What discontinued cars should return, and how would you build them?

[deevergote]

They should bring back the Plymouth Prowler, I loved the idea of a modern old school styled hot rod. As for modifying it, that's a simple answer to me..... Hellcat.... that is all, lol.

The Prowler was one of the most innovative, creative, all-out ballsy offerings ever to come from a mainstream automaker, I feel! Especially since it came from Plymouth, which was dying a slow, badge-engineered death at the time. Conceived by enthusiasts, designed by engineers, and built by accountants... which is why it had Chrysler's absolutely pathetic V6 (and not a single V8...) and an automatic transmission only.
That's like making the best cheeseburger in the world, and then using a veggie burger instead of beef!

The Prowler would make no sense today... not that it made any sense originally. It would be pretty awesome to see it happen, but Chrysler is in a bit of a precarious position.
Still, I agree... a Prowler with a Hellcat under the hood, even if it remained automatic, would absolutely redeem that car! Given the retro styling, they could theoretically release it exactly as it was the first time around. It's too different to bother conforming to any current design trends! I wonder how badly it would fail current safety standards...

[sonikaccord]

Easy...a real Accord wagon, sh-awd, manual transmission, V6

[deevergote]

Basically, everything good they ever did with the TSX... all at once.

['93CB7Ex]

The bad thing about the "CLX", if it were to be introduced, is that it would come with a McPherson strut front suspension instead of the double wishbone. That and it wouldn't be available with a 6-speed manual.

this is true.... but either way, itd be badass.

[Chrisisiced]

Evo XI hybrid turbo 4 AWD please. The tech is there which is highlighted by mitsus pikes peak concepts but please bring it to production.

[Fleetw00d]

I'm showing my age; I'd like to see Cadillac bring back the 1959 Eldorado.

[CyborgGT]

Call me girly, but I think it's cool that Cadillac brought back a pink paint with that really faintly-colored white. I'd never get one in that color, but hey, it's a modern 'pink Caddy.'

[deevergote]

That's a Mary Kay color. Mary Kay (the cosmetics company) paints their Cadillacs that color and gives them to their high-selling sales reps. The most recent model I've seen in that color is the SRX.



I wonder if some sort of throwback retro design could ever capture even a hint of the 59 Eldorado.

[CyborgGT]

I did notice the Mary Kay badges (there's at least one in my town), but I just assumed it was a special edition, like the Eddie Bauer Ford Explorers and Broncos. The more you know.

*ED. - http://www.pinktruth.com/2014/07/31/...pink-cadillac/

[Accrdwgnguy]

Unfortunately Cadillac is shedding it's old people car image as aggressively as possible, it's attempting to become relevant again so I doubt we'll see any retro products out of Cadillac anytime soon. Seems the whole retro new car movement as a whole seems to be a dying trend already. PT cruisers and HHR's are dead, Fiat 500s and Mini coopers are quite mainstream now and even have SUV spinoffs, hey those designs weren't going to last forever. Camaros and Mustangs, lets be honest retro styling or not people would still buy them.

[deevergote]

True. Luxury and premium cars usually generate interest from people looking for the next cutting-edge thing. Retro works for cheap, quirky cars (like those you mentioned). And people would probably buy anything with an obnoxiously large, powerful engine... GM could release a 650hp car that only came in doo-doo brown, call it the Flaming Turdburger, and it would sell.

I would like to see a Cadillac followup to the XLR, though. I believe a premium roadster was a very cool addition to the lineup. Especially since Cadillac is going the German route of having small, medium, and large cars that look very similar to anyone that isn't terribly familiar with each model. The XLR made little sense... it was an overweight Corvette with a Cadillac engine. Took everything that made the Corvette great and compromised it... but they did so with Cadillac style. And it worked. I still want one!

[CyborgGT]

I thought the XLR looked pretty cool. I found myself using one quite often in the Midnight Club games.

But on the subject of GM, I do wish they'd bring back the Solstice/Sky. Were those cars that much of a flop that GM isn't interested in that segment? There are certainly enough Miatas on the road to prove the market exists. I absolutely love the styling of them both, but it's only recently that I can actually afford one.

$48k for a Solstice coupe with 256 (256!) miles locally. Oh my god, I want it, but I wouldn't pay practically $50,000 for one.

http://boulder.craigslist.org/cto/5620606062.html

[AccordWarrior]

But on the subject of GM, I do wish they'd bring back the Solstice/Sky. Were those cars that much of a flop that GM isn't interested in that segment? There are certainly enough Miatas on the road to prove the market exists. I absolutely love the styling of them both, but it's only recently that I can actually afford one.

$48k for a Solstice coupe with 256 (256!) miles locally. Oh my god, I want it, but I wouldn't pay practically $50,000 for one.

http://boulder.craigslist.org/cto/5620606062.html

When you kill both divisions selling them...

The market for affordable sporty cars just isn't there. Sure, us enthusiasts are all about wanting cars like that, but the general public isn't. What the general public wants at this point is practicality more than anything. It's the reason that crossovers are gaining such momentum. They are more practical than your average sedan at a very similar pricepoint.

GM was just starting to turn Pontiac into an interesting brand when they killed them, but the parts binning that is GM is what hurt them. The interior in my Corvette is atrocious. I feel like I'm sitting in a mid-90's economy car that isn't made by Honda or Nissan and it's awful, awful.

Look at all the hoopla that surrounded the FR-S / BRZ and how few cars they've actually sold. They were just what enthusiasts had been clamoring for, but ultimately they didn't deliver and people didn't buy. Granted, had they released a T-Top / Targa variant, I would purchased one, but that's another point altogether.

I don't know what I'd bring back honestly. Modern safety requirements have really done a number on cars these days. Everything has to have a battering ram front end with a high hood for crash requirements. Safety equipment has added lots of weight to cars. The average passenger car now has 17-19" wheels with huge wheel gap and they look tiny on the car because of the high belt lines. Engine technology has come so far that these cars are getting super powerful.

Take our CB7s. 125 hp in stock form, which was more that sufficient for the car. The sportier Prelude had 160-190 HP which was 25-60% more power than the base Accord.

We are now living in a world where a stock Accord has 278 horsepower. If we were to re-imagine a modern Prelude with the same delta we are looking at a 350 to 440 horsepower car, which isn't doable with a FWD platform. It's getting tougher and tougher to produce an interesting variant of a bread and butter car because that base car is getting SO much better than they were 10 years ago, even.

When I purchased my STi in 2007, it was one of the fastest, if not the fastest cars you could purchase new/nearly new in the sub-$35,000 ball park with 300 hp. Now, the STI has the same 300 hp and the WRX has 265 (up from 227) the Focus ST has 260 (up from 150 hp of the ST model in 2006), the Golf has significantly more power, etc, etc.

I'd love to see something in the vein of the original Sentra SE-R, an economy car with more power and understated abilities, but the Sentra's a joke now. It's an overstyled blob that couldn't be made to be a showroom stock racecar if they tried.

Sigh, I don't really know where I'm going with that rant, but there are very few cars these days that are new that I would enjoy owning as an enthusiast. I think there are many, many good cars out there for families and would have been quite happy with an Accord instead of the CX-5 we purchased, but I just feel like the market has changed so much.

[Jarrett]

Subaru has said that they keep the BRZ because it attracts customers to dealers that would otherwise have never gone to a dealer. Those buyers can either be persuaded into the higher-margin lineup or relied upon to come back to Subaru when their family has grown in the future. The Scion relationship turned me off of it. Had Toyota been on the other end as they were in other markets, I would have liked them more. I also think that the Scion tC competed too closely with it. Not every buyer is as intentional as enthusiasts are. Some are just looking at cars in a price range and the Scion tC took away from the FR-S/BRZ.

We'll see what 2017 offers with the availability of the Brembo-equipped model. I still wish they offered one with an FA20D, even if they severely detuned it to 230hp, but I know that would take away sales from their WRX and WRX STi. It's what the car needs, but not what the brand's success needs.

[deevergote]

Many non-enthusiast cars will do what enthusiasts of days gone by wanted from a car. If you can run 12 second quarter mile times in a sedan that can comfortably fit a family of 4, along with enough luggage for that family to go away for the weekend, why would you need a sports car? Affordable sub-$30k hatchbacks such as the Golf and Mazda 3 have handling capabilities that would give some pricier 90s sports cars a challenge.


The Sky/Solstice was also sold as the Opel Speedster in Europe. Saturn and Pontiac are dead, but I believe Opel is still alive and well. It's possible GM would create the next Speedster (the Speedster that preceded the Sky/Solstice model was actually a Lotus Elise!)
I'd like to see that come back as well. GM lacks a truly sporty convertible. They have the new Buick thing, which looks fantastic, but performs like a steaming turd on an escalator, and weighs far more than a car that size has any right to.

The sad truth is that sports cars have a limited market base, and the strong players in that market will always dominate sales. Miata, any non-SUV Porsche, American pony cars, the high-end stuff like Lambo and Ferrari, and the German outliers (SL, SLK, Z4, TT... not dominant, but they all have strong and lasting presence.)
The same goes for luxury cars, only with different names on the table (the German Big 3, Cadillac, Lexus, Infiniti, Acura to a lesser extent, Jaguar, Maserati, and the obnoxiously expensive stuff like Bentley and Rolls Royce.)

I think that's why I find myself first looking to companies like Volvo... who are established, but have a history of throwing some serious curveballs from time to time. I think Volvo would be stupid not to revive the P1800, personally. A small sporty coupe is the one thing they're lacking... and have been lacking since they discontinued that car in the early 70s!


If GM were to bring something back... I would want it to be the Corvair. It would make no sense whatsoever, of course... but that would be something different that, if done well, I think would make a pretty big splash in the market. Hell, they could pair up with Toyota to develop the mid-engined sports car... create a Corvair, Speedster, and MR2. It wouldn't be the first time Toyota made a GM product worth buying!