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Studebaker. Last models were very good cars, the pickup trucks were even better. But they couldn't fight the Big Three. Especially the Lark, in the early 60s.
The Allante and the Chrysler TC both followed a similar playbook(Italian-American collaboration). Neither vehicle reached "almost there" status. Before anybody mentions it, the spiritual successor to the Allante(XLR) was never really in the ballpark either.
TV auto auctions - on Velocity channel (not everyone gets Velocity channel).
Mecum or Barrett Jackson.
All sorts of fancy cars going by at this televised auction.
Then comes this beautiful Chrysler TC. No reserve.
The auctioneer begins at $2,000 - nothing. Then $1,000. Nothing.
Then someone sitting in front row yells out $800.00. The auctioneer without hesitation and no further words yells out SOLD.
The buyer in front row was astonished that he got this car for $800.00. Plus, of course fees and transportation. But still a bargain.
All of the late model Studebakers were derived from the 1953 Loewy designed car.
Except the Lark and the pickup truck.
The later pickup truck was based on the Lark.
A side note.
The Lark based pickup truck had the bed from the late 1950s Dodge truck. Studebaker didn't even have enough money to design a pickup bed. Studebaker purchased the tooling from Chrysler/Dodge.
If you ever see one you will notice that the pickup bed sticks out further then the cab as the Dodge truck was wider.
The Studebaker Avanti was/is a classic design.
Another Loewy design.
Unfortunately, Studebaker had issues with construction of the fiberglass construction and had to throw away many of the early bodies. Production was delayed.
Once they got all of that figured out it was too late.
Altman and Newman - local Studebaker dealer purchased the rights at auction and continued production in same building.
Upon the death of both Stephen Blake purchased Avanti.
I had the opportunity to meet Stephen Blake.
He was not an auto guy.
Avanti went on to other owners and ultimately the last owners just took a Camaro/Firebird and modified them. Ultimately going to jail for fraud.
I don't know why either Ford or GM didn't purchase this great designed car.
You can take virtually any discontinued GM product, and add it to your list.
GM's traditional approach was to introduce their vehicles to the market before doing sufficient durability testing, and then using the warranty claims over the first couple of years to figure out what needed to be improved/redesigned/strengthened.
Unfortunately, using the public as their uncompensated durability testers led to many of those people deciding that they never again wanted to own a GM product, due to the extreme hassles that they encountered with their highly-flawed GM vehicles.
We have a winner
Throw in the Pontiac G8 (which GM brilliantly redressed as the Chevrolet SS several years later after people stopped caring), and the Solstice / Sky twins as my candidates.
Big issues with the DeLorean were quality control and lack of power. Build quality improved markedly over the car's short run, and towards the end DeLorean was working on a twin-turbo engine that would've made it quite competitive with supercars of its day. Too bad it never saw production.
When the Allante came out it shamed the Mercedes SL and Jag XJS, which were ancient designs by the late 80s, but like the DeLorean it was underpowered and had iffy quality. In 1993 the Allante finally got the engine it deserved, but by that point the rest of the car was quite outdated.
The Pontiac Solstice/Saturn Sky if they were made a bit lighter and had a bit more power could of been great cars that could of competed with the Mazda Miata as cheap fun to drive entry level sports cars/Roadsters
The Jeep Comanche was a good little work horse. These guys looked so cool when fixed up for off-roading.
As mentioned already the Pontiac Fierro must be on the list.
My father bought me a brand new one when I was in HS. It was red. It was the first year the Fierro came out. I was an ugly dude in HS and when I would get to my car at lunch time there were usually girls I didn't know waiting next to my car to invite me to lunch. We had open campus. I got popular there for a few months until the novelty wore off. Ha, ha. As I recall the car was very reliable. Fun to drive even though it wasn't too fast. MPG's were decent. Gasoline was cheap back then. Ironically the car was stolen from the dealership while getting an oil change. The guy that took it simply walked onto the lot where the service guys parked the cars after the service and drove away with it. The dealership arranged for a rented car for me from the car rental place right across the street. I wasn't old enough to drive a rented car but as I recall the dealership management arranged with the rental car company to allow me to drive it. The manager had to drive the rental out of the rental lot. LOL. The car was found in San Diego about 30 days later. The dealership gave me free service for 18 months for my troubles. No damage to the car when I got it back. The thief added close to three thousand miles on the car in about a month.
How about the Mercury Milan? Was a class-competitive car with a sleek design when the whole brand was axed...
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