Posts from ‘Review Flashback!’
2005 Ford Excursion
There were two good reasons for the demise of the Ford Excursion, and only one really good reason for it to have been built in the first place.
Addressing the former: Gas prices rose alarmingly during the Excursion’s brief tenure in Ford’s product lineup. Also, there was probably a finite market for 7000-pound SUVs, and what demand there was for such a vehicle had been met fairly quickly in the Excursion’s 2000-05 model-year run.
2003 Volkswagen EuroVan
There are limitations to the marketing power of heritage and quirkiness, and it’s possible that no car manufacturer is more aware of this reality than Volkswagen. Case in point: VW recently made known its intentions to drop the retro-themed Beetle from its lineup. Both the soon-to-depart current-generation Beetle (2011-2019) and New Beetle before it (1998-2011) drew heavily on shopper nostalgia. Though they were quite conventional mechanically, these “homage” Beetles obviously borrowed their “throwback” styling inspiration from the legendary original Beetle, which was first produced in 1938.
Review Flashback! 2005 Pontiac Aztek
2005 Pontiac Aztek
I’m not quite prepared to suggest that Pontiac’s Aztek crossover would have sold well if it had been launched as a 2018 model, but I am willing to propose that it might have been better received in today’s marketplace than it was when it debuted back in 2001.
Review Flashback! 1974 Pontiac GTO
1974 Pontiac GTO
Just a thought: What if the 1974 Pontiac GTO was never actually named “GTO?” What if, instead of disappointing GTO loyalists, this extensively upgraded compact Pontiac had instead been called the Ventura GT?
2002 Ford Thunderbird
History has probably been unkind to the 11th-generation Ford Thunderbird. Ask your average enthusiast about the relative marketplace success of Ford’s retro-themed 2-seat convertible, and you’re likely to be told that the revived T-Bird was a flop.
Review Flashback! 1986 Merkur XR4Ti
1986 Merkur XR4Ti
Merkur, if you recall the brand, was in many ways a marketing complement to General Motors’s Geo experiment.
Review Flashback! 2013 Volvo C30
2013 Volvo C30
With a huge budget, and a script based on the work of famed science-fiction novelist Frank Herbert, the motion picture Dune should have been the kind of movie sci-fi geeks go crazy for.
1984 Ford Thunderbird Turbo Coupe
Blame Audi, Saab, and Volvo if you like, but by the mid Eighties, turbocharging had a sophisticated European cachet to it, and a number of American carmakers were working to get in on the trend.
2002 Cadillac Eldorado ETC
As fate would have it, the 2002 Eldorado would not be the last Cadillac coupe—a couple of subsequent 2-door models would relieve it of that historic burden—but by most accounts it would be the last “old-school” Caddy.
Review Flashback! 2006 Chevrolet SSR
2006 Chevrolet SSR
The 2003-2006 Chevrolet SSR was a retro-styled convertible pickup truck, though the vehicles with which it shared its basic architecture were none of the above. It would not surprise me if the SSR was the product of a truth-or-dare game gone horribly wrong, and a group a General Motors engineers found themselves at the losing end of a sinister “dare.”
