The Forgotten Cars Thread

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The Daihatsu Rocky, one of two Daihatsu models to be sold in North America
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Mazda Navajo, a lesser known, shorter lived Ford Explorer that was only available as a 3-door.
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Suzuki X-90, Is it a coupe? Is it a car? No! It's a Suzuki X-90!
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Rayton-Fissore Magnum "LaForza" SUV. Long before BMW, Mercedes or Lexus entered the game, the LaForza made a an attempt at marketing a luxury "premium branded" SUV... at least in America.
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The Explorer Sport Trac Adrenalin!

The Sport Trac was Ford's four door compact/midsize pick up in North America. Because apparently developing a four-door Ranger for America was too much of a hassle! Ford decided they wanted to make it cool and introduced the pretty slick-looking Adrenalin almost straight off the concept display stand. Available with V6 and V8 engines from the standard Explorer, performance didn't exactly match the envelope, but if you're looking for a quirky, road oriented four door pickup that most people completely overlook, this is the ticket.

Just a word of advice from someone who has owned a similar snowflake trim for a mundane vehicle: Don't buy it. Expensive repairs for an Explorer Sport Trac? I'll pass.
 
One came up on my Twitter feed a few days ago. I had never seen one before, but with wheels and seats like that it was an instant bond.
 
2004-2006 Suzuki Verona

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Saw one of these at the park today, for the first time in many years. This short lived car, Suzuki's 1st mid-size sedan, was the spiritual successor to the Daewoo Leganza. That's because despite wearing the Suzuki badge, it's not actually Japanese; it was styled by Giugaro and manufactured/assembled by Daewoo in S. Korea. Suzuki was in need of a basic, mid-size sedan to diversify it's US lineup, a competitor to the Sonata, Camry, and Accord, but didn't have the resources to craft their own, so they rebadged the Daewoo Magnus (Chevrolet Epica in Canada and Europe) and called it a day. Suzuki, having been a partner with GM at the time, had the rights to Daewoo cars after the company had filed for bankruptcy in the early 2000s. Interestingly, the car was powered by a 2.5L inline-six that was co-developed by Porsche, that laid sideways. Unfortunately, it wasn't very powerful, rated at 155hp. Exterior styling was staid and uninspiring, and the same can be said for the interior. This car is mainly forgotten for how poorly it sold, even for Suzuki standards; it's target was to sell at least 25,000 units per year, though it never even broke 10,000. Compared to its rivals, it was a poor value; it started at $18,200 while the Chevrolet Malibu started at $16,300, the Pontiac G6 at $16,800, and Nissan Altima at $17,700, and lacked essential features such as ABS, side airbags, and even power windows. It was also stuck with a clunky 4-speed automatic, making for a rather slow driving experience. It was also a bit short, measuring in at 186 inches while most mid-size cars were 190 inches long or longer. Bottom line was, it would be silly to buy this anonymous Suzuki sedan over its cheaper and better-equipped rivals.​

Fortunately, Suzuki seemed to learn its lesson after the Verona's failure. The Kizashi was the successor to Verona, having entered the market three years after the Verona had been canceled in 2006, and was a much better car in every way imaginable; better styling, better performance, and better equipped, even having AWD and a 6-speed manual available. But despite it being a good competitor to it's Japanese and American rivals, it still fell short of Suzuki's sales expectations, which was a big factor in Suzuki's decision to permanently leave the US market in 2013.

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1980-1985 Chevrolet Citation X-11

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Saw one of these posted on a car-spotting blog this morning. This was the performance version of the Chevrolet Citation, which was GM's first FWD compact car for the US market and notorious for being one of the most unreliable cars GM has made in modern years. The X-11 package was offered for both the 3-door hatchback and 2-door "salon coupe" variants of the Citation, and was actually decently powerful for the time, making 135hp and 165 lb-ft from the 2.8L "High Output" V6, making it able to do 0-60 in the low 8-second range with the 4-speed manual. The package also featured a hood-scoop (though it was completely non-functional), a sport-tuned suspension 14-inch "rallye" wheels, Goodyear Eagle GT tires, and X-11 decals found throughout the car. Although over 1.6 million Citations were sold, one of the best-selling American cars of the 1980s, only 21,000 were the X-11 package, making it quite a rarity. Partly because it was rather expensive for the time; the base Citation started at $6,700 while the X-11 costed almost $12,000, which was Mustang and Camaro territory.​
 
1980-1985 Chevrolet Citation X-11

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Chevy got one sporty trim level in two body styles. I never could decide which I like better. The hatch and the coupe both had surprisingly nice lines. Honestly, all the X-Cars did. They just suffered from being rushed to production, and got a well-deserved reputation for poor reliability because of it. But when they worked, they were excellent cars. Chevy wasn't the only brand to get a sporty X-car.

Buick got a basic Skylark Sport, and the T-Type was a more serious effort that at least tried to deliver some extra power and a more responsive suspension.
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Pontiac, like Chevy, got one trim level in two body styles. Even though Pontiac was supposed to be the performance division, their sporty version of the X-Car was mostly just a trim package. Still, that five-door hatch does look nice.
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Olds was like Buick in that they got a sporty trim level car, and a more serious performance version of their X-Car. The SX might have been mostly just a tape package, but it was a very nice tape package. If you wanted performance though, then it was the SportOmega for you. Like the X-11 and the T-Type, you got more horse power and a more capable suspension.
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Renault 18 seems to be forgotten, especially the North American model, produced in Kenosha WI by AMC. The sedan was only sold for a couple years, 1981 and 1982, but the Sportwagon was sold from '81 to '86. A surprisingly large D-segment car, it came with a number of engines in the rest of the world, but in the US, we got a 1647cc inline-4 making 82 hp. So not a terribly quick car. Of course we also had 5-mph bumpers front and rear, uncovered sealed-beam headlights and different trim. It was a decent car, and kept the AMC plant in business long enough for Chrysler to buy them in 1988.

 
Acura Integra sedan.
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This car looked so futuristic in 1990. The full bar headlights and traditional Honda low hood/bonnet, made it my dream car. Got to drive my brother-in-law's brand new 1990 auto sedan.

Only remembered this as I'm watching Deadpool. Haven't seen an Integra sedan since about 1998-2000(a old workmate in The Bronx, had a dark green GSR sedan).
 
Interestingly, I can tell it has longitudinal engines, because of the front wheel being closer to the door. The transverse engined 21s had their wheels slightly further away from the door crease.
 
Like the Renault and Eagle Premiers based on the Renault 25, which was also the basis for the Dodge Monaco at the same time.
And the only reason that 1990-1992 Dodge Monaco exists is because, as part of the agreement to buy AMC, Chrysler was contractually obligated to buy 260,000 PRV V6 engines from Renault, and the Eagle/Renault Premier just wasn't generating enough sales to reach that goal.
 
Like the Renault and Eagle Premiers based on the Renault 25, which was also the basis for the Dodge Monaco at the same time.
I've always found the Dodge Monaco to be interesting in the sense that stylistically, it shared virtually nothing in common with other Dodges; it looks closer to the Audi 5000 than any other car. From what I heard, the Monaco was merely a placeholder car; the Diplomat would be too obsolete to be produced all the way to '92, and the "cab-forward" Intrepid project wasn't finished yet.
 
Chrysler didn't want to make it at all. It was a placeholder in the sense that it was a place to hold PRV engines to get rid of the albatross of the engine contract mentioned above, rather than an earnest attempt to market something to go in the lineup between the Diplomat and the Intrepid. They would happily sell you an awful Die Nasty or New Yorker instead, which they almost certainly had a wider profit margin on even though the car was much cheaper to buy. To Chrysler's credit even though the Premiere and Monaco were in another timezone in comparison to anything K-based, they also knew that Renault had thoroughly trashed their image by the time the Premiere came out and they knew that the public knew that both cars had Renault powertrains and were toxic no matter how well they reviewed.


Eventually Chrysler just gave up and paid Renault for the engines without actually taking them.
 
Eventually Chrysler just gave up and paid Renault for the engines without actually taking them.

Does this factor in to them selling Lamborghini not long after production of the Monaco was stopped? By paying Renault but refusing to take their engines basically puts a big hole in the balance sheet. Not that Lamborghini wasn't an even bigger hole in the balance sheet...
 
By paying Renault but refusing to take their engines basically puts a big hole in the balance sheet.
Assembling cars around those engines may well have resulted in an even bigger hole.
 
Does this factor in to them selling Lamborghini not long after production of the Monaco was stopped? By paying Renault but refusing to take their engines basically puts a big hole in the balance sheet. Not that Lamborghini wasn't an even bigger hole in the balance sheet...
I'm pretty sure Lamborghini was unrelated to AMC/Renault. American manufacturers were on a European car buying spree. GM bought Lotus and Saab, Ford bought Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin and Volvo. Chrysler got into the act by buying Lamborghini. And then they discovered what a money pit that was and had to unload it.
 
Chrysler was already hemorrhaging money anyway by that point; since even with as much cost cutting and products squeezed out of the K-Platform as possible over the decade they just weren't competitive beyond the minivans. A line item charge to rid themselves of Renault once and for all was probably better off for the company when they were flirting with bankruptcy than being forced to keep buying PRV engines that they didn't need (since they had finally developed their own V6 and still had Mitsubishi engines to source for excess capacity) to go in cars that the public wouldn't buy as long as they knew the PRV engines were installed.


Them forcing Iacocca out and framing it as him retiring at around the same time is probably the bigger reason why they unloaded Lamborghini later on; since it was another expense that Iacocca had decided was more important to funnel money into over internal product development.
 
Chrysler was already hemorrhaging money anyway by that point; since even with as much cost cutting and products squeezed out of the K-Platform as possible over the decade they just weren't competitive beyond the minivans.
One good thing came out of Chrysler buying AMC (besides Jeep printing money for them and all the badly needed production capacity they got from AMC). The Renault 25 gave AMC the Renault/Eagle Premier, which gave Chrysler the cab-forward LH platform which finally gave them a competitive and up to date line of cars: Eagle Vision, Dodge Intrepid, and Chrysler Concorde, LHS and 300M. Sadly Plymouth never got in on the action.
 
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