It seems like every decade has half a dozen upstart car makers that are going to change the world, or at the very least add their name to the long list of those who tried. Sometimes they’re not actually trying, and the whole shebang is just a clever and complicated ruse to separate investors from their hard-earned money.
Whether con or conflated dream, each of them have filled some – some would say the most gullible among us – with the hopes of a new tomorrow, only to rip the rug right out from under them, dashing that hope. Aptera, Dale, the Dome Zero… These are names that portended greatness, but in the end they all cratered.
Which of these – or the multitude of others – do you think was the saddest unfulfilled dream? Which was the vaporware or scam car that ended up being the biggest disappointment?
Image: Hemmings Blog
Hooniverse Asks: What Vaporware or Scam Car was the Biggest Disappointment?
By Robert Emslie
Jul 7, 2015
Jeff Glucker
http://www.thetorquereport.com/2010_pontiac_g8_st.jpg
1. We’ll make it
2. We won’t
3. We’ll make it
4. We’re cutting the Pontiac division
5. We’ll bring it over as a Chevy
6. Nah, we won’t
So more just a tease than scam, but I feel like all of the GM bankruptcy stuff was a pretty well-perpetrated scam.
Still available here… just sayin… http://www.holden.co.nz/cars/ute
Dale… Elio…
http://gas2.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/elio.jpg
I’m hoping not. I really want this car to come to market!
I agree.
I’m so conflicted with Elio.
I firmly believe they’re not a scam; i.e., they’re actually trying to build a real car and real company and be successful at it. We get all their PR, and each release reads like an engineering white paper or design review update. I appreciate that.
It remains unclear to me if their plan is a good one. Choosing an all-new motor seems like a bad call. Secondarily, existing in a regulatory grey area (car? motorcycle?) leaves them vulnerable to forces outside their control. Strong-spirited entrepreneurs (Mr Elio) willing to swim upstream are too often blinded to major problems by their own self-confidence.
At the least, I hope they pull a Tesla, where a first-gen niche product (plus a bunch of subsidies/investment/etc) keeps them afloat to improve, refine and launch future products.
The Polaris Slingshot was in limbo in Texas until a few weeks ago. I’d seen them at C&C but couldn’t be sold as a motorcycle. The new law includes “autocycle” which specifies a sit-down, shifter car the same attributes as a motorcycle. Yay Texas.
The engine- I agree. I had to really research who sourced the powerplant.
Elio’s been lobbying for that autocycle class in states with motorcycle laws that don’t like sit-down vehicles for a while now, actually.
As far as the powertrain, the problem is finding something that would’ve been sufficiently cheap (they’re going SOHC, to give an idea of where they want to be on cost) and sufficiently efficient, while still meeting their power targets, and coming with a transmission set up for transverse FWD (which basically means car powertrains). The Suzuki G10 isn’t going to be efficient enough, the VW EA111 1.0 is probably too expensive, the Mitsubishi 3B21 (Smart ForTwo engine) is also probably too expensive and comes with a terrible transmission (although, let’s face it, Elio’s automatic is an Aisin 5-speed manual with a computer bolted to the top, so it’ll probably be terrible… but there’s a three-pedal true manual available too). What else is there, even? Honda NC750 powertrain? But that’s a motorcycle powertrain, set up for RWD, with no reverse gear.
An “autocycle” classification harkens back to the days of the “cyclecars” at the turn of the century.The “cyclecars” were pretty much what we today know as two person go-carts including the low power engines.
But, back in that era without regulations or motor vehicle laws, you could pretty much drive anything on the roads that wouldn’t scare horses…
Vector W2
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/VectorW2silver.jpg
There it is…the car that every “knowledgeable” 9-year-old car enthusiast in the 80s was certain would settle once and for all the schoolyard argument about which was the world’s fastest. Thanks for nothing, Jerry Weigart and your stupid haircut.
An AMERICAN car! Not some Italian (Countach or Testarossa) or German car (911 Turbo/959).
http://www.weblogsinc.com/common/images/1400630184117152.JPG?0.81841312992777
On a similar note to the G8 Ute, this got that close to North American sale, just for the Chrysler/AMC buyout to cancel those plans.
Another foreign car from the ’80s that almost made it here: The Volvo 480. Note the rear side marker light and beefy bumpers.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Volvo480_TwoTone.JPG
Carbon Motors police car of the future. Rebuildable, reusable, made for just police/law enforcement etc, etc, etc.
Never was more than some renderings and business raising funding talk…
Poooof, gone…
On the upside it’s preserved for future generations to enjoy in Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2010. I always like it when video games are timed just right to feature vaporcars.
I’m not sure if “vaporware” is too strict a term, but I remember driving Italdesign’s Nazca and that white Ford ‘GT prototype’ in some NFS editions… timeless.
That Ford GT90 was featured in Gran Turismo 2 as well. One hell of a car.
the king of scam and disappointment ….
Maybe, but at least a real car was delivered.
And the car has become legend as the time machine.
Yep, they were delivered – even though most didn’t work. the result was a definite complicated ruse to separate investors from their hard-earned money – from the employees, suppliers, shippers, dealers, initial investors, and the customers got it rita in the end… textbook.
At one point, the Aerovette was approved for production with a tree-fiddy mounted amidships.
It was supposed to cost 15-18k in old monies, which the bean counters decided was too much (that’s only 40-50k in today’s monies), so it was scrapped in favor of what became the C4 in 1984, which is why the C3 lived until 1982, and there was no 1983.
Saw the prototype at Art of the Car last weekend. It was the only car there that I genuinely got emotional just being in the presence of.
MGF, MGF Coupe.
The MGF had been designed for the US market. But MGRover had been sold to BMW and the MGF would have eaten into Z3 sales (I guess). So we didn’t see the ‘F.
Then the Chinese get into the game. SAIC? A refresh for the F in coupe form. To be manufactured in China and shipped to ARDMORE, OK for assembly for worldwide distribution.
Alright! I can live with that.
That never happened. 🙁
http://www.aronline.co.uk/images/news0706_05.jpg
http://www.mgfregister.org/news/News/images/mggtconcept.jpg
http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/MGF_15.jpg
And with the V6 instead of the 1.8 four.
Smart Roadster for the US.
When the Kimber Group couldn’t wrestle MGRover from the Chinese, they looked at buying the rights and tooling for the Smart Roadster and sell in the US. Add a real 4 banger and real manual transmission and roll around in the money made.
http://onlytruecars.com/data_images/models/smart-roadster/smart-roadster-09.jpg
They were real where I live, and epitomize the idiocy of the original “reduce to the max” (for a price) symbolity of the Smart brand. Only this year, read an article about them in a German veteran car magazine, stating: “The gearbox is horrible. The car is fun, despite of the gearbox”.
I’d want one, just to see how ambivalent the ownership is.
Having driven one of these with a view to buying, reports of the gearboxes awfulness are greatly exaggerated. OK, it is not the ideal choice for a sports car gearbox and there is a delay, but once you are accustomed to it, which you will be in about 10 minutes of driving one it’s not the big deal road tests made out. The handling is pretty safe, not as playful as an MX5 or MR2 spider, but at just over 700kg it’s still a lot of fun and corners flat. The real issues in the real world are the build quality and the longterm lifespan of that 700cc turbo engine. Some of them leak, and some start to needs engine rebuild at 80,000 miles onwards, so buying a used one can be potentially pricey venture if you get the wrong one. Specialists that can really look after them are thin on the ground too. (you’d think any MB dealer could sort you out, but no)
That magazine gave some sound advice what to look for/avoid, they dissuaded from the weakest engine, iirc. Apparently, there are software and hardware upgrades to the gearbox, and there is a tight community in many European countries – the latter may hint that those who have one won’t abandon it soon.
the “weak” (60bhp?) engine was never widely available or popular when new, so most have the 80bhp engine which is easily raised to 100bhp through nothing more than a software remap, but still 700cc turbo, not the kind of thing that rewards careless ownership. Having considered these several times in the past, I think yes, there’s a core of enthusiast owners, but every one of those, there seems to be two attracted to the car only by looks and ultra cheap running costs (low annual road tax for example), so it’s a minefield to find a good one with a proper history that’s been properly looked after.
That’s valid for many low-cost sporty cars I guess, the dreaded third owner… in Europe, you won’t see high school kids popping into the forums asking for a part list for an LS1 swap, though.
Sadly not, though you do get the odd mad scone putting a Hayabusa engine in, but it’s not affordably realistic for most people.
I’m still waiting outside my local Pontiac dealer for one of these. They’re playing it real cool. Pretending to be all out of business and what not.
http://pontiacfan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2014-Pontiac-Trans-Am-convertible-top-view.jpg
You were looking in the wrong place! You could have bought one of these, as they built 50.
http://www.dcds.edu/uploaded/Alumni/E-Bee/December_2009/Firebreather_DCDS.jpg
Continuing the sd MG theme…
MG XPower SV
I can’t remember how they got access to the Qvale Mangusta but they did. Ford powered, Peter Stevens tried to make it look MG-ish. 340hp(?) but promised 1000hp on nitrous. 82 built.
http://www.aronline.co.uk/images/rtxpowersv_07.jpg
And this the good side.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/Saab_9-X_BioHybrid_001.JPG/1024px-Saab_9-X_BioHybrid_001.JPG
A new Saab 92? Well, in 2010 Saab’s then-owners Spyker proposed this an homage to the venerable 92. It was to be called the 9-2. Only a few people have seen the model of it, with reports it would have the same basic shape as the old 92 with a front end similar to the new 9-5. Speculation is that it would be built on a hybrid platform developed with another European automaker. So many thoughts and ideas, so little actual product.
I pass a Saab dealer every day to and from work. It looks to be a very lonely place.
Hyundai built it instead.
http://rcdn.carreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/2012-Hyundai-Veloster-Side.jpg
Speaking of Spyker: the B6 Venator is due any day now, right?
http://www.spykercars.com/uploads/news/069059b7ef840f0c74a814ec9237b6ec.jpg
So says their website, where the latest news update is from 2013 http://www.spykercars.com/news
And they haven’t sold any cars since 2012… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyker_Cars
Taylor Aerocar. The future we’re still waiting for could’ve been here in 1956.
http://24gadget.ru/uploads/posts/2012-07/1341986390_1954-flying-car-550px-thumb-550xauto-95594.jpg
“the hydrogen car”
I’ve been watching “Your Month Of Zen” on Comedy Central’s website; they’re showing every Daily Show episode in order in one big non-searchable stream. Last night they’d made it as far as G.W. Bush’s 2003 State Of The Union Address in which he boasted of bringing “the hydrogen car” closer to market. What a dickhead.
http://www.cc.com/events/month-of-zen/live.html
On the Expo 2000, I saw a BMW 12-cylinder hydrogen car, in VIP traffic. Already then I wondered if a two-ton beast of 90ies german car electronic luxury would be the saviour of the dolphins.
I saw an I8, two cars in front of me, queuing behind a scooter five cars in front of me. Still not saving the world.
The Highway Aircraft Corp.’s Fascination. Never has an absurdly bad car looked so good in its absurdity. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AwPoG6PzhQg/TzEamy8t-CI/AAAAAAAABjs/J17luOMuzO0/s1600/74_Fascination_2Dr_DV_07_CC_05.jpg
Some similarities to another contender: The Dymaxion. One of history’s coolest failures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_car#/media/File:Dynamixion_car_by_Buckminster_Fuller_1933_(side_views).jpg
Courtesy embed – this needs to be seen!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Dynamixion_car_by_Buckminster_Fuller_1933_%28side_views%29.jpg/800px-Dynamixion_car_by_Buckminster_Fuller_1933_%28side_views%29.jpg
The world’s only rear engined, front wheel drive car!
And why that configuration remained unique….
https://thedayintech.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/headline21.gif
If they’d had a decent engineer on staff, the handling characteristics could have been managed. But they were under capitalized and didn’t build more than a handful of proof of concept prototypes. As with a boat, steering the rear can make transitions too rapid. One must know how to handle the vessel.
Weeell, there’s probably some good solid reason why rear wheel steering is confined to forklifts and not highway vehicles,( although, of course the Thrust SSC land speed record holder also has it.) I doubt that even the combined engineering of Lotus, McLaren, Mercedes Benz, Citroen, and Jaguar could make it work with even today’s technology.
Primary steering with the rear wheels is just inherently unstable. Outside of crawl-speed no-slip situations like forklifts, the rear wheels have to oversteer to get the vehicle to turn in, and then the fronts have to generate all of the lateral force while the rears continue to pull it in the opposite direction. For you two wheelers, the best analogy I can think of is a motorcycle you have to countersteer the entire way around the corner because the rear is steadily trying to pull the bike to the outside. Could we make that fly with computers? Probably. Can a tiny bit of rear-wheel steer make a car dance? Absolutely. Is RWS-only a bad idea? Yes.
Well, and succinctly put. I can only imagine that there is some sort of aerodynamic reason with the LSR vehicles having RWS.
Donate $100 for a chance to ride in a Dymaxion!
“The Museum is looking for 120 people to donate $100 each for the mechanical restoration of the 1934 Dymaxion designed by Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller – the only Dymaxion in existence.
When you donate $100, you’ll be entered in a drawing for a ride in the Dymaxion when it’s operating under its own power.”
http://www.automuseumshop.com/…
Wow, that’s a real dream. Ignoring the basic engineering issues the Dymaxion is a beautiful and well-executed design. With a more conventional setup it could have been a modern, efficient van way ahead of its time.
Takker og bukker…not sure how this didn’t auto-embed to start with.
I was going to post that but couldn’t remember what on earth it was called.
Last year I had a chance to buy an EcoFueler American Roadster from a
used car lot in North Bend, Oregon, and yet did not. So disappointing.
http://c4.staticflickr.com/4/3941/15734888152_136d8eef42_z.jpg
What, not terrible enough for your fleet?
Too pricey. I have my standards.
Ace …. Gary ?
Not the biggest disappointment by any measure, but a local one: The government sponsored Th!nk electrical car. They took all the smugness they could muster and packed it in a small plastic crapcan with no appropriate heater (much like Sweden’s first Volvo was a convertible). Last I checked, they had been through bankruptcy a staggering nine times (yes, 9). Ford was involved at one point also.
http://www.itfunk.org/Images/think-city_430x300.jpg
I was at Ford when they had control of Th!nk. In fact, I had a meeting with the group working on bringing these tarted up golf carts to the US to determine what we would have to outfit the wind tunnels with to test them.
I had the meeting, started putting together the scope and costs, then they stopped calling. I drove by their offices (leased in an industrial complex not far from the world headquarters building) and there was a For Lease sign out front. Hmmmm…that didn’t take long.
Nice, first hand insight? I never really understood what made Ford get involved in the first place. They didn’t come in early and it should have been clear that there wasn’t much of a market for these vehicles.
The staying power you describe is in line with these early battery pack’s driving range though.
t!hnk was an ambitious urban golf cart. I couldn’t see the mass market for it, but admired the exploration. In a few years, it may look visionary, though Ford won’t likely reap any benefits.
I agree it was a bit ahead of its time. With better batteries and all the basic functions of conventional car it could have been a success. Even pre-Tesla.
We in the field promptly put the cart before the horse and scrambled to get dealers set up with wholesale financing for these. Quickly! They’ll be on the ground any day now.
The Carver.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK4wzBYmTIo
Quantitatively the biggest con in the Automotive game is FIAT. It’s a long con for sure, but 15 years ago GM bought 20% of FIAT, while FIAT bought 6% of GM. 5 years later, FIAT had run itself so far into the ground that GM paid them $2 Billion so that GM wouldn’t be forced to buy the rest of FIAT.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB110829456239553274
That $2 bill financed Fiat’s next generation of automobiles, which got them healthy enough to pick up Chrysler for free, which they used to frankenstein its CURRENT generation of cars.
Now that the platforms are getting old again, they’re looking for another “partner” to infect, suck the marrow out of, then get paid when they return the corpse back to the family.
The truth of your words hurts.
And so well put. Excellent work.
And now, FIAT is making a bid for GM. How the worm turns.
Bucky Fuller’s Dymaxion Car.
http://www.e-architect.co.uk/images/jpgs/exhibitions/dymaxion_car_i030910.jpg
I wholeheartedly agree, yet I haven’t figured out why Disqus sometimes displays images and sometimes it doesn’t…
I know what you’re talking about.
Ditto that.
Donate $100 for a chance to ride in a Dymaxion!
“The Museum is looking for 120 people to donate $100 each for the mechanical restoration of the 1934 Dymaxion designed by Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller – the only Dymaxion in existence.
When you donate $100, you’ll be entered in a drawing for a ride in the Dymaxion when it’s operating under its own power.”
http://www.automuseumshop.com/product-p/bucky.htm
OK, I got a real one now, the Gladiators – all of them !
These were just around the corner, will be in production, etc.
and the JP8 diesel military model with dana 60’s, no computer, no airbags….
Good one.
Thanks JayP, well I don’t know if they qualify, they really didn’t cost investors $ – but they did pull the rug out repeatedly. See Feds_II FIAT comments above… kinda explains more.
The Aptera plug-in hybrid, which was supposed to get 300 mpg and have a carbon-fiber chassis.
http://images.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/04/aptera2e1abg.jpg
Moller M400 Skycar !!
another textbook example of fleecing people $$ for decades. these ads were always in Popular Mechanics. It hovered for a few feet once, then a few years later … chapter 11. Snookered people for at least 3 decades !!
Footnote: while working on the original “flying saucer” Moller flying car, Paul Moller invented the “Discojet” tuneable muffler system, which was soon renamed Supertrapp. He founded the company in 1972 and owned it until 1988. http://www.tec-gates.com/sales/super-trapp/image/st-1.jpg
Very interesting.
I ran a Supertrapp on the MGB. Nice.
The Jeep Cowboy, a.k.a. the Hornet ute. IIRC the main reason it didn’t reach production was because AMC didn’t have a way to make it 4WD at the time (Of course, we all know they managed to add it to the platform later on…), which it figured most Jeep buyers would want. Sad, because it’s a great looking trucklet.
However, all was not lost: The lessons the company learned about mating a unibody structure with a separate cargo bed were applied to the XJ-Cherokee-based Comanche about a decade later.
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s–VbUr9mpk–/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/zkwkbsybeibmidgpgf4t.jpg
Not sure if this counts, but look up “Miracle Car Scam” on Wikipedia. It’s too complicated to summarize in detail, but it includes a religious angle, an inexplicably charitable decedent’s will, and free cars (well, not quite free, there’s just a small advance payment required …).
Car and Driver‘s John Phillips wrote a book about it.
http://images.cdn.autocar.co.uk/sites/autocar.co.uk/files/styles/gallery_slide/public/keating-bolt-sports-car-1_0.jpg?itok=NPow5v0Q
Currently it seems to be called the Keating “The Bolt”. Previously it’s been called the Keating SKR and the Barabus. There are still claims that you’ll be able to buy a 2500hp version with a 340mph top speed, not sure if that’s still using a modified LS7 or something from Thiokol. Every iteration sees a newly engorged price tag yet absolutely no demonstration of engineering prowess.
Apparently the next version will see it able to take 1500lb payloads into a low Earth orbit.
Corbin sparrow. Living in San Jose I still see one in this color tooling around
You’d think they would have played up the golfing connection with those dimples
3rd gen Corvair. I really think they were onto something.
Maybe they were…
http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/tag/xp-892/
Cygnet
http://image.hotrod.com/f/28591577+w660+h495+cr1/hrdp_1009_01_o%2bwhat_ever_happened_to_smokeys_hot_vapor_engine%2bhot_rod_june_1984.jpg
I don’t know if they ended up with any investor money ever, but there was certainly enough hot air to go around. Although everyone insists it actually works: http://www.hotrod.com/how-to/engine/hrdp-1009-what-ever-happened-to-smokeys-hot-vapor-engine/