a wall and just… carried on. They called it the “clown shoe,” which is not generally the name you want associated with a premium sports car. It was brilliant to drive, had engines that could rearrange your internal organs, and still buyers said, “Yes, very good… but why does it look like that?” And off they went to buy a 3 Series diesel instead.
Of course, the Japanese were at it too, because they always are. The Mazda MX-30, for example, arrived as an electric car with suicide doors, a tiny range, and an interior made of cork. Cork. Like a wine bottle. Mazda said this was about sustainability. Customers said, “Yes, but can it get me to Birmingham and back without a nervous breakdown?” It could not. So it vanished quietly, like a polite dinner guest who realises no one knows who invited them.
Oh yes, then there’s the Chrysler PT Cruiser. A car so confusing it deserves its own support group. Was it retro? Was it modern? Was it a hearse? No one knew. Americans bought them in droves for about six minutes, and then suddenly everyone realised that it drove like a wardrobe full of bricks. In the UK, seeing one was like spotting a rare bird, except the bird was beige and driven by someone who looked faintly apologetic.
The thing is, these cars were not bad. That’s the important bit. They were brave. They were different. And the public, bless them, hate that. People say they want innovation, but what they actually want is the same car they had before, just with a bigger screen and fewer buttons so they can crash while trying to turn the the air conditioning off.
Car history is littered with these glorious missteps. The Alfa Romeo Brera, stunning to look at, heavier than a small moon. The Honda CR-Z, a hybrid sports car for people who didn’t actually want either of those things. The Saab 9-4X, which died not because it was terrible, but because Saab itself promptly fell over and expired like a fainting goat.
And that’s why I love them.
Because for every beige crossover that sells a million units, there’s a small team of engineers somewhere who once said, “Fancy making something nobody needs?” not stopping for a second to think if they should or not.
But years later, we look back and think actually… that was rather good.
Adam Woodruff
Writer
