With Halloween upon us, you’re no doubt seeing all kinds of amazing costumes on whatever social media channels you frequent. Have you seen the super-clever Transformer costumes that actually transform? Incredible. As I kid, I once dressed up as a pinball machine, with eye slits where the score readout would be. [Ed Note: I’ll ask The Bishop why exactly he decided to be a pinball machine and get back to you. I love it, but it’s such an unusual choice, like dressing up as Asteroids – Pete]
Still, as impressive as getups like this are, you won’t receive much applause if you show up at work dressed as a cyborg in, say, late August. [Ed Note: You will if you work at The Autopian. – Pete]
Cars are the same way. Things that might have been runaway successes today just tanked miserably when they were released years ago. We’ve read much about the Scout recently; this sport utility was dropped by International Harvester in 1980 when the big company realized that off-roaders like this just weren’t popular or profitable. Yes, hindsight is really 20/20 ain’t it?
Also in 1980, American Motors released a line of modified passenger cars with an early all-wheel-drive system and a slightly raised chassis to allow them to do mild overlanding or, at the very least, easily cope with snow and mud that an average car couldn’t. Many buyers scoffed at this look, labeling it the “Hornet on Stilts” because of the AMC car that it was based on. Who, they asked, would buy this odd-looking thing that “crosses over” from a Jeep to a car? Today, it’s apparently everyone, but not back then.
By 1990, aero-looking cars and all-new luxury brands like Lexus, Infiniti and Acura were not just accepted, but desired by consumers. This was not the case five years earlier in the pre-Taurus days. The Ford Sierra XR4 was launched at Lincoln/Mercury dealers in 1985 under a new brand called “Merkur” to a truly befuddled world. Why does it look like a used bar of soap? How do you even pronounce “Merkur?” What is an “Exratee?” Wait, this thing has a turbo four-cylinder? I could get a V8 car for that kind of money!
Now, you’ll be the toast of Radwood if you approach the lot in one of these things, but it’s a bit too late to save what became yet another failed attempt by Bob Lutz to bring European enthusiast-type cars to American brands.
Can you think of more cars that arrived at the party way too early and had to leave way too soon?
I am going to submit the Plymouth Prowler.
The truth was that the V6 was the best option at the time. Chrysler’s iron LA engines were physically huge and could not have reasonably fit into the Prowler’s cone-shaped nose without throwing abandon to safety standards and other real-world constraints. They were also heavy and didn’t make much power, especially compared to the V6, which was quite potent and modern for what it was.
However, the HEMI that arrived a half-decade later, was physically much more compact and theoretically could have fit, with respect to production-car realities, and I guarantee you Chrysler would have done exactly that. And it would have been a Chrysler-branded car, too, since Plymouth would have been gone by then.
People, especially in the intended market, made a huge deal about Chrysler’s new hot-rod roadster not having a V8…and that cast a serious shadow over its desirability, then and now. But had it arrived some 5 years later, they wouldn’t have had to make that compromise.
Likewise, had the Prowler come a decade or more later, people would have been ready to accept a V6, especially one with turbos or a supercharger, in a halo car. Hell, Ford sold the latest GT with an EcoBoost V6, and got away with it.
Let’s go back in time, shall we? It’s 1929 and the stock market is booming…for now. Duesenberg had a supercharged straight 8 coming out that would make 300 HP, Cadillac had the V-16 just about ready to go, and Lincoln was working on their V-12. All just in time for that booming stock market to crash, banks went insolvent, and the Great Depression hits.