Missedconceptions

As a kid, I loved show car season.  You know; Geneva, New York, Detroit, Tokyo.  All the good stuff was on display.  The big car shows give automakers the chance to show off engineering prowess and create excitement about upcoming products.  Most of the time, concept cars are pure fantasy, with mass-energy conversion drive systems, autonomous navigation, and 30” wheels.  Sometimes, however, a concept makes it to the showroom largely unchanged.  The Audi TT, Ford GT, Porsche Boxster, and the Dodge Viper are all prime examples.  Most of the time, however, regulations and profits change the very essence of striking concepts into tepid production cars.  Some glaring examples of this trend follow.

Pontiac Trans Sport:  Back in 1986 Chrysler was fully committed to shove K-cars down the throat of every rental car company and government fleet in America in order to save its skin.  But the fleet sales well was running dry.  Instead of creating better cars, automotive marketing genius Lee Iacocca decided to create an entirely new type of car from the same parts now shuttling every social worker in the country

around low-income housing.  The Dodge Caravan (get it - car a van, bet that never got old at shareholder meetings) was quite literally an overnight success, relieving some financial pressure from fleet sales.  Suddenly, every adult with more than zero children just had to have a minivan.  Not to be left behind, GM quickly penned a crapcan based on the Pontiac 6000 sedan.  Except it was no crapcan.  It had a glass roof, gull wing doors, a Nintendo for the kids, a scientific calculator in the middle of the steering wheel, and the looks of a butch Weinermobile.  Or a Tesla Model X.  

Compared to the wood paneled contraceptive on wheels that was the Caravan, the Trans Sport was easily the coolest thing to come from Pontiac that didn’t have Burt Reynolds behind the wheel. Obviously, the production Pontiac Trans Sport is none of these things.  It was a horrible plastic minivan.  And it was hideously dangerous, folding in the middle like an accordion in an accident.  Luckily Pontiac corrected the Trans Sport design bungle several years later with the Aztec.

  

Toyota GT86:  OK, I know as a gearhead I am not allowed to criticize the Scion / Toyota / Subaru coupe that connects you soul directly to God, or whatever it does that is so great.  But I am not afraid to tell you it is an uninteresting car.  Especially when compared to the GT86 concept.  I know that the lights, wheels, and interior of the concept car are never going to make it to production  But somewhere along the way the Subarota lost the menacing  Aston Martin styling.  Maybe it is a Toyobaru. Either way, it is dull looking.  It also needs more power.  And bigger wheels.  And a nicer interior.  But hey, everybody still seems to love it, so what do I know.

2016 Lincoln Continental: Lincolns usually fall into my “who cares” category.  Sure, I have a bit of a soft spot for the Mark VII LSC.  It was basically a Mustang that had gone to finishing school.  The rest of the line has been a snore-fest since 1969.  The Continental concept, however, had that special “something” that great cars have.  Who cares if it is a Taurus SHO underneath, it is cool.  It has the long, low, intimidating look of the 1965 Continental.  It has a handsome interior, with four distinct seats and a Revel stereo with about a million speakers.  Sadly, the production car is not only based on the Taurus, it is less attractive than a Taurus if you can imagine that.  Well, at least there is still a Revel stereo option.  

Almost any Subaru concept:  Oh, come on!  Subaru concept cars are like finding holes in the fence at a nudist colony.  At least until you figure out that only fat old people go to nudist camps.  It is not that Subaru has never made an attractive car, the first Legacy GT, the first Impreza 2.5 RS, and the SVX are all svelte designs.  It is just that compared to the concept, most production Subarus are awful.  People buy Subarus because they are reliable, not beautiful.  But they don’t have to be as bad as they are.

Chevrolet California Camaro IROC:  The 90’s was a great time for cars, unless you wanted a Camaro.  The aging third generation F-Body gave up quality, performance, and styling to its rivals.  The California Camaro IROC solved all these problems, with a new small block, six-speed manual, and graceful lines.  While it is obvious the production Camaro is inspired by the California concept, its bulbous fenders, crappy interior, and massive overhangs ruin the symmetry of the concept car.

Nissan Sport Concept:  I like a fast Nissan.  I was fortunate enough to own an original Sentra SE-R back in the early 90’s.  That car was unapproachable on the rough narrow back roads of the Roanoke valley.  When I saw the Sport Concept, I hoped for a spiritual successor to the SE-R.  What we got instead was the Versa.  I suppose Eli Lilly would have gotten upset had Nissan just gone ahead and called it the Prozac.

Auto design is a bit like having a blind giant swinging a club.  If you can get him pointed in the right direction, he will knock down the evil sorcerer's castle, providing all in the valley years of peace and stability.  The trouble is he keeps swinging, giants are just like that.  Eventually, he takes out your water tower and everybody starves next winter.  Competing manufacturers try to best each other in order to win the sales race: they each have a giant with a club.  A great design will always separate dollars from customers, which is the whole point of the auto industry.  But it is all a massive gamble, with the very existence of the entire corporation on the line.  Good designs like the Mustang can be home runs, while bad designs like the Aztec may bring down a division of General Motors.

The point is not that concept cars are better than production cars.  It is simply that many times, somewhere between design and production the essence of the concept is lost.  Sometimes the concept runs away, joins a cult, and is never seen again.  The few cars that make it through the process essentially unaltered are rare indeed.  The truly frustrating thing is that even though the new Ford GT is indistinguishable from the concept GT, it is not where Ford is focused.  The Focus is Ford's focus.  Halo cars like the GT are just there to get you into the showroom so that you can focus on a Focus.